What is "Britishness"?

The fault-lines in British society run deep. Prior to the Brexit Referendum in 2016, there were clearly a lot of people who felt angry and disenfranchised. The Vote Leave campaign was cleverly able to exploit those feelings to its advantage by giving a voice to their resentments and aggravations, and providing a rallying point for their protest. The bitter referendum campaign and narrow result served to highlight and deepen the division in our society and, ever since, our politics has become increasingly partisan and confrontational.

The question has inevitably been asked how to heal this rift and bring the country back together again? There have been a number of half-hearted calls to draw a line, accept and move on but there is no ‘quick fix’ to the issues that continue to divide us. In the face of a terrible pandemic, the need for national unity to combat the spread of the disease has become a matter of life and death. Through it all, there have been a lot of appeals to the ‘British spirit’ - particularly from the Prime Minister - to unite the country and carry us through the current crisis. As the country marked the 75th anniversary of VE Day on 8 May last year, he said the spirit of the “greatest generation of Britons who ever lived” must be deployed against coronavirus. He wrote to veterans thanking them for their “valour, fortitude and quiet yet invincible courage” during the Second World War. “Without your trial and sacrifice, many of us would not be here at all; if we were, we would surely not be free.” Invoking a wartime mentality, he urged Britain to display the “same spirit of national endeavour” while it is “engaged in a new struggle against the coronavirus.”

Such a tribute to the WW2 generation is justified for what they went through and what they achieved. The “blitz spirit” was coined at the time to refer to the common bond between citizens facing a shared threat and the “stiff upper lip” mentality required to survive it.

Herbert Mason’s iconic photograph of St Paul’s Cathedral taken on 29/30 December 1940 during the Blitz which was a symbol of hope and resilience.

However, by seeking to recall that same spirit in the face of this deadly virus assumes that, even as the wartime memories fade from public consciousness, there is something innate in each of us that is quintessentially British, that is handed down from generation to generation and remains part of the British psyche, a wellspring of resilience to draw upon in times of need, that is capable of being dusted off and wheeled out whenever the chips are down. The fact that our ancestors who lived through the Second World War, most now sadly no longer with us, showed such remarkable determination and resolve in response to the Nazi threat doesn’t mean that those who live here today can understand what it was like, or replicate their spirit, because over the past 75 years we, as a country, haven’t been tested in the same way. Character is borne of experience not from the pages of history books.

So, is there something recognisable as a British spirit that is worth preserving, that we can unite behind and that can and should help us at a time like this? This exploration identifies a number of geographical, historical and cultural factors that could have a bearing on our understanding of Britishness and considers how these are standing up to the challenges facing us in the 21st century. I will be sharing my thoughts in fourteen parts over the coming days.