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A National Britain Day

ARGUMENTS FOR:

The USA celebrates Independence Day (July 4) and France Bastille Day (July 14) to serve as a focus for patriotic feeling and national identity. We should have a British equivalent.

The scale of immigration means that we need an occasion which encourages immigrants to identify with the country they have come to live in. It would be the symbol of national unity.

Multi-culturalism can work successfully only if there is a unifying national culture with values which are accepted by all, and a Britain Day would offer an opportunity to proclaim these values.

At a time when rising nationalisms within the UK threaten the continuing existence of the Union, Britain Day would remind us all of the worth of the Union and the advantages of being British as well as English, Scots, Welsh or Northern Irish.

It could give us all another public holiday.
The First Post guide to the issue of the day

ARGUMENTS AGAINST:

A government-decreed Britain Day would feel phoney. It goes against our national habit of understatement. Empire Day never had much popular appeal.

If it is tied to some event in our history (say, the Battle of Britain), it will make immigrants feel excluded rather than at home. If it isn't so tied, it will have no resonance for the rest of us.

We already have a symbol of national unity - the Crown - and we don't need another.

Actually we already have a national day, or evening: the Last Night of the Proms. It flourishes because it came into being spontaneously, without government involvement.

FIRST POSTED JUNE 6, 2007

News & Comment: News & Politics