Beneath the Fracturing: British Values in an Age of Division
Olivia Walsham
In the decade since the EU referendum, the dominant story told about Britain has been one of fracture. Divisions over Europe have been followed by divisions over immigration, free speech, national identity and the pace of social change, alongside a growing sense that the ties that once bound people together are under strain.
Against this backdrop, we set out to understand what, in a time of such division, still unites Britain. What are the shared values and sources of pride that can underpin a renewed sense of shared patriotism? Drawing on polling of more than 6,000 UK adults and conversations with nearly 300 people from Falkirk to Southampton, this is one of the most in-depth studies yet into what the public understands by British values.
Our research does not dismiss the diagnosis of division. Britain is indeed divided, and in many cases profoundly so. People describe a country that feels more polarised, more pessimistic and less certain of itself than in the past, and they do not relish it. If this were the whole story, it would be easy to conclude that little remains to unite the country.
But that is not the case.
Beneath the noise of political division, a shared set of values quietly underpins British society. For fifteen years there has been an official definition of British values: democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance. Yet this is not how people actually talk about the values that define Britain.
Instead, three simple, grounded values pull the country together: fairness, hard work and community. These run deep across age, class, region and political tradition, shaping how people judge governments, institutions and the country itself.
People worry these values are eroding. That fairness is no longer guaranteed, hard work less reliably rewarded, and community spirit weakened. Yet our message testing shows they can be articulated in a positive way that resonates across voter groups.
Anyone who wants to repair an increasingly fractured politics should step back and focus on what still unites people, speaking to fairness, hard work and community in language that is positive, grounded and recognisable.
Read the whole report here.
Polling tables here.
