Britain faces a moment of crisis. Stagnant living standards, the rise of the far-right, environmental breakdown, and war in Europe all threaten our democracy. Yet rather than face these threats as a united nation, Britain is instead dangerously divided by how much we earn, where we live, and what we see through our screens. Meeting these existential threats requires a political vision that unites us as one British people around a set of common values. Our modern nation was forged by intertwined histories and diverse cultures; its greatest strength is its ability, time and again, to find unity in decency, determination, and tolerance.
We in the Labour Party are making the political case for a united Britain, backed by policies that give every person a stake in our nation. We must help build the collective strength we need to meet this moment. This vision is explicitly opposed to those who define Britishness through division, on both the radical right and left of politics.
Where Britain is
The British people are furious, frustrated, and fearful. Three in four of us believe that our nation’s best days are behind us. After forty years of rapid economic change and 15 years of stagnant wages, too many people cannot afford a decent living and see no way for their children to do so either. War has returned to Europe, while the NATO security guarantees that kept us safe are fading. Far-right racism is literally on the march in central London. The planet is burning as wildfires rage across the globe. All of this is beamed to us through little screens, leaving us trapped in nightmarish echo chambers.
These divides and tensions are leading to growing nihilism, mutual suspicion, and a more abrasive political discourse. Facing these threats requires a deeper understanding of who we are, the values that define us, and a political vision that can unite us.
The communities that make Britain
Those of us on the centre-left must understand that the visceral need to ‘stop the boats’ stems from a deep, human desire to know who is in our group – who is British – and who is not.
So what is Britishness?
First, being British is a legal category. One can be born British, or become legally British through naturalization – like my parents, or Boris Johnson’s grandparents. But being British is about much more than legal status. It is also about shared values, an intertwined culture, and distinctive communities that come together to forge one British nation.
Britain is not a monolithic entity, made up of people and places that look or act the same. We are rooted in strong, distinctive local communities with their own traditions and quirks - from cheese rolling in Gloucester, Burns Night in Scotland, “me duck” in the East Midlands, “boss man” in London, the great jam-cream scone debate, the Welsh love of consonants, and the curry mile in Manchester (and London and Leicester). Each part of the United Kingdom is different, looks different, sounds different. We probably have more accents than any other English-speaking nation. It doesn’t matter if you wear a kilt or a suit, pronounce ‘bath’ with an “ah” or an “a”, need a lot of SPF or very little, we are still British because we believe in the same values and look out for one another.
We are, ideally, rooted in strong local communities: churches, gurdwaras, temples, sports teams, universities, yoga studios, and pubs. Immigrant communities, including the one I came from, do not exist in insolation: I can go to a gurdwara on a Sunday morning (my Sikh community) and then watch the football in the pub in the afternoon (my lads community). Not everyone is included in every community, but every community is included in the British whole.
What damages our country is not different communities per se, but the absence of community, or lack of connection between different cultural and ethnic groups. British Future’s recent report, The State of Us: Community strength and cohesion in the UK, identifies low levels of trust, online echo-chambers, and wage stagnation as the key threats to community cohesion. Strong communities are built, by contrast, in places where people can come together, with common aims, and participate in activities that help to bind us together.
The public overwhelmingly agree that people from different backgrounds get on well in their own local areas. But, crucially, there are barriers to community creation: poverty can undermine individuals’ opportunities for social connection, and contribute to loneliness – which can itself breed support for the radical right. Declining membership of traditional community spaces – churches, clubs, volunteer organisations – is well documented here and in peer nations. More and more of us are ‘Bowling Alone’. Local communities with few common spaces result in less cohesion – places with fewer pubs show a tendency toward support for the radical right. And community cohesion is threatened, above all, when different groups, sometimes living within the same geographical space, do not interact or come together.
