Element of English spirit around British isle (6)
I believe the answer is:
erbium
'element' is the definition.
(erbium is a kind of element)
'english spirit around british isle' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'e' (abbreviation).
'spirit' becomes 'rum' (I've seen this before**).
'around' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'british' becomes 'b' (abbreviation e.g. in 'BBC').
'isle' becomes 'i'.
'b'+'i'='bi'
'rum' placed around 'bi' is 'rbium'.
'e'+'rbium'='ERBIUM'
'of' is the link.
(Another definition for erbium that I've seen is " Metal element with atomic number 68".)