Pride in Britain’s history has plummeted to a record low as the wartime generation dwindles, a major survey has found.
Just 64 per cent of the public said they were “proud” or “very proud” of Britain’s history in the British Social Attitudes Survey 2023, down from 86 per cent in 2013 and the lowest proportion since the question was first asked in 1995.
Alex Scholes, the senior researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), which conducted the survey, said there was a connection between changing attitudes and the fact that there are fewer people alive today who lived through or fought in the Second World War.
“It definitely has an impact,” Mr Scholes said. “History is possibly the standout area because that’s where we’ve seen the greatest drop over the past decade.
“It was consistently over 80 per cent between 1995 and 2013 and now it’s 64 per cent and that’s quite a sizeable drop in the last decade.”
Even the youngest people who can remember living through the Second World War are now in their mid to late 80s.
Polling has consistently shown that those who fought in or lived through the war, and their children, are more patriotic than younger generations.
A YouGov poll of 4,611 people in April found that 81 per cent of those aged 65 or above were “very” or “fairly” patriotic, compared to just 39 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds and 45 per cent of those aged between 25 and 49.
Prof Robert Tombs, professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge, said increasingly prominent criticism of slavery and the British Empire has also contributed to the decline in pride in our history.
“I expect that not only the passing of the generation who lived through the war, but also of those who knew people who lived through the war is significant,” Prof Tombs said.
“But the generally negative portrayal of British history in the media, fiction, TV, films and schools must surely have had an effect. This is true across the Anglophone world.”
The past decade has seen growing scrutiny of Britain’s imperial past, the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement and intense pressure on museums and galleries to repatriate artefacts to their countries of origin.
Activists have also demanded the “decolonisation” of the country’s history and called for reparations to atone for the past.
The pressure for changes has contributed to “culture wars” that have centred on universities, such as Rhodes Must Fall at the University of Oxford (regarding imperialist Cecil Rhodes), and statues, including that of Winston Churchill outside the House of Commons and slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.
Prof Lawrence Goldman, of St Peter’s College, Oxford, said: “Too much history teaching seems to start now from an assumption that the empire was inevitably malign.
“I would suggest that it’s not just about the distance now between events in 1914 and 1939, and the death of all the combatants, though of course these are factors.
“We are failing to explain why those wars had to be fought, what sacrifices they entailed and how everyone across the world, of all races and backgrounds, ultimately benefited from the defeat of militarism and dictatorship.
“We have lost that sense of what was at stake, with a consequent decline of pride in the sacrifices endured.”
The survey of around 1,600 people also revealed that national pride in Britain’s democracy and economic achievements has decreased since the turn of the millenium.
In 2003, 62 per cent said they had pride in “the way democracy works” and the same proportion said they were proud or very proud of “Britain’s economic achievements”.
But those figures now stand at 53 and 44 per cent respectively.
Conversely, levels of pride in Britain’s sporting and cultural achievements have increased over the same period, rising from 63 and 67 per cent in 2003 to 77 and 79 per cent in 2023.
Elsewhere, the proportion of the public who think it is important that someone describing themselves as “truly British” was born in Britain has fallen from 74 per cent in 2013 to 55 per cent in 2023.
The proportion who believe it is important to have British ancestry has also dropped to 39 per cent from 51 per cent a decade ago.
Gillian Prior, deputy chief executive of NatCen, said the survey shows Britain is a “nation redefining itself”.
“These research findings show that while we are less likely to take pride in British history and more critical about its politics, there is still a great deal of national pride in the country’s cultural and sporting achievements,” she said.
“This change in attitudes may have been influenced by the increased diversity and shared citizenship within Britain, presenting a portrait of a nation redefining itself.”
