A recent advert for The Telegraph, spotted on billboards around the country and prefacing podcasts, asks: “Since when did pride in your country become prejudice?”
It echoes a lament that has recently intensified. The Tories and Labour appear desperate to outdo Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (who owns 20 pairs of Union Jack socks) in the patriotism stakes. Last week, Keir Starmer served Melton Mowbray pork pies at a reception for St George’s Day at Downing Street, having previously been at pains to declare there was nothing patriotic about Reform.
I understand this desire to safeguard national pride. In polls, young people appear less proud to be British, while in the pages of The Guardian, conversations around Britain’s legacy can tend toward self-flagellation.
I was born in Britain 31 years ago and have lived here ever since, making friends of mostly British heritage. But the last time I recall any of us “celebrating” being British was when my friend, who was born in Russia, received British citizenship after a fraught and lengthy process (she’s lived here for a decade). We used our first-ever Union Jack emojis in response to the news, turned up to celebrate dressed in red, white and blue, and asked her eagerly what questions she’d had to answer to pass the test.
My friend’s Britishness became precious because it was juxtaposed with the possibility of her not attaining citizenship. And often, I find that we see our Britishness only in contrast to a lack of it. When we’re around Americans and wince at their vocal volume, or our deadpan humour meets the blank face of a literal-minded German, or when polls suggest we would never elect Donald Trump; too brash, never wry.
But in a sense, isn’t this lack of celebration about being British precisely what, for many, it means to be British? We are a nation of self-deprecation. Nul points has become part of the national lexicon, despite the fact that away from Eurovision, we can claim The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. We talk down where we’re from, as per the bestselling book series Crap Towns, featuring the likes of Milton Keynes and Luton, chosen by popular vote.
In day-to-day life, outside of The Last Night of the Proms and Trooping of the Colour, there is less chest-thumping and “God Save the King”. Which, understandably, prompts the anxiety around whether we are in tune with our Britishness. But what if we are – just in more subtle ways?
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Read MoreI feel kindredness with my fellow Brits most when I am on the Tube and someone starts up a ludicrous, noisy conversation over the phone – or with themselves – and I exchange a furtive smile with another passenger. I feel even more British when the carriage is so at pains to pretend nothing’s happened that not a single eyebrow is raised. I think about how if we were on the subway in New York, someone else would have screamed at the offender to shut up by now. Britain is special.
That is why people say London is one of the few cities in the world, apart from perhaps Berlin, where you could walk down the street wearing, say, an inflatable flamingo perched on your head without so much as a second glance. We are tolerant, perhaps because we’re too awkward to say anything.
While some of the right’s fervour around how “Britannia rules the waves” can feel a little like virtue-signalling to me, I don’t buy the suggestion on much of the left that Britain is somehow the most racist nation in the world, either. I’d rather be here than, say, Spain or Italy, where I’ve always felt more eyes on me because of the colour of my skin. For a month last year we had a Hindu Prime Minister, a Muslim mayor of London and First Minister of Scotland, and a black First Minister of Wales. Where else would that happen?
But it feels in line with this British capacity for tolerance and nuance to question aspects of our history. This is what the Telegraph slogan alludes to: people who feel embarrassed about the association of Britain with empire and slavery.
And sure, were it not for the Commonwealth, my mum and dad probably wouldn’t have emigrated to this country 40 years ago from Sri Lanka. I wouldn’t have the freedoms I do now, or have spent my life under a democracy. But in the same breath, the civil war that prompted my parents’ displacement might not have occurred were it not for the British policy of “divide and rule”, often considered to have favoured a Tamil minority and stoked resentment among the Sinhalese majority. Is it un-British to engage with this reality?
But the people who command respect, I have often noticed, are not the ones who strut and raise their voices to get others’ attention, or who are defensive. They are the ones who wait their turn to speak (before quietly eviscerating the room) and declare “sorry, my bad!” when they’ve messed up. And so Brits who are truly certain about the richness of our culture – that Shakespeare and Wordsworth will stand the test of time – might just be doing the same.
I wonder if, in that sense, British patriotism lives on in more ways than we realise – quietly, and slyly self-assured.
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