Having taken issue last week with George Monbiot's argument for a more or less complete renunciation of national allegiance, I want here to enter a reservation in the other direction - this with respect to Michael Howard's sentiments in yesterday's Guardian. Some passages:
What do I mean by being proud to be British? At its core is a profound respect for, and allegiance to, the institutions that make Britain what it is, and the values that underpin those institutions.The point I want to make is simply that it's not because the values Howard mentions are British values that we owe them allegiance, but because they're good ones - democratic, liberal, universally defensible. They are superior to those values which, for example, countenance the treatment of some people as inferior to others, or the silencing of dissenting voices, or the murder of the innocent. No one, however, need be loyal to such British values or traditions as cannot be upheld on a morally principled basis. The idea that something is to be supported just because it is British is defenceless in face of the counter-suggestion that other values and traditions are... whatever in fact they are, but in any case not British and preferred by the person who is asserting them. There's no avoiding the discussion of the merits and demerits of the values or traditions themselves. (Thanks to reader GW for prompting me on this.)
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Perhaps one of the mistakes we have made in recent years is a tendency to place too much emphasis on the need to encourage the retention of attachment to other traditions, and not enough on the British identity we all share.
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We need to inculcate a sense of allegiance to the values that are the hallmark of Britain - decency, tolerance and a sense of fair play.