The Economist July 10th 2021 Britain 55Bandofbrothers
E
ngland is enjoyinga communitarian moment, thanks to
football, its national sport. And the impresario of the moment
is Gareth Southgate, England’s manager and currently its most
popular person. He not only forged what has too often in the past
been a collection of prima donnas into a welloiled machine that
beat its nemesis, Germany, to get into the Euro 2020 quarterfinals
and then, in extra time, beat a brilliant Danish team to get into the
final on July 11th. He also understood the uniting national power of
collective joy and despair. “I tell them that when you go out there,
in this shirt,” wrote Mr Southgate in an open letter to the public on
June 8th, “you have the opportunity to produce moments that peo
ple will remember forever.”
This togetherness is palpable, not just because England has
reached the tournament’s final for the first time ever, but also be
cause it is in stark contrast to the divisions that have marked Brit
ain in recent years. The 2016 Brexit referendum did more than just
tear both the country and the Tories asunder. It also revealed that
Britain was already much more divided than it realised: remember
those conversations when Remainers (or Leavers) declared that
they couldn’t understand how the result had been so close, when
no one they knew voted Leave (or Remain)? The pandemic offered
some unity, as Britons came out on the streets on Thursdays to
“clap for carers” and then quietly exulted at the improbably im
pressive vaccine rollout. But it also forced people to isolate in
their homes. One of the most thrilling things about the semifinal
was the spectacle of 60,000 fans roaring their hearts out in Wem
bley Stadium as if the pandemic had never happened.
For decades now, common life in Britain has been withering.
The English, in particular, have been sorting themselves on the ba
sis of income and education. Danny Dorling, a geographer at Ox
ford University, has assembled evidence that people with more of
both moved physically apart from those with less in every decade
from 1970 to 2000. The English like to think that Mr Southgate’s
multicultural, kneetaking team proves that, with the exception of
a few thugs, the country is cheerily postracial. In fact, England
suffers just as much from white flight as America does.
Draw a 100km ring around London, the supposed capital of
multiculturalism, to include the most commutable towns, andyouwillfindminorities clustered in the centre and white Britons
towards the periphery. Levelling things out would mean moving
58% of those within this perimeter—more than would be needed
to do the same in the average American city. The white population
of London fell by more than half a million in the 2000s, even as its
total population rose. In 2001, only a quarter of nonwhites lived
in areas where whites were a minority. Now, almost half do.
Institutions that once united the country are withering, too.
The English are much less inclined to join voluntary organisa
tions than they used to be, with bluecollar workers leading the ex
odus. Knowledgeintensive companies are less likely than manu
facturing companies to bring workers from differing classes to
gether under the same roof. Half the children poor enough to qual
ify for free school meals are educated in just a fifth of schools.
Classical liberals might point out that much of this segregation
is voluntary. But there is plenty to suggest that many people feel
that their individual decisions are adding up to the loss of some
thing important. About half of Britons tell pollsters that Britain is
the “most divided it’s been during my lifetime”. In his new book,
“Fractured”, Jon Yates, the executive director of the Youth Endow
ment Fund and a former Tory special adviser, marshals evidence
that societal segregation is imposing significant costs. It denies
children from poorer families access to the networks and contacts
that would help them get ahead in life. When voters have no
friends who vote for the other lot, democracy is weakened. And
when people feel little in common with their fellow citizens, they
are less likely to vote for the taxes that keep the welfare state alive.
How to solve a problem that flows so directly from private
choices? Mr Yates is doing his bit: he runs a scheme that takes
thousands of teenagers every year, divides them into groups of 12,
from varying backgrounds and ethnicities, and engages them in
challenging physical activities such as hiking and camping. The
intense memories formed by these (sometimes testing) experi
ences can build the sorts of bonds Mr Southgate wrote about to his
lads, even though the nation is not watching with heart in mouth.
Mr Yates has other intriguing ideas: obliging young people to
do community service as part of their education; establishing lo
cal groups for new parents to bond over the way their lives have
just changed; and encouraging the recently retired to meet and
chat about what to do with their days. Bagehot finds it easy enough
to come up with more: a voluntary army of young digerati to help
older people with their devices? Or of retired people to mentor in
nercity kids? Putting such ideas into practice would be far from
easy. The “Big Society” promised by David Cameron when he be
came prime minister in 2010 fizzled out as his government turned
its attention to cutting the budget deficit. It would also raise tough
questions, in particular how much compulsion to bring to bear.
Too much, and participation is likely to be grudging; too little, and
those who would benefit most will sit the whole thing out.Many hands
But there are examples from which to draw inspiration. Britain did
a remarkable job of reweaving the national fabric in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, with the creation of hundreds of volun
tary organisations. Between 1981 and 2008 the number of Danish
voluntary organisations rose by a third, even as it fell elsewhere,
and the number of Finns involved in sports clubs grew by a similar
amount. After a long period in which they focusedon the politics
of freedom, Britain’s elite need to take a leafoutofMr Southgate’s
book, and turn their attention to togetherness.nBagehot
Football is giving a fractured nation a reminder of what it’s like to come together