Shaking the kaleidoscope

Our country is entering new territory. Has the process of ‘soft Lebanonisation’ begun?

Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

Photo: By http://www.cgpgrey.com, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Brittany has much going for it. A coastline in which fine, sandy beaches and coves jostle for space with spectacular headlands and outcrops. A climate which, while often sunny and dry, isn’t afflicted by the ferocious heats that oppress France’s southern regions. A history as rich and fascinating as any. And a landscape dotted with ancient cathedrals, churches, castles, monuments, and a decent smattering of enchanting medieval towns and villages.

‘Bretagne’, to give the region its French name, or ‘Breizh’, its Breton one, is – alongside Cornwall, Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man – one of the six ‘Celtic nations’. And it seems proud to be so, regularly nourishing its Celtic heritage – which stretches back to the fifth century and the arrival of Saxon-fleeing Britons from Devon and Cornwall – with celebratory events, including the popular annual Festival Interceltique, which describes itself as the ‘rallying point for all those who love Celtic lands’ and showcases the customs and traditions of the Celts ‘from Galicia to Scotland’. The Bretons are, with every justification, a proud people.

I spent last week exploring the region’s Côte d'Émeraude and its hinterlands, visiting such places and attractions as Dinard, an elegant seaside resort which made its name in the 19^th century as a luxury holiday destination for the British and American upper classes; the stunning gothic cathedral at Dol; the town of Saint-Malo, blasted to smithereens during a major battle towards the end of the second world war, but painstakingly reconstructed, almost literally brick-by-brick, in the years afterwards (a testament, if ever there was one, to the ability of the human spirit to overcome adversity and rise again); and the breath-taking abbey at Mont-Saint-Michel, which needs to be seen to be believed.

I could write a lot more about it all, but I’ll refrain from being that person who thinks everyone else has a natural interest in his own holiday adventures. Suffice to say, it was a delightful sojourn, and if you ever get the chance to go there, you should take it.

I’ve always enjoyed returning home after a holiday. Not that I’m especially well travelled. (When TS Eliot says, ‘We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time,’ I am minded to reply, ‘Chance would be a fine thing!’ The Greek islands are about as exotic as it has ever got for me. Oh, and Israel; but I’d better not mention that.)

Still, it is hard not to feel something when, even after a short break, one’s plane is descending towards the airport, and the villages, farms and hedgerows of the English countryside rise into view, or, if travelling by boat, the white cliffs of Dover emerge from the distance. It is that ‘old familiar’, the knowledge that, for all its faults, this is Britain. And it’s home.

Only, this time, returning felt a bit different. Not because I wasn’t looking forward to it. More that, for the first time, I was a little unsure about precisely what country I was returning to. What ‘home’ actually meant.

For the truth is that Britain is changing. Granted, countries are always changing, and ours is no different. That’s the nature of the world, and it is idle to think we can – or should – stand still. But for most of our lifetimes, the ‘fundamentals’ in these islands were constant. While we experienced occasional bouts of political and social tumult, we basically knew who we were, who our neighbours were, the nature of our moral code, the arc of our history, the intricacies of our customs and traditions, what we could expect from our national institutions, the type of country we were likely to be, say, six months, a year or even a decade hence. There was a universal understanding of these things.

But, today, such certainties seem elusive. A kaleidoscope is being violently shaken across this land, and none of us can be quite sure how the pieces will settle. Gramsci spoke of an interregnum in the established order, during which ‘the old is dying, but the new cannot be born’ and ‘a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’. That feels a bit like where we are now.

Age-old social and cultural norms are being upended at great speed, leaving millions resentful and disorientated. There is a deepening tension and sense of decline in the air. A chasm has emerged between the governors and the governed – far wider than I have known in three decades of political activism – and few in authority seem to have any clue how to close it.

So much seems broken. The economy has been busted for 18 years. Infrastructure is crumbling, public services failing, and the immigration and asylum system shot. People can’t get in to see their GP or find a dentist. NHS waiting lists are through the roof. Young families have virtually no chance of getting a home. Our industrial base has been largely eviscerated, forcing millions to work in insecure and unrewarding employment. The police are useless at their primary job of preventing crime and apprehending criminals, and thousands of convicts are returned prematurely to our streets because our prison estate cannot hold them.

When ministers tell us the government is spending millions to fix a problem, things still don’t improve. Even when the government seems on the brink of making progress on an issue, it often finds itself blocked by activist lawyers and judges who now appear to wield more power in our public life than they have ever done.

Sometimes it’s the little things that point to the malaise. Having been spoilt by the order and efficiency of the French road network, we couldn’t help but notice on our return the general decline of the British one. At a prominent junction coming out of the port of Newhaven, a large road sign was almost completely covered by overgrown foliage, such that no driver – many of whom will have been foreigners arriving from the continent – would have had a clue what information it conveyed.

