Dominic Grieve QC MP: Is "Britishness" useful or redundant?

Dominic Grieve QC MP, Shadow Attorney General, explores the concept of Britishness, This is an abridged version of a speech he gave as the 10th Wilberforce Address for the Conservative Christian Fellowship this week.

That there is now confusion about Britishness is without doubt.  Part of the confusion comes from muddling different concepts.  The Government is equating State citizenship with Britishness.  But people cannot be told to be British, Britishness is identity which people have to feel while British Citizenship is increasingly seen as a portal to the consumption of State services with no little requirement to subscribe to a common identity at all. These two ideas have clashed.

There has been for a long time a consistent pattern of those on the Left attacking national symbols and culture for anti establishment reasons – arguing that it reinforced traditional values and hierarchy and was thus inimical to socialist progress in creating a new society. They have sought to deconstruct it. And as social revolution has been resisted by the innate conservatism of the population the preferred weapon has been the imperative need to adapt Britishness to diversity and multiculturalism.

The ex Mayor of London Mr Livingstone, has been a supreme champion of multiculturalism. He devoted a large budget to encouraging compartmentalised self expression in each ethnic or religious grouping under his patronage. The justification is that each has been a victim of discrimination and requires support to assert itself.