ABSTRACT
In the United Kingdom, the chief objection to membership of the European Community has been that it means the inevitable dissolution of the separate sovereignty of the state by merging it into a wider non-national form of governance. Because within the United Kingdom there were other nations than the English and because their claims to exercise a sovereignty separate from that of the United Kingdom government were not extinguished, the defence of the sovereignty of the existing state could be seen as a defence of its territorial unity. Beneath the national sentiment against merging into a wider form of governance there were other nationalisms whose :reactions to such a merger did not necessarily lead to a similar stance.
