Being British about it

I never knew the empire, but my grandfather did and having been a child in the First World War, served a brace of His Britannic Majesties before, during and after the Second great unpleasantness. Because of the efforts of his generation I grew up English; I remember being curious that my nationality was called 'British' and I was taught and understood who the other British peoples were, but I was and will remain an English man. It was and still ought to be something to be proud of. Of course, some of the less noble excesses of the British global adventure were known about, but we glossed over that and we knew, innately, that we were indeed a special breed.

One of the features of my very early years was the succession of countries being granted, or claiming their independence from British protection, while yet wishing to remain a part of the recently founded Commonwealth of Nations. Today, I suspect the citizens of some of these countries act and feel more British than we are allowed to do. Because, as I was growing into adolescence and then into adulthood, something peculiar was happening. My first stirring of political interest came when Ted heath appeared to give away our sovereignty even as he assured us he was doing no such thing.

Two years later I watched in some dismay as the 1975 Project Fear won the referendum on staying in The Common Market. The promise of holding that national referendum – the first in British history – was in no small part the reason a Labour government got into power the year before. Save British workers, save British independence, save everything British was the rallying cry. Were there riots? Were there underhand attempts to frustrate the outcome? No. We were assured we would remain every bit as British as we had always been, but we would be stronger, more prosperous as a result of joining hands with our European partners.

Well, we did get prosperous, but how much was a direct result of European partnership may never be known; the whole of the western world became wealthier as we paid down the war debts and looked to the future. But we didn’t stay British, not in the way that used to be recognisable the world over. New generations who had never known a world outside what became the EU were told of our abhorrent past; of how we only did harm wherever our expeditionary forces set foot. Newer generations still were told how it was the EU which had saved us from further conflicts. The latest generations have no notion of the Britishness I grew up with.

No wonder we can’t have a level conversation about Brexit. Those who have never known independence are understandably nervous about the future, but instead of facing up to that future they think they are staring into a black hole. What happened to cheerful Tommy Atkins? What happened to the phlegmatic, ‘mustn’t grumble’ attitude of the generations for whom making do and carrying on was Britishness to the core? We played the cards we were dealt; we didn’t demand the croupier deal again.

Which brings us to now. Had the 1975 generation any notion of where we would end up they would have voted to leave. Nobody voted for an emasculated and dependent nation, in thrall to foreign masters; nobody in the general electorate had any vision of us becoming a European administrative region. So, for me, you can forget all the economic talk – history has proved that no one knows what lies ahead – the most important part of Theresa May’s speech yesterday was about coming together, regaining our confidence and forging ahead as a proud, self-governing people.

Coffee? Are you some sort of fifth columnist?

If that means facing tough times, so be it; it likely won’t. But if the sore, tremble-lipped losers continue to do their damnedest to weep crocodile tears over spilled milk, it will take so much longer to achieve. Self-fulfilling doom prophecies are no help at all – I’m talking to Nick Clegg, Tim Farron, Emily Thornberry, Anna Soubry; the list goes on – the PM has spoken and the project is underway. Project Hope, Project Forward, call it what you like; we are where we are, for better or for worse and the only grown-up thing to do now is roll up our sleeves and crack on. Be British about it.

Turning European

During a nowadays rare afternoon of gossip and chatter with my parents and sister the conversation – as it inevitably must do – turned to reminiscing about our growing up in the dark days before the EU made all our lives so much better. I should explain here, for anybody of a pro-EU or leftist disposition that the conclusion of the foregoing sentence is intended to be ironic. We marched about the playground as infants chanting rhymes about how we’d won the war (‘in 1944’ – close enough for kids) and spent our out-of-school time adventurously not being fiddled with by rapists and nonces as we got on with the business of growing up without the aid of twenty-four-seven parental supervision.

If anybody had used the ridiculous word ‘parenting’ they would have been laughed out of court and equally laughable would have been the notion that England needed the permission of Europe to do anything at all. English people actually called themselves English back then and ‘the UK’ was only ever heard in news bulletins and hardly ever abbreviated. We knew we were British by birth and grateful for it and all around us this sense of nation was reinforced by the names of our industries. British Steel, British Rail, British Leyland, British Overseas Airways Corporation, British Thornton... British Home Stores

We played British Bulldog and we knew that ‘being British’ about something meant being fair, accepting defeat with good grace and triumph without gloating. Hell we even won the World Cup... an event we may have mentioned once or twice since. But that little gloat-worthy triumph was pretty much the exception that proved the rule. We didn’t know then that even the adjective ‘British’ was in trouble and that all to which it referred was in decline. During the seventies, it seemed, the rot really set in and the anti-nationalism movement began to gain ground.

People wanted to abandon our heritage and abandon our future as an independent nation state for some glorious socialist utopia of cooperation and friendship and could not – or would not – see how that was possible so long as individual countries continued to exist. So set about a long term, supra-governmental process of dismantling all that was British. Far from being steadfast adventurers for King and Country our empire and all who engaged in it were decreed evil and our history began to turn sour; to demoralise a people today, repeatedly shout about a disgraceful past. Stop conforming to norms of family and responsibility and let it all hang out. And teach that everything not British is better than everything British.

Cameron has said that leaving the EU will damage foreign investment in UK infrastructure, but isn’t this exactly the problem? Why are any of our essential services in the hands of foreign investors at all? We can’t even build a power station without involving people whose allegiance is elsewhere. Another doom-laden prophecy is that foreign owners of notionally ‘British’ property will leave and prices will slump. How terrible, that a nation may have to live within its own means and that its people may be able to buy houses!

An Englishman’s home was said to be his castle and one of our past dreams was for us to become a property-owning democracy, yet today if you throw a stone anywhere in London it will almost certainly land in foreign territory. And nobody challenges this? Those expensive, subsidised white elephant wind farms? Who do those belong to? Not us. And who owns ‘our’ shipping lines, ‘our’ ports, ‘our’ manufacturers? About the only thing that’s British any more is Bake Off...

Empire builders

We no longer have the confidence to stand alone, as we managed to do for so very long and we have bought the lie that we can’t access global trade without being absorbed into a bloc, without becoming another indistinguishable region ordered by a faceless and unaccountable bureaucracy. No longer do we stand up for the underdog; instead we are bullied by minorities to keep our racist mouths shut. Our governments have allowed a soft invasion of ideologies and cultures to eradicate what we once were. Britain no longer has a well-shaped identity and Tommy Atkins is morphing into Johnny Foreigner. It is almost as if we are becoming... European.