Britishness has always been Englishness writ large: the English are 80 per cent of the population. The task for the other nations of our islands was to be British without being trampled upon by the English elephant.

The Scots would deal with this predicament by inventing Britishness. It was a Scot who invented the character of John Bull, a Scot composed the national anthem, a Scot posted Nelson’s signal at Trafalgar: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”

The Scots were part of the process that forged British identity, throughout much of which the English were ruled by other nations. Left to their own fiendish devices, they might well have exterminated the Scots, not to mention the Welsh, but that process was halted by the takeover of the English state, first by the Normans, then by a French royal family, the Planta-genets.

In the longer term, rule by the French forced the English to look outwards, to turn towards Europe. It convinced them that they had to be Europeans.

Probably the most crucial period for British identity would be the 18th century: that is when the people of this island came together and decided to be British; that is when Britishness was really invented.

Empire left us a treasure house of possessions. We have material wealth, we are the fourth most powerful trading nation, the fourth-greatest military power, but more than that, Empire left us with one of the most multicultural societies in the world.

Because we are an island of four languages – English, Welsh, Scottish and Gaelic – we have made communication our greatest achievement. We dislike the arts of display, we took hundreds of years to learn to make music and paint, but our writers have produced the world’s greatest literature.

Because we also love understatement, we do not glorify these writers. Here is a trivia question: where is the public statue of Shakespeare in London? There is only one, on the Albert Memorial, where the Bard sits at the feet of Homer. The greatest writer in the world and we put him beneath a long dead Greek.

Despite our military successes throughout history, our military heroes have not been turned into political leaders, nor are our drawing rooms filled with men in uniform. Our policemen have a civilian attire: they dress like postmen.

We are fearful of getting in one another’s way, we are lovers of privacy. The greatest British institutions are the clubs, of which we have had more than any other nation, and the sports field, from which are drawn the metaphors for British values. T.S. Eliot identified 13 characteristics that were distinctively British: eight were connected with sport.

We are equally reluctant to disturb others: Eastern European states spent much of their histories expelling various minorities; in Britain we do it rarely. The last half-century of large-scale immigration has drawn out a longer thread: the British have forever grumbled about foreigners but welcomed them in.

Reduced, after an age of empire, to our own island, Britain’s advantages continue, and with them, an aware-ness that we have had throughout our history: that the only way for the British to continue to thrive is to get on with others. That is why the greatest British fear, that of offending someone, really matters.

Ronald Hutton is Professor of History at Bristol University

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