• Contact
  • About
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
East Anglia Bylines
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Politics Blog
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Politics Blog
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series
No Result
View All Result
East Anglia Bylines

Revolution without love is just a coup d’etat: why we have to learn to love England again

We English have fallen out of love with our country, but there are signs that's changing. Peter Thurlow's hopes for 2022.

Peter ThurlowbyPeter Thurlow
December 30, 2021
in Community, UK
Reading Time: 5 mins
A A
My hope for 2022: that we will learn to love England again. Photo by William Santos (wsantos) via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

My hope for 2022: that we will learn to love England again. Photo by William Santos (wsantos) via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A few months ago, a major national political poll was launched, called Britain Speaks. Its most chilling finding was on ‘investment’ – investment not of money, but of caring, of being involved, feeling a part of things. In other words, a love of our country. Only 43 percent of us said we personally felt ‘invested’ in our country. In other words, less than half cared much what happened here. We are no longer in love with England.

I sense this is a particular English problem. The Scots, Irish and Welsh all seem still to have an idea of what they love about their country, and perhaps the current plight of England helps them to rediscover themselves. The English seem unable to do that.

‘Our country doesn’t invest in us’

But the poll’s responses to the complementary question were even more startling. Only 27 percent – scarcely a quarter of us – feel our country invests in us… So, three quarters of the British public feel our country doesn’t care about us and what happens to us. It seems we have lost the love of the place we used to hold dear.

Perhaps Brexit brought our self-doubt to a head. We have been in a long decline for years, too suffused with English exceptionalism to realise that we and England were becoming estranged from one another like a worn-out marriage, where what we had in common has gradually dissipated.

Compare this country to France. When French farmers or fishermen demonstrate for their rights, the French themselves accept it with a shrug: these are people defending their rights. They had a revolution, and all the old ways were thrown out. The French own their country, and they are proud of it. In France, if you find yourself in a forest somewhere and ask yourself who owns it, the answer will probably be the commune, the people. Here, it will be some millionaire estate owner.

Deprived of our sense of belonging

As we are so deprived of our rights, so are we deprived of our sense of belonging. Britain, or more accurately England, doesn’t seem worth fighting for anymore, which means those who deprive us of our rights can continue to do so with impunity. We have allowed our democracy to be whittled away, bit by bit, until a monster like Johnson can appear and steal what remains from under our noses. Yet we have no idea what we can do about it because, preening in the knowledge that England is the mother of democracies, we told ourselves nothing bad could happen here. Meanwhile our country has become a harsher place, more brutal and less caring, and it has become difficult to love.

What have we lost? As I’ve written elsewhere:

As a nation, we have probably been in a unique position in having a national brand that could be defined and recognised across the world.

We apparently had honour, integrity, honesty, discretion; we had a certain definable style in the way we did things and even what we wore. Everybody understood what an Englishman meant when he said something simply wasn’t done.

We took ‘Englishness’ for granted

We were proud of that, but we took it for granted. For all our pomp, the English are a profoundly unserious nation, and we allowed the snake-oil salesmen to claim our country as something else, a place to be feared because of the flag. The poorer we became and the more isolated, the more they waved the flag to hide what they were doing. They kept telling us how superior we were to the rest of the world. Yet we end up with nine of the poorest ten regions in northern Europe, among the lowest state pensions in the western world, the most polluted waterways in Europe.

The referendum in 2016 showed up starkly what we already knew but hadn’t cared to do anything about. For the first time, perhaps, many of us looked outwards and compared. For the English there came the beginning of a reckoning, and we began to realise we’ve been had. And part of that guilt about no longer loving our country is the realisation that we are responsible. We allowed it to be stolen from us. Whatever was true about the English and democracy, is true no longer.

Learning to love England again

There are signs we are beginning to have a will to do something about it. First, however, in order to cherish England more and claim back our country, we have to learn to love her again. A revolution without love is just a coup d’etat.

Ironically, for the first time in years, something is stirring. The English are becoming angry. But anger alone can’t change what we have become, we need to see a bright future we can fight for, changes that will bring us joy. We need to learn to love England again, the England we want for ourselves, before we can achieve it.

Peter Thurlow
Peter Thurlow – EAB editorial team
East Anglia Festivals 2022. Photo by sasastro via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Anglia

East Anglian festivals calendar

December 29, 2021
Hopes for 2022
Brexit

My hopes for 2022: Stephen McNair

December 28, 2021
Tags: Culture
Previous Post

East Anglian festivals calendar

Next Post

Pecksniff’s Diary

Peter Thurlow

Peter Thurlow

Peter Thurlow has spent 50 years in politics, as councillor, strategist and elections organizer – mostly with the Labour Party but later the Greens. He is now grateful to have no party ties, but instead turns his attention to other forms of political activity. He has also spent a career in public relations and public affairs, mostly working in health, law, politics, the EU and diplomacy. Peter is a member of the EAB editorial team.

