Granted, the villains in The Patriot were British, but in Braveheart everyone involved was British. The villains of that film were the English, not the British (which includes the Highland Scots).
While the Irish, Scots, and Welsh are enjoying an upsurge of nationalism, the English are being absorbed more and more into the "British" nationality. This is a pity, as England is a most distinctive nation and gave us our language (which is after all called "English" and not "British").
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Granted. But Britishness was forced on the Celts. In most cases Britishness is essentially Englishness. While I agree that I am English I would love anyone to try calling someone in Scotland, Wales of N. Ireland British.
First of all, "Britain" is an island named for its inhabitants the Britons. These Britons were Brythonic Celts, and their descendents are the Welsh, Cornish, Bretons, and to a certain extent the people of western England and southwestern Scotland. "England" did not exist until the Anglo-Saxon invasions that began in the fifth century. Therefore, England is a country on the island of Great Britain. In fact, it is perhaps the least British nation on that island. Why therefore should British Welsh, who were British before the English arrived, resent being called British? Why do you use "British" in a purely political sense to refer to advocates of Unionism (which includes Ulster Protestants and a substantial number of Protestant Lowland Anglo-Scots, btw)?
Why do you ackquiesce in the complete absorption of England into "Britain?" Of if "Britain" and "England" are the same thing, why don't we speak the British language? Why isn't it called "the English Empire?" Why not just erase the name England from the map and stamp "Britain" on it, removing that name from Scotland and Wales?
Forgive my horror at your cavalier attitude. Without a nation somewhere in the world called England and not Britain, I have no ethnicity, no roots, no nothing. I am merely a rootless bubble that somehow came to be here in North America.
It is the fact that "Britain" threatens to absorb England so completely that I advocate English (not British) nationalism, with at least some sort of political autonomy, and at most (though I know it will never happen unless the Scots and Welsh leave you flat) an independent sovereign England.
I may not be Irish, but I fail to see why I am not entitled to an ethnic identity and ancestral homeland as well.