[jrm4]

I think what you're suggesting here might be both more and less complicated than you're making it, owing precisely to the presumption of the "identity" of the thing called "England" (very similar to race and gender of course).

As a black person, I just find that there's probably something along the lines of the philopsohical idea of "things are what they do," which also means occasionally getting comfy with contradictions and paradoxes.

E.g. concretely, I can (well, must, really) accept the idea of "blackness" being a very flimsy concept from a scientific view but a very strong one from a social/political one.