Brexit is entrenching some dangerous myths about ‘British’ culture | Afua Hirsch

There is something deeply ironic about the wave of nostalgia sweeping political discourse in modern Britain. On one hand, it harks – increasingly since the Brexit vote – back to the age of empire. “A small island perched on the edge of the European continent became a leader of world trade,” is how international trade secretary Liam Fox fondly described that epoch to a group of Commonwealth trade ministers. On the other, the supposed humanitarianism that accompanied that age has been swiftly forgotten.

While the empire was founded on racist beliefs about the supposed inferiority of the people it subjugated, humanitarianism was its proudly flaunted justification. This was manifested perfectly in Winston Churchill, who was able to boast of killing “savages” in Sudan, while also playing a leading role in creating the international humanitarian norms that many consider one of the great accomplishments of the 20th century. It’s only a matter of time before Britain’s membership of the Council of Europe – along with the rest of the European institutions developed by patriotic Brits who are keen to avoid a repeat of war – faces the same fate as our membership of the EU.

Likewise, humanitarian attitudes are in sharp decline. This was the resounding finding of today’s Aurora Humanitarian Index – a project inspired by the legacy of the Armenian genocide, still one of the least-recognised atrocities of the 20th century. It’s no surprise to learn that responses from 6,500 people in 12 countries, including the UK, US, Turkey and France, found a lack of confidence, compassion and leadership in response to the humanitarian issues of our time – especially the ongoing refugee crisis of north Africa and the Middle East.

But in Britain something specific is happening. The survey found that more than half of British people feel hostile not just to refugees, but to ethnic minorities – many of them British people themselves – already living here. This can be put down to various perceived economic and social threats – a quarter think immigrants take away jobs, and a third that they remove more from society than they contribute. But more sinister is its generality. More than half of the British people surveyed felt that people from ethnic minorities threatened their “culture”.

This one finding says so much. It confirms what we all know, that “British culture” is perceived as something white. This was the dog-whistle narrative of the Brexit referendum campaign – apart from the appeal to imperial greatness, there was the demand to “get our country back”. Few said explicitly that this meant make our country white again. But some heard it nevertheless. It was the surely part of the reason for the spike in racist attacks after the result, and why a cabbie told me I’d “be off home soon” as I rushed around on a referendum-related news story.

It was also the reason why, according to an Opinium poll, ethnic minority British people are now less likely to identify as British since the EU referendum. Instead, many are more likely to claim the identity of their ethnic minority heritage. British people who are not white feel less British now because that hostility is palpable, because there is an agenda of regressing to a time, before the European Union, that many remember not for the joys of complete sovereignty, but for the absence of protection from racism in the workplace, or at the hands of the police, or for being openly chased in the streets by white racists.

The idea that British “culture” is somehow opposite to the presence of ethnic minorities is a historical nonsense. Many of our most iconic cultural traditions are the products of immigration – such as fish and chips, an innovation of Jewish refugees from Portugal. Roads and cities were built by the Romans, banks were founded by Hugenots, a royal household established by a broad cross-section of European aristocracy. There were Africans in Britain, it’s now widely accepted, before there were any “English”.

No society ever has a perfect grasp of its history, and that doesn’t matter, it’s perceptions that count, and the harm that they cause. Britain’s sense of self has become so warped, so devoid from reality, that it is demonising its visible minorities, including the 6 million or so British people of minority heritage among them. In this context, when I hear politicians appeal to patriotism, I feel very nervous. Not because there is anything wrong with patriotic feeling – like populism, it’s a term that only becomes maligned by its context. But because I know only too well what that current context is. And thanks to the findings of widespread hostility towards the impact of ethnic minority people on British culture, so should everyone else.