British homogeneity was always overstated, masking ruling-class hegemony over the Irish and poor.

Evidence

In fact, the so-called homogeneity of British culture has been massively overstated. There have always been very different ways of “being British.” Britain was always crosscut by deep cleavages around gender, class, and region. Serious differences in material and cultural power between the different “kingdoms” of the UK were masked by the hegemony of the English over the rest and “Englishness” over “Britishness.” The Irish never properly belonged. The poor have always been excluded. The mass of the people were not enfranchised until the beginning of the twentieth century. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 361

Categorization

• XREF: Directly operationalizes Gramsci’s hegemony concept for the British case — a core building block in the reader’s scaffolding module.
• SEED: The poverty and Irish exclusion as ‘always there’ could support an essay on how claims to native homogeneity retroactively erase internal hierarchy.