Similarly, where the M25 met the A12, substantial sections of two major motorway signs – the large blue sort hanging from the gantry – were completely missing, rendering the information indecipherable. Bear in mind this was a junction on Britain’s busiest road, which thousands of vehicles will approach every hour.

And then, on a main ‘A’ road through East Anglia, temporary speed limit signs had been placed at regular intervals. The only problem was that nobody had thought of covering up the existing permanent signs, so that any driver determined to adhere to each individual sign would find himself accelerating to 50 miles per hour before decelerating to 20 miles per hour and then back up again several times within the space of about two minutes.

This all happened within a single three-hour journey. I know, of course, that our road system has never been perfect, but I’m not sure that in 33 years of driving I have ever noticed three obvious and dangerous defects of this kind in such quick succession. And don’t mention the potholes.

In addition to the serious functional failings of our state apparatus, our communities are increasingly fragmented and atomised. A gradual but perceptible process of social disintegration is taking hold. Social solidarity is slowly eroding, and the phenomenon of asymmetrical multiculturalism – which demands minority cultures be celebrated enthusiastically while the majority culture be consistently downplayed – is antagonising large swathes of the populace. Meanwhile, our public and corporate institutions have embraced – and promote – the creed of cultural progressivism to a degree that has meant they have forfeited, perhaps irrecoverably, the trust of millions. At the same time, we are witnessing the emergence of genuine grassroots movements representing the white working class – a cohort that feels as though it is losing its status in society and has, frankly, had enough.

This may all seem like a counsel of despair, but these things are real, and they are happening. Anyone who lives an ordinary life in an everyday town or city could not fail to notice them. Don’t believe me? Then look at any national opinion poll, and tell me which party is leading.

Some – including the occasional expert – have predicted that it will all lead to a major internal conflict, perhaps even a civil war. Others speak of the country going to ‘hell in a handcart’ and of our communities being ‘tinderboxes’. I don’t subscribe to these dire prophecies (not yet, at any rate, though I recognise things could change quickly). But I do believe that, as a nation, we are about as troubled and ill at ease than at any other period in my lifetime.

In recent days, there has been a slew of stories that underline the extent of the social convulsions and disharmony. In Bournemouth, a town that most of us would once have identified as one of England’s most genteel holiday spots, a group of local men and women have established a vigilante patrol group with the intention of making the streets safer for locals. The town has evidently experienced a major decline in recent years, coupled with a spate of high-profile criminal incidents, including the murders of a female beachgoer by a student migrant and a 21-year-old local man by an asylum seeker.

In Tower Hamlets, east London, and Birmingham, disputes have broken out after Union and St George’s flags which had been affixed to street lamp-posts by patriotic citizens were swiftly removed by the local council. Both councils, however, had previously been quite content to allow Palestinian flags to be displayed in a similar way. Just a few days prior to the row, Birmingham city council had lit up the main library in the colours of the Pakistan flag to celebrate the anniversary of that country’s independence day.

Meanwhile, there was an interesting turn of events at a couple of the protests that have erupted across England over the use of hotels to house large numbers of asylum seekers. In Canary Wharf and Norwich, female demonstrators, including grandmothers, dressed up in pink – the ‘Pink Ladies’, they called themselves – and in some cases broke into song and dance while calling on the government to protect them and their children. There was a time when any protest over immigration would be attended almost exclusively by far-right activists. That is plainly not the case now.

I don’t think it is overegging things to suggest that these sorts of events and occurrences, as well as countless others that could be adduced, indicate that we are into new territory in this country. The new global market has failed us, and the creed of cosmopolitan liberalism that, we were told by the elites who hawked it, would bring us all together in a spirit of harmony and unity and enlightenment – ‘Diversity is our strength’, and all that – is, in reality, creating deep social tensions and discord. Equally troubling is the communal sectarianism that we have seen emerge in some of our communities – and which has the potential to lead to what I have termed the ‘soft Lebanonisation’ of Britain. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I fear that we are on a slow path towards it.

For we are a country that is no longer sure about its own identity – one in which the political and cultural elites have tried to make us all things to all people and, in so doing, have turned us into something resembling an outpost of the United Nations – a nation that stands for something and nothing and represents somebody and nobody. And when it comes to dealing with the unintended consequences of their creation, those same elites appear utterly bereft.

As the ferry on which I was travelling entered British waters on my return from France, the wind got up a bit, and the sea became choppier. There’s an obvious metaphor there somewhere. I think it’s very likely that, as the coming months and years unfold, the good ship Britain will encounter yet rougher waters.

We shall just have to steel ourselves and navigate them as best we can.

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