Anthony Barnett is the founder of openDemocracy and the co-editor of its UK section, OurKingdom. Most recently, he is the author of Blimey, it could be Brexit!, a book examining the significance of the vote, published week by week online at openDemocracy. Following the shock result on 24 June, he discusses the possible ramifications and the increased prevalence of English nationalism.

What does the Brexit vote mean for the future of the UK?

I think that the likelihood is that Scotland will become an independent country, if the UK does proceed to Brexit. It’s not absolutely clear yet that Brexit will happen because a lot of things could take place, but it profoundly legitimised the separateness of Scotland. Many people in Scotland who had voted for staying in the UK in the referendum in 2014 watched the results coming through and saw region after region of England voting to leave and thought to themselves: this is not my country. There was a profound sense in Scotland that the difference in the deeper political culture of the two countries has been enormously reinforced. So I think in the longish run, if Britain is to survive, at the very least the UK has to become a federal country. Nothing is certain.

Would an independent Scotland join the EU?

One of the complications here people haven’t talked about is that the Italian banking system is in crisis, partly as the result of Brexit. The Italian Stock Exchange is down by 10 points, more than the UK Stock Exchange. The whole of the euro area is very unstable and so whether precipitated by Brexit or the election of far right politicians in Europe, there could be a real crisis across the EU which would mean that Scotland leaving Britain while staying in the EU becomes much more problematic in the short term.

Supposing the euro goes pear-shaped. They’re not going to be able to negotiate anything. If Le Pen is elected president – everybody I know in France says this is impossible but she could lead France out of the euro. If France leaves the euro the whole thing is up. In that situation, the Scots might want to be independent but I’m not sure Europe will want them to join at that moment.

What are you expecting to happen with the rest of the EU?

I don’t know, is the simple answer. What’s clear is that there’s a hard core of the euro group that is determined to try to save the euro. My own view is that the euro can’t last, that the thing will blow. Other European leaders are feeling very injured by Brexit and their natural reaction under those circumstances is to pull together and keep things as they are, which is not a very good idea.

You’ve written about the importance of English identity. What role did that play in this vote?

England is a historic nation that doesn’t have a parliament, it doesn’t have civic institutions of its own and it doesn’t have voice. The result is that, given the pressures that are now happening with the rise of Scotland, the EU etc, Englishness is coming out in the crab-like sideways expression of Farage. This is a predominantly English movement. Brexit was an English vote, driven by an English sentiment that cannot articulate itself as English. My view is that the left has played a historically negative role – with notable exceptions, like Billy Bragg – by saying that supporting Englishness is to be small, narrow-minded, and ethnic. The left should be calling for an English parliament and English institutions. That’s the only way we’ll get a progressive Englishness.

What is distinctive about English nationalism?

England, with the industrial revolution, was the top dog. Unlike France, the US, or Germany, England didn’t need to prove itself against a hegemonic power. It didn’t have to gather itself and unify itself. It never regarded nationalism as necessary. English nationalism infuriates the Scots, Americans and so on, because of the sense of superiority. You have this sense that if you’re oppressive you’re above nationalism, you don’t need it, but this is what English nationalism is: it’s a nationalism that doesn’t need to express itself antagonistically because it’s always been top dog. I’m not arguing it should be antagonistic nationalism but it does need now to recognise it’s got to express itself.

If English identity is so important, why did Wales vote to leave?

Wales sort of tracks England, unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland. I don’t fully understand why it did so but we should encourage as much independence in Wales as possible. If we’re going to keep Britain – ie keep Scotland in a political entity – there has to be a federal UK with a Welsh parliament that’s more empowered.

Why has there been a resurgence in English nationalism at this moment?

In a post-imperial age, the English express their domination through the structure of Great Britain, a multinational entity. They’ve done so through an uncodified and highly informal constitution. A multinational constitution which is uncodified entering into a multinational entity which is codified – the EU – is bound to be threatened by that process. And instead of facing up to that and becoming a proper EU country with its own constitution (as I argued it should, in the 1980s and 1990s), leaders – Blair in particular because he enjoyed the untrammelled power of executive dictatorship – rejected the idea of a written constitution in the UK. The result is that the European Union is a kind of existential threat to Great Britain and England is responding to this. So finally, England has got to express itself against something else for the first time.

Why is it an existential threat?

You have a structure which is informal, based upon unspoken mores and traditional modes of behaving. You put this group of people into a large organisation which has formal rules about how to behave and which is intensifying its control over different aspects of your life and behaviour and is driven by rules and rights and judicial processes. Naturally these are two different political cultures. While the unwritten culture is emotionally stronger, the codified structure is more long lasting and powerful and bigger. Gradually, their loyalty to each other will become destructured. Putting the multinational entity of Great Britain into this great cooking pie, it’s going to get dissolved, broken up.

Is this result a disaster for the left?

It is a disaster for the left. Quite clearly you had a big argument between two right wing sources. On one hand, the wing of the Conservative Party supported by New Labour – which is a very right wing form of the left and supported the corporate populace in government. On the other, the newer, more energetic, if you like more ambitious free market right, which has won to everybody’s astonishment. And while the old left has had a familiar role within the EU, it is absolutely lost in this context – partly because Labour is a British party and it can’t let go of Scotland. They don’t know what to say about the Scottish nationalists, about Nicola Sturgeon, about how to keep Britain going. It doesn’t even know how to say, we should be in Europe. What is the “we” that should be in Europe? The left has lost its identity.

What do you make of the spike in xenophobic incidents since the results were announced?

Before the vote I wrote, look, one of the things which is absolutely intolerable is that if there is a Brexit vote, people will be asked “why are you here?” We’ve found that it’s given a permission to a kind of racism. I’m very worried. Very good people who are Europeans living and working here will leave as a result. It would be a great loss if they do. We have to do everything to insist that we are Europeans, and that we want Europeans to stay.