Don't break the bonds of Britishness

By Andrew Alexander

PUBLISHED: 23:33 GMT, 5 March 2013 | UPDATED: 12:45 GMT, 7 March 2013

Enlarge   Traditional values: Our heritage, or what remains of it, is under threat from Romania and Bulgaria

Traditional values: Our heritage, or what remains of it, is under threat from Romania and Bulgaria

When immigration becomes the great issue of the day, remember this: a common cultural heritage is a pearl beyond price. It is not lightly to be tampered with. 

Our heritage, or what remains of it, is under threat from Romania and Bulgaria. We already have so many classrooms where English is not the first language. Or indeed whole communities where English is rare. This will get worse.

One of the inestimable merits of a common heritage is that it tells you what your neighbours will be like, for good or ill, even before you meet them. You know what to expect and what they will expect of you. It makes for stability. It enables people to live with their differences.

Certain things can be assumed in what we think of as Britishness, a clumsy word with many meanings. At one level, it signifies a tolerably uncorrupt public life, a centuries old tradition of parliamentary government, a largely unchanged and unchanging constitution. In short, we like to stick with our old institutions. When we do make changes, it is by peaceful means, not by the violent overthrow which has been so common across the Channel.

Britishness at a personal level encompasses a variety of values: the stiff upper lip (another name for self-control), a strong sense of fair play and a (lingering) sense that how you play the game is as important as whether you win. Tolerance is a key virtue. Good manners and even the instinct to queue matter.

Apology comes easily, even obsessively. Was there ever such a people for saying ‘sorry’? We are not as hard-working and diligent as the Germans, but neither are we as excitable as the French or the Italians.

We are insular, unsurprisingly, as is our religion. The casual Church of England suits us, the Catholic Church with its rigidities and its urge for power does not.

 

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Our quiet way of life was expressed in George Orwell’s words, which John Major borrowed so shamelessly as he thrust us further into the EU. Britain would always be a land of maiden ladies bicycling to church, of lengthening shadows on long lawns and cricket matches and warm beer.

Orwell himself devoted much effort to observing and living down his own Britishness — Eton and the Colonial Service. It was another characteristic of our race, that instinct to apologise.

When we made the error of joining what was slyly called the Common Market, I was intrigued by the foreign-sounding names of those who, like me, campaigned against it.

Way of life: George Orwell himself devoted much effort to observing and living down his own Britishness - Eton and the Colonial Service. It was another characteristic of our race, that instinct to apologise

Way of life: George Orwell himself devoted much effort to observing and living down his own Britishness - Eton and the Colonial Service. It was another characteristic of our race, that instinct to apologise

Their roots may have lain across the Channel, but in Britishness they had found the model of tolerance and moderation they admired. UK citizens simply took it for granted. But that is, after all, what you often do with a common heritage.

‘The English have something special,’ a politician of foreign descent once told me, ‘and only the English seem not to understand that.’ 

You may say that the virtues I described in Britishness exist largely or only in the imagination. But that is where we spend much of our lives.

Cameron is confused: 'Yes' to Indian students but 'No' to benefit-hungry Eastern Europeans?

Cameron is confused: 'Yes' to Indian students but 'No' to benefit-hungry Eastern Europeans?

One day Ed Miliband may be our prime minister, though I would prefer not. His father battled to get to Britain from Belgium. He knew enough about Britain to assume, correctly, that his Marxist passions would be endured in some leading British university.

Orwell saw huge importance in language. Would you, could you, understand Britishness with all its fault and virtues without the English language? Yet here we are with large areas where foreign tongues prevail.

You do not know what your neighbours are likely to think or do. The means by which we live with our differences have been seriously curtailed.

We are now told that, American-style, we must have Polish areas, Muslim areas, Indian areas, West Indian areas. Have we then lost our once-so-valuable common cultural heritage? Probably. Can we regain it? Probably not. And that is before we even get round to the Romanians and Bulgarians expected to swarm onto our hospitable shores.

The Government flounders as it studies ways of curbing this influx. Cameron is confused: ‘Yes’ to Indian students but ‘No’ to benefit-hungry Eastern Europeans?

We know that many of the changes suggested to discourage immigrants would fall foul of the EU rules for free movement. No 10 concedes this.

Now Cameron knows what powerlessness feels like. Britishness he never understood anyway.

Comments (81)

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So you cant be British if you're Catholic, and the British don't overthrow regimes with violence? Do you actually know anything about Britain?

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To not in my name of London- what on earth do you mean English is not a race? English is both a language and a race-generally accepted to mean those of Anglo-Saxon origin. Everyone has a race,the family name and mother tongue give a clue.

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To vote BNP & UKIP should not be regarded as "protest" votes they are votes for party,s that have representative,s that were not born with silver spoons in their mouth,s. How can the the past & present government have any idea what real life is like. They dont have to struggle to pay bills, use public transport,use supermarkets, fight to get their kids in a decent school. Ask any of them how much a school lunch cost.s or a bag of spuds loaf of bread or even the "standing charge" for gas electric & phone bill they would not have a clue. They live behind high walls electric gate's & the only immigrants they know of are the rich Arab,s that live in the next house about half an acre away.

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British values and traditions. A phrase used frequently by British Citizens, but only by Government when it suits them. I quote from a previous post,by ghost maker Croydonistan,***** In the last decades I feel like I have been transported to a country and time I know nothing about! Everything I have learned and valued has changed, My neighbours don't know me or interact with me, My hometown is now a slum.The hospital I was born in is unfit for purpose. The only light at the end of my tunnel of life for me is I'm nearer the end than the beginning..R.I.P MY ONCE BELOVED ENGLAND, For you DIED before ME**********I find this very moving and poetic. The British Government HAVE LOST CONTROL having SURRENDERED ITS POWERS TO THE EU, by REFUSING to get us out of it. Everything we have learned and valued has changed. This Country is no longer recognisable as Britain.

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Where is the Britian we once knew? Long gone and manipulated by Brussels into an orderly mass of nodding puppets. Cut the strings and Britain will come alive again! - disenchanted , West Yorkshire, 07/3/2013 11:39 ----- Wrong bogey-man mate. Britain's national decline began with the fatal embrace of relativism as the old Empire slipped away. Withdrawal from the EU will not do a jot to change the violent, drunken, fornicating yobs who befoul our cities and towns. To make Britannia live again would require a moral and social revival of the kind seen in the 1830's.

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I'm living in Germany and the germans aren't happy about it either.....

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I know you won't hear this because like religious people you too have been brainwashed but the the royals,the titled and the obscenely rich suck the poor and poor saps like you applaud them now go and wave your silly flag

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I seem to remember that when I was very young a politician by the name of Barbara Castle said something to the effect that all these people coming to our shores would be assimilated, there would not be ghettos in this country and we wouldnt notice them in a little while. She went on to suggest that any who did notice them was a racist. At that time they were coming from the West Indies. At least those early immigrants knew something about Britishness or thought they did but some must have been disappointed when they got here.

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from what I've read lately, y'all have been eating enough horsemeat to qualify as being partially French, not unlike that big underground tunnel...

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Where is the Britian we once knew? Long gone and manipulated by Brussels into an orderly mass of nodding puppets. Cut the strings and Britain will come alive again!

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