For as long as I can recall, our country has been defined by what we might call three basic truths that we hold to be British: first, our devotion to liberty, tolerance and the rule of law; second, our instinct for fairness; and third, as an island and trading nation, our commitment to engaging with the world.
And while in the heat of an election battle it is difficult to see beyond the claims and counterclaims about tax, spending and migration, it is clear to me that far, far more is at stake on 4 July than what is conveyed in the day to day headlines. For as the prejudices of Nigel Farage and his supporters have come to dominate rightwing thinking and poison the national debate, it is these three defining British values, which I believe he and his fellow travellers fail to uphold, that have to be fought for.
By pandering to Farage, the Conservatives have been caving in to a hard-right agenda. While Farage has belatedly disowned the racist views of a few of Reform’s candidates, he has refused to expel the standard bearer for Bexhill and Battle, Ian Gribbin, who said Britain would have been better off if we had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality”. Gribbin later said “I apologise for these old comments and withdraw them unreservedly”, but his remarks had already been magnified by the official party response that his “historical perspective of what the UK could have done in the 30s ... is probably true”. A new and wholly inaccurate history of Britain is being written by Farage and friends, and the past few weeks have seen the right capitulating to the hard right as they divide the country between those who are the “ins” and those who are considered the “outs”.
Take first the idea of fairness. What George Orwell called “decency” has always been underpinned by a strong sense of civic responsibility. As every poll shows, our country has never for long fallen for the idea that we are only self-seeking individuals with no obligations to each other beyond the garden gate. This is illustrated most of all in the broad-based support for pooling and sharing our resources equitably to pay for our National Health Service, which Farage now in effect wants to privatise.
But, just as worryingly, the consensus that has been in place since the Beveridge report of 1942 – that together, through a distinctively British welfare state, we would prevent “the five evils” of want, disease, idleness, ignorance and squalor – is being torn apart by Conservative vindictiveness. By setting a cap on benefits payments no matter the family’s need, by placing a limit on rent payments irrespective of what the landlord charges, by denying any newborn third child the right to benefit, the Conservative government has broken the link between the mouths we have to feed and the basic support we need in order to do so. It was once widely accepted that “social security” was there to take the shame out of need, but now the food bank, not the welfare state, is becoming our national safety net, and people are forced to depend on charity rather than universal credit as the last line of defence against destitution. I have never seen poor people so humiliated and stigmatised.
Second, we have always upheld and, even more importantly, popularised around the world the importance of basic civil liberties and the rule of law. I and many other British leaders have talked in glowing terms of the “golden thread” that connects Magna Carta of 1215 and the Bill of Rights of 1689 to the European convention on human rights (ECHR) of 1950 and the Human Rights Act of 1998. Yet, from the unprecedented way Boris Johnson prorogued parliament to avoid scrutiny and his denigration of judges exercising their constitutional function, to the attacks on the very legal instrument – the ECHR – that Churchill and his colleagues created, his successors today have systematically undermined the rule of law. Indeed, the party of law and order is now contemplating abandoning the ECHR – something not even the Italian far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is planning to do.
These actions follow ministerial orders sent to government lawyers to proceed with drafting legislation that ignores international legal conventions and aligns the UK with “illiberal democracies” such as Hungary and Turkey. Another five years of Conservative rule puts Britain at risk of becoming an outlier from the truly democratic world. As Keir Starmer has said, a Britain faithful to our values should never find itself an international “pariah”.
And third, the British people have never seen the Channel as a moat cutting us off from Europe and beyond, but as a highway to the world, making us a country of traders, merchant venturers, missionaries and diplomats. The far right wants to claim that Britain does best when we stand aloof and apart, rejecting what they call “entanglements” with outsiders on the grounds that cooperation between countries will always undermine national sovereignty. By leaving even more European bodies such as the ECHR, we would concede that we can never be a leader in Europe again. Such thinking rests on the delusion that closing the door to cooperation will make us stronger. But Britain is at its best when it is outward looking – as it was when it led the last century’s fight in Europe against fascism, totalitarianism, antisemitism and racism, and as it could be again under the internationalism articulated by David Lammy.
We face a choice that is more fundamental than more or less tax, more or less spending or more or less migration. The choice is really about what kind of country we are and want to become. This general election offers us the chance to reject the Farage version of Britain and to get our real country back, and to show that greatness comes from standing tall in defence of our principles. To show that greatness comes from standing tall and moving together in defence of your culture, your history and your values. Indeed, 4 July would not just be our independence day from the Conservatives, but a return to the values that make us British. And with a world in flames, the choice is more important today than a decade ago.
What turns pessimism to optimism is my firm belief that in the years ahead the kind of values we have traditionally upheld can inspire a new generation of young people. Instead of the kind of populist nationalism we see on the rise in France, a Labour government can heighten cooperation across borders to resolve international crises from pollution to pandemics, from poverty to migration, from financial instability to international terrorism.
So this election is about whether we succumb to pessimism or embrace hopefulness. At this election we can either add to despair or give people hope. I choose hope.
Gordon Brown was UK prime minister from 2007 to 2010
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