Related Posts

A woman sits alone on her sofa, dressed in a Christmas jumper and hat.
Community

“All the lonely people”

byBen Smith
December 5, 2023
A hand holding a large bundle of £50 notes
Democracy

EU to regulate political ads as UK welcomes ‘dark money’

byAnna Damski
December 4, 2023
Jess showing the detail of the ship graffiti
Community

Our favourite stories: The cathedral walls have stories to tell

byCelina Błędowskaand1 others
December 3, 2023
Care home residents painting
Community

East Anglia’s adult social care crisis one year on

byJ.J. Jackson
December 2, 2023
Demonstration in front of the Home Office by the organisation Global Justice Now in 2018 against the hostile environment. A group of people are holding a long banner that says 'End the hostile environment'.
Activism

Migrants organise to beat ‘hostile environment’

byMariam Yusuf
November 28, 2023
Next Post
Dan Poulter

Pecksniff's Diary

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR CROWDFUNDER

Subscribe to our newsletters
CHOOSE YOUR NEWS
Follow us on social media
CHOOSE YOUR PLATFORMS
Download our app
ALL OF BYLINES IN ONE PLACE
Subscribe to our gazette
CONTRIBUTE TO OUR SUSTAINABILITY
Make a monthly or one-off donation
DONATE NOW
Help us with our hosting costs
SIGN UP TO SITEGROUND
We are always looking for citizen journalists
WRITE FOR US
Volunteer as an editor, in a technical role, or on social media
VOLUNTEER FOR US
Something else?
GET IN TOUCH
Previous slide
Next slide

LATEST

Two people approach passport control at the UK Border Control, Heathrow.

Who’s afraid of freedom of movement?

December 8, 2023
A statue on a tomb of a woman leaning on the tomb, weeping.

Grief Awareness Week: resources for support and healing

December 7, 2023
View of a series of pylons marching across a valley in England

Hope sparks for end of pylon controversy

December 7, 2023
People demonstrating against poverty. One banner says "Fight poverty, not the poor."

We can eliminate poverty: but we have decided not to

December 7, 2023
Grape harvest, from the book of hours of the Duke of Berry. Some workers are bending over harvesting, other are chatting, one is tasting the grapes.

Cambridge – Town and Gown unto death

December 6, 2023
Farmer workers in norfolk best over harvesting root crops

When rural Norfolk fought back

December 6, 2023

MOST READ

Climate crisis. Houses on the cliff edge at Hemsby

“Sorry, you are on your own!” climate crisis hits Norfolk

December 3, 2023
PM Rishi Sunak standing at the dispatch box during Prime Ministers Questions

Pecksniff: Is Sunak losing his marbles?

December 2, 2023
Hundreds of rioters push police back. Dozens of police are wearing helmets, hi-viz jackets and riot gear.

Polish lessons for the UK: stopping the far right

December 1, 2023
A hand holding a large bundle of £50 notes

EU to regulate political ads as UK welcomes ‘dark money’

December 4, 2023

Tags

Activism Anglian Water Brexit Business Cartoons Climate Community Conservatives COP26 Crime Democracy Economics Economy Elections Environment EU Farming Government Health History International Women's Day Labour Law Letters Local elections 2023 National Grid Net zero NHS Norwich Opinion Our place in Europe Pandemic Party politics Pecksniff Politics Poverty Sewage Social care Tax Trade Ukraine VAWG Welfare Wildlife Women
East Anglia Bylines

We are a not-for-profit citizen journalism publication. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in East Anglia and beyond.

East Anglia Bylines is a trading brand of Bylines Network Limited, which is a partner organisation to Byline Times.

Learn more about us

No Result
View All Result
  • About
  • Authors
  • Complaints
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Letters
  • Privacy
  • Network Map
  • Network RSS Feeds
  • Submission Guidelines

© 2023 East Anglia Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • News
    • Brexit
    • Health
    • Education
    • World
  • Politics
    • Local government
    • Justice
    • Activism
  • Politics Blog
  • Climate
    • Environment
  • Lifestyle
    • Community
    • Culture
    • History
    • Humour
    • Property
  • Business
    • Economics
    • Finance
    • Transport
    • Farming
  • ANGLIA
    • East Anglia
    • Bedfordshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Essex
    • Hertfordshire
    • Norfolk
    • Suffolk
  • Series

Newsletter sign up

DONATE

© 2023 East Anglia Bylines. Powerful Citizen Journalism

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In