Posting patriots have to remember to log off and do something for their communities
There is a peculiar magic in the British earth — a quiet enchantment that seeps up from the sodden, green fields, the winding hedgerows, and the ancient footpaths. It is not merely dirt, this soil of ours, but a living testament — a parchment scribbled with the songs of larks, the oaths of ploughmen, and the laughter of children chasing hares across the downs. To be British is to feel this soil in the marrow, to know that it is not just the land that holds us, but we who hold the land, bound to it by a strange and stubborn love.
Scruton called it Oikophilia, this affection for the hearth and the hamlet. It is the unexplainable golden thread that stitches together British life.
What is it that binds us, we island folk, scattered across this green and misty patch of creation? It is a blend of things that are far more rich and real than mere “values”. It is the clink of glasses in the modern taproom, the wisdom of old men who know more than they say, and the chatter of younger ones who say more than they know. It is the honour that stirs in us when we speak of our heroes — of Nelson standing resolute on his quarterdeck, or Grace Darling rowing into the storm — or when we cheer the sportsman who plays not just to win, but to play well. It is the romance of Keats, and Shelley, and Wordsworth.
This is no mere nostalgia, no sentimental postcard of a Britain that never was. It is an identity, a living thing, flowing from continuity in constitution, and a love of home that anchors us to the particular. We are a people of fair play, who despise the cheat not because he wins, but because he spoils the game. We are a people of dark humour, who laugh at the rain because it falls on us all. And we are a people of decency, who still, in our better moments, hold that a man’s word is his bond and a stranger might yet be a friend.
Those who come to us from foreign shores, bearing their own tales and tongues, need not be foes to this oikophilia. They may partake in Britishness — not by erasing what they were, but by embracing what we are. For what makes this land a happy place is not simply a man’s skin, but the willingness of his heart to join the song, to laugh at the rain, to honour the decent and the true. The pub has room for all who will raise a glass to that.
That is not to defend the tidal rush of strangers across our borders, for there is a point (now far behind us) where moderation gives way to madness, and immigration, unchecked, becomes a deluge that drowns rather than waters the soil we hold dear. It is not the newcomer’s fault that he comes, drawn by the promise of a land fairer and freer than his own, but it is our folly if we fling wide the gates without thought to what we lose.
To say that our identity is a living thing has an important implication: it must be kept alive
Yet here lies the paradox, and it cuts deeper than we might wish to admit. Those who rail loudest against the newcomer — often the self-styled patriots of the right — frequently do so with the least regard for the soil they claim to defend. They decry immigration (often rightly), yet spend little time tilling the roots of their own belonging. Too many of these guardians of Britain excel at talking the talk — waving flags and thundering about sovereignty — yet falter when it comes to walking the walk. Without this labour, their cries ring hollow, a patriotism of the tongue rather than the hand. If they truly cherish this homeland, they must do more — conserve the beauty of its fields, mend the fabric of its communities, and breathe life into the traditions they profess to revere. For example, how many of the people who justly complain about our media and political classes neglecting Holy Week actually go to church?
To say that our identity is a living thing has an important implication: it must be kept alive. What of you, dear reader? If you count yourself among the conservative-hearted — those who cherish the old ways and the green heart of this island — what do you sow into this soil you swear to defend?
Britain, patriots should know, is not just to be enjoyed but to be defended, and conserved, and improved. This applies not just to what we say — our tweets, our comments, our articles et cetera — but to what we do. Do you, reader, tread our muddy paths to clear the brambles from the stile, or lend your hands to the harvest that feeds the village? Do you gather the tales of your grandfathers to pass them down? A nation’s soul is not kept alive by sentiment alone, nor by the ballot’s fleeting mark — it demands your labour, your time, your quiet resolve to mend the hedge and stoke the hearth. To love this land is to ask not merely what it owes you, but what you owe it, lest the roots you praise with your tongue wither beneath your feet.
If our politics are to thrive — if they are to do more than stumble from one petty squabble to the next — we must drink deep from this well of personal responsibility. Localism must trump the grand schemes of distant bureaucrats; fair play must silence the shrill cries of partisan rancour; humour must puncture the pompous; and identity must be our compass. For too long, we have let the rush of the present sweep us along, forgetting that a nation is not a machine to be tinkered with, but a garden to be tended. Without this rooting in the soil of our being, we may win elections, but we will not endure as a people.
Our political and cultural classes, especially those on the right who cloak themselves in the Union Jack, must awaken to this challenge. We need a deep reassessment, a remembering of Oikophilia that stretches beyond the fleeting headlines and the clatter of modern life. We must recall the monks who tamed the fens, the poets who sang of the lakes, the soldiers who fell for king and country — not as relics, but as voices calling us back to ourselves. The right-wing patriot must prove his mettle not just in the ballot box or the soapbox, but in the quiet, steady work of renewal — mending what is broken, cherishing what is good, improving what can be bettered. For if we do not, we may triumph in the moment, but we will not last through the ages. The soil is patient, but it will not wait forever. Let us dig our hands into it once more, and find there the soul of Britain anew.
