Searching for the soul of England

Now I'm digging through my student paperbacks Flicking through Karl Marx again Searching for the soul of England Drinking tea like Tony Benn - Pet Shop Boys, Love is a Bourgeois Construct Much though I appreciate Americans and other foreigners on this forum informing me about what it means to be English and British (not the same thing, by the way), I wonder if I, as an Englishman, might be permitted to comment. First, samuel77 maintains that 'common values define a nation'. So what exactly are the common values that all Englishmen share and that distinguishes them from the non-English? What values do I have in common with a fascist like Tommy Robinson? Nothing of any importance. So what does define the community of England? There are certain things that I do value about my country, and certain other things that give me a sense of being at home. These include: no guns parliamentary government (though could be improved, e.g. proportional representation) walkability, shops and services within walking distance of home public transport linking everywhere to everywhere high food quality (fewer additives and higher farming and animal welfare standards than the US) at low prices (groceries cheaper as well as healthier than US) good, free healthcare consumer protections (law on side of consumer, not producer) workers' rights less of a work ethic, less emphasis on competition and success religious tolerance Several of the above are a result of: a greater emphasis on individuals rights over corporate profits than is customary in the US In terms of things that give me a sense of Englishness: English countryside English history and monuments English language, accents and pronunciations English customs, manners and preferences, e.g. drinking tea Then there are things such as English film, theatre, arts that are informed by an English sensibility derived from the above. Values? Maybe an old fashioned decency that welcomes strangers, though this has been under attack from the Right for decades. Things like Christianity no longer define my country, and though I love old country churches I am glad that the old god no longer haunts their grounds. You will see that nothing here is even remotely threatened by immigration. Muslims drink tea, and their kids have English regional accents. The picture some here paint of migrants from places like India and Pakistan, or other parts of Asia, is unrecognisable. I've known many British Muslims in my life, and they were all perfectly lovely. Familiarity is the solvent of prejudice. There are occasionally tensions, but these can be contained without threatening anything valuable in my society. The biggest threat to everything I still love about my country comes not from migrants, but from America. American political and ideological imports are almost always destructive. They have led to a far more puritanical culture than was the case around 1976, when a TV series like The Glittering Prizes could show naked boys in showers in a school scene and absolutely no one batted an eyelid. So I say to you Yanks who parrot your President in his idiot rants about Britain's racial suicide: you've made your own country into a place where the government attacks foreigners, where academics studying in the US are kidnapped by your government and deported for no crime other than upsetting the Israelis, where your government is attacking academia generally. But please stop trying to impose your fascism on England. We can really get on quite fine without it, thank you very much.