Theory - what is Britishness?

from the book 'British Cultural Identities', Mike Storry, Peter Childs

To describe what 'Britishness' is something that is almost impossible to do as it does not have one universal description. Thus I think it is particularly poignant in this moment in British history to look at what Britain means to its people. Within the book 'British Cultural Identities', it describes Britain's attitudes being "unlike Americas 'melting pot' approach, where minority ethnicities have been encouraged to blend into and become assimilated by the local culture, migrants to Britain have often not sought , nor been encouraged, to integrate into British society. In many respects this means that they have been excluded from the dominate culture". In my opinion this definition describes the key cause of the issues that currently face Britain, England in particular. I know that America clearly has its own issues, just look at their president, but this book was published in the 1990s and almost predicted the rise isolationism and the Nigel Farages of the world. However this cannot to be said to be a new trend, the book also continues to state that in the early 19th century the poet Byron wrote of 'the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander'. Later in the century, critics of the Victorian overseas expansion were know as 'Little Englanders', but the term has since come to mean isolationists who believe in the concept 'my country right or wrong'. (p15)

In a recent YouGov poll there seems to be a slight shift from 'Britishness' to 'Englandness' which to me suggests growing nationalist and isolationism.

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/01/24/what-makes-person-english-according-english/

An island race

The Germans live in Germany;

The Romans live in Rome;

The Turkeys live in Turkey;

But the English live at home.

(J.H Goring, The Ballad of Lake Laloo and other Rhymes, 1909)

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