British identity has changed for the worse and I have the proof
National identity comes from behaviour, and a more diverse country only works if everyone signs up to shared norms, writes Andy Preston
I got the proof that British behaviour has changed when I was sitting in traffic. With hundreds of others I was late and stressed. Some drivers expressed themselves by hammering their car horns. Their noise didn’t help though, in fact it made things more stressful for the rest of us. But they did it anyway because they do not care about anyone else.
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A few days before, I saw more selfishness on a train. Loud phone calls in an otherwise civilised carriage, one on speaker for a full business call, blighting everyone else’s journey. I hear the same thing in cafes and on the street now. It has become normal. It is the normalisation of new and unpleasant behaviours that shows how much Britain has changed.
This is not harmless behaviour. It is a visible decline in standards.
We are a more diverse and fast-changing country than we were. That makes shared behaviour more important, not less. A more diverse country only works if everyone signs up to shared norms. We are becoming less willing to insist on those norms.
National identity comes from behaviour. British identity is not what it was.
Once you notice this, you see it everywhere. More noise and a need to push your wishes onto everyone around you. Our identity is not the Trooping of the Colour or a Highland Show, it is how we interact with each other. And our accepted ways of doing that are disappearing.
The country we and others loved best was based on restraint and consideration of others. A gentleness with strangers. There was an understanding that shared spaces required self-control. Sadly, the rules that dictated this were never written down. But they were respected and they made life in a crowded country feel orderly.
The past was not perfect. But it was more considerate.
Why are we keen to ditch the things we got right, without even thinking about what replaces them?
Change is normal. But for most of our history change was gradual. As an island we absorbed new ideas and cultures slowly, they gradually blended into the way we did things. What is different now is the ferocious speed of that change.
Changes that took decades or centuries now happen in a few years. Technology, migration and generational shifts all conspire to create change that feels oppressive and damaging.
There is constant talk about the virtues of diversity, but none about the traditions that instilled a a sense of Britishness.
A country can change and still feel cohesive so long as generations and cultures agree on how we are all supposed to behave.
Different cultures bringing different habits is not necessarily a problem. But it becomes one when we ditch the norms that allowed everyone to live alongside each other.
We have become a country where no one wants to say what the rules are. But most of us still notice when they are broken. We can feel it in traffic, on trains and in queues.
The country that we and visitors loved has changed for the worse. This was not planned. It is just what happens when a country stops paying attention to the virtues that held it together.
We had a successful way to get along together but it is slipping away. Now it has almost gone.
A horn in traffic, a loud phone call, a small decision to put yourself first. On their own they mean very little. Together, they change national identity.
Britain still works. But it is losing the habits that made it work.
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Andy Preston is the former Mayor of Middlesbrough.
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