An “Island of Strangers” or an Island Without a Story

It took a while for the penny to drop but finally, UK prime minister Keir Starmer has acknowledged the scale of the problem posed by mass migration. He did not quite go far enough. He said that Britain risked becoming “an island of strangers.” In reality,  it is already a nation where people feel like strangers in their own home. 

According to an opinion poll, published this month by pollsters at More In Common, close to half of the people surveyed indicated that they feel like ‘strangers’ in their own country.

The feeling of estrangement from your own country speaks to a sense of cultural loss. For many people, the sensibility of loss is highlighted by the appearance of millions of people with whom you have no linguistic or cultural connection in your community.

The sense of loss is emphasized by the perception that the state-sanctioned regime of multiculturalism does not assign any special status to the culture that you inherited from your family. Britishness is frequently demonized in the media, and those who take seriously the customs and symbols of their nation are often ridiculed by that same media.

Mass migration, the institutionalization of multiculturalism, and the devaluation of people’s national identity and culture reinforce one another to the point of fostering a climate of estrangement. But the problem is made far worse by the fact that Britain is not simply an Island of Strangers but also an Island Without A Story.

Societies require a unifying story and a widely accepted system of morality. Such a unifying story is the precondition for the emergence of solidarity. The bond of solidarity provides people with a sense of belonging and the feeling that they have a home. It also helps people to develop a sense of meaning regarding their place in the world. In this way, people can go about their lives knowing that something important ties them to others.

Solidarity is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve without a story that binds people together. Yet, for some time now, societies have struggled to provide their members with a story that offers them the sense that they belong to a common world. 

The failure to find an answer to the question of ‘What Does It Mean To be British?’ is symptomatic of a society that cannot account for itself. Why? Because decade by decade, Britishness has been devalued and demonised by the nation’s institutions of culture and education. These institutions have become devoted to the de-nationalization of people’s identity. At a time when the doctrine of diversity demands the sacralisation of every other form of identity, that of Britishness has been systematically devalued. Is it any surprise that people who feel British have become strangers in their own land?

Britain’s main public institutions now seem embarrassed by any display of patriotism. The arrogant imperial attitudes of the past have given way to a sense of shame about Britain’s history and its present. Those still given to displays of patriotism are marginalised as relics or, worse still, condemned as racists and xenophobes.

An incident involving Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South, in November 2014 captures well the contempt that significant sections of the British political class have towards displays of patriotism. During a by-election campaign in Rochester, she tweeted a photo of a house displaying three St. George’s flags, with a white van parked outside, and accompanied it with the arch caption, ‘Image from #Rochester.’ The snobbery was too much for many and, following a public backlash, she was forced to resign from the shadow cabinet. Few believed Labour leader Ed Miliband’s subsequent claims that ‘people should fly the England flag with pride.’

The campaign to turn Britishness into a story of shame

For some time now, sections of the Establishment have turned their back on their nation and have encouraged its institutions to distance themselves from Britain’s past. The cumulative effect of this has been to strip Britishness of any trace of moral authority. All this has accelerated at a tremendous pace during the past decade.

I remember that almost a decade ago—in August of 2015—during the course of an interview with The Times, I noted that there were very few moments in British history that were allowed to serve as a source of pride. At the time I stated that there was one exception:

The Second World War was the last time Britain had a story about its accomplishments about which it could feel unambiguously proud. It is also one of the few historical experiences which is not very divisive—it does not divide people left and right.

Today, this statement no longer corresponds to reality. The past decade has seen a systematic attempt to blemish Britain’s role in World War Two, and young people’s pride in what their nation achieved at the time has severely diminished.

Pride in Britain’s important role in defeating Nazi Germany during World War Two is now countered by claims that downsize this nation’s contribution to the Allies victory. ‘Britain has built a national myth on winning the Second World War, but it’s distorting our politics,’ argues one commentator in Labour house journal The New Statesman. There is a veritable industry devoted to dispelling the conviction that Britain played a unique and historically significant role during World War Two. David Edgerton, in his The Nationalisation of British History: Historians, Nationalism and the Myths of 1940, decries the idea that Britain ‘stood alone.’ He seems to suggest that a version of history that has served as a source of pride in the post-Second World War era is more or less a myth. 

If these critics are to be believed, just about everything associated with the pre-existing social memory of this War is a myth, and there is very little left in this story that can serve as a source of national pride.

The project of corroding people’s pride in their nation’s past has serious implications for everyday life. If people are dispossessed of their nation’s story it becomes difficult for them—especially the young—to answer the question of who they are. At present, Britain is fast becoming an island without a story, and for that reason—even if it were not subjected to the difficulties posed by mass migration—it would still be an island of strangers.

Of course, people’s sense of spiritual homelessness and a politicised regime of mass migration are connected. The ideologues of multiculturalism have sought to undermine the consciousness of belonging to a nation and the identity attached to it. Which is why it is not too soon to unapologetically promote pride in Britishness.

This is an edited version of an article from the author’s Substack, Roots & Wings, appearing here with kind permission. Subscribe here.