A united Britain requires both strong local communities and strong connections between them. Shared national events and rituals are vital to bridging group identities: when the public are asked what moments have brought us together, they rank national moments like the Olympics, remembrance services, royal events, and football tournaments. We bond as a whole nation at these times because they provide a common touchstone - something to talk to each other about, down the shop and in the pub.
Shared experiences remind us of what we have in common. In the summer of 2018, while fractious debates over Brexit tore communities and politics apart, we gathered in our pubs and town squares to sing Three Lions. In 2021, we sang for Southgate. July the 4th has such a strong impact on American national bonding that Republicans and Democrats report that they like each other more on that day. National days, like St. George’s Day or a United Kingdom Day, could do the same for Britain.
Our British values and culture
Communities can come together, and cohere as one nation, because of a shared foundation of British values and a common, intertwined culture. British values go beyond the platitudes contained in the Life in the UK citizenship test, which speak only of “tolerance” and “respect” for others. Britishness is, and always has been, defined by our values of unity, decency, and determination. We stand together, we treat each other well, and we don’t give up.
A nation’s values can be born from its founding moments. For America and France, revolutions ushered in a new social order, with foundational texts based on enlightenment ideals. Britain’s story, instead, is one of incremental change at the forefront of social and economic progress, not one of dramatic revolutions. We may not have a Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité nor a We the People, but we have values forged from over a thousand years of contestation. Parliament gained primacy over the monarchy. Power was gradually wrenched by the people from the nobility. More and more voices found representation in the political system.
Our values crystallised during the Second World War and in its wake. Collective effort (unity), drawn from people who looked and sounded different but valued one another (decency), met an unyielding will to protect our home and democracy (determination).
Churchill articulated these values when, during the worst days of World War II, our nation faced possible defeat:
“…if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected...we shall prove ourselves once more able to defend our island home...if necessary for years, if necessary alone”
This was the moment our modern British nation was founded. From this rallying cry - of standing together, of not giving up in the face of impossible odds - Britain held out against Nazi Germany. The British army that defended us was defined not by colour or birth, but by the flag it marched under: around half of the British Commonwealth and armed forces came from outside of Britain. This tiny island was supplied by the subjects of empire and its partners around the world.
Among all nations, we have been best at transforming our culture to embody the values we hold and the attitudes we espouse, rather than fixating on where we were born or what we look like. We are the least racist nation on earth, and we should be proud of that.
Our culture is constantly evolving. It is a culture where eating a curry and watching a national football team is seen as quintessentially British. Everyday British culture is, in the words of Sofie Jenkinson, Silly Sausage Britain. The Britain we live in is not spent in earnest moments, discussing the deeper meaning of how an island resisted an invasion for a thousand years. It’s the moments down the pub, helping someone with a pram, queuing politely, Strictly.
Our national project
Knowing who we are, what defines us, and what we believe is crucial at this moment. It is our values and common culture, our collective strength, that we must draw on to meet this moment of peril.
Our national project now is to build that collective strength. Part of that is about making the political case for a united Britain as set out above. But it is also about policies that can bring us together. If we make sure everyone can afford a decent life, we give them a stake in this united Britain. A reason to believe in it. Successful nations are more united nations. We must provide the opportunity for people to meet their fellow Brits in local communities. Help them to build local spaces and national moments that draw us together.
Our political opponents on the left and right stand opposed to this vision of a united Britain. The politics of both Farage and Polanski are opportunistic: they fuel division and anger. Neither articulate a vision that even attempts to include all Brits. Instead, they play us off against one another. Their ambition tops out at thirty per cent of the vote. Both seek to blame our problems on some other group. For Farage, it’s foreigners and migrants. For Polanski, corporations. But getting rid of all migrants or corporations would not make any of us better off, or safer, and nor would it stop the planet from burning. Their vision is, fundamentally, one of weakness and division.
A nation that stands together, not apart, is a stronger country. That is the country we should be building. Our island has faced down dangerous times before, and come out of them stronger. I have no doubt that, together, we can do so again.
Jeevun Sandher is the Labour MP for Loughborough.