Being British has a lot to celebrate really.
Just today, one of my friend’s husbands travelled to London for his final English test before he applies for the right to stay in the UK for good. He comes from a rich country but has chosen to come here for love, has been welcomed into the local rural community and runs a successful award winning business there.
So that shows we generally uphold the British values of fair play and tolerance towards others, respecting their differences. I hope this will continue?
Politeness is a good British value but try not to do the British thing of saying sorry all the time for no good reason it’s quite an annoying habit, i regularly get scolded by my Polish friends for doing it!
Queues are regarded as a good thing except at a bar where no one should queue unless there’s an actual sign.
British countryside and beaches and some architecture are lovely; tourists come from all over the world to visit them.
Our democracy and welcome to strangers is world famous - no wonder asylum seekers like to come here. Don’t forget our language is spoken the world over and many developing countries have British style education systems as a result of us having had such a huge empire (the empire was actually not a good thing only for Britain itself but it’s part of history that we have to live with).
We’ve taken certain EU directives on board (from before Brexit) much more seriously than in other countries and it’s actually a good thing, maybe because we’re a country that likes to follow rules and regulations.
Our health and safety culture is actually a good thing as you will find if you go to place where there is none.
Our Equalities Act is generally followed more here than abroad too which has been helpful for Disabled people and anyone with a protected characteristic (As a person with a serious mental illness I wouldn’t be in a job if it wasn’t for the reasonable adjustments of the Equalities Act).
We have the NHS which despite its faults provides us free healthcare- one of my FB friends from a certain country was bemoaning the mosquitoes there and I came to realise that not only are anti malaria vaccines unavailable there but they also can’t just pop down the local Boots for some deet spray (he’d never heard of deet) and the mosquitos are feeding off free flowing sewage in the town! If locals get ill from bites they have no free / cheap access to a clinic for treatment either. That’s when I realised just how privileged we are in the UK.
Our traditional food can have foreign influences such as fish and chips, chicken tikka masala.
Britsh food such as pies, sausage and mash, is basic but done well can be really tasty.
Some of the foods that under the EU would’ve been designated local origin are really good. For example we make good cheeses, clotted cream, pasties, and other items. The afternoon tea & the cream tea are typical British traditions I enjoy. British puddings and regional cakes can be very nice.
We have a police force & armed forces that a lot of the world emulates and we are a senior member of NATO. We see some riots and protests but in the last 3 centuries we haven’t seen the kind of revolutions & unrest that other countries have, mainly because we are a democracy and have not had a totalitarian regime. With the exception of NI, we really don’t understand what it’s like to have the military on our streets. Yes we’ve had terrorism and my own family suffered from racist mob violence in 1913 here in England prior to ww1, but we’ve never suffered actual genocide.
So to be British is to be privileged but sadly a lot of us are too busy moaning (very British) to get that.