Marmite and sponge cake

As I've probably said before, I don't feel at all "British" and I don't understand those who do. The word means such totally different things to different people, I'm not even sure what I'd be identifying with.

One journalist suggests it means Wimbledon, the Shipping Forecast, Marmite, Shakespeare, Royal Weddings and Mary Berry's Victoria sponge. Goodness knows why he picked that particular combination. In any case, I have no interest in any of those things except Marmite. So does that mean I'm disgracefully un-British?

None of the things I'm actually interested in - like fiction, coffee, music, art, foreign food, ceramics - are exclusively British but come from all over the world. Which surely makes me Global or International rather than British.

Neither do I feel British in the sense that Britain is better than any other nation. That's an absurd idea. Every nation has its virtues and vices, Britain included. How can the country of rampant porn, horrendous online abuse, widespread poverty and soaring personal debt be better than any other country?

If feeling British means defending all those wonderful traditions foreigners are undermining with their weird primitive beliefs, then obviously I don't subscribe to that idea either.

Or we're expected to feel fervently British if someone British has excelled at something. When Team GB did so brilliantly at the Olympics, we were told we should be "proud of ourselves", as if I was personally responsible for such prowess. Er no, it had nothing whatever to do with me. They just happen to have similar passports.

The fact is I have a British passport only because I was born in Britain. Beyond that arbitrary accident of birth, "British" means nothing but a confusing bundle of quaint and irrelevant stereotypes.

British? Thanks, but no thanks.

No longer welcome

I can't imagine what it's like to be nervous about walking down the street, or being at work, or riding a bus, for fear someone will aim some kind of racist abuse at you. But this is happening more and more since the referendum - in England at any rate.

People are being targeted simply because they look different, or are speaking another language, or have a foreign-sounding name, or wear foreign-looking clothing. Suddenly they face a tirade of insults and threats, and often the ultimatum that they should "go back home".

No matter that they might have lived in the UK for decades, might be British citizens, might pay hefty taxes, might never have claimed benefits, might never have been unemployed. No matter how much they resemble ordinary, humdrum Brits, they are treated like some sinister alien who "doesn't fit in", who "isn't one of us".

An increasing number of those targeted, or likely to be targeted, are saying they now feel so unwelcome and so uncomfortable they are thinking of moving to another European country, or indeed back to their home country.

They came here because they saw the UK as somewhere open-minded and tolerant where they would feel accepted and appreciated, but now everything seems to have changed and they feel like suspicious outsiders.

Says one anonymous Eastern European, too scared to give her name, living in Surrey, "I have been living here for almost ten years and must say I have never felt uncomfortable until now. I don't feel comfortable to speak my own language in the street, as I don't want to provoke anyone or even to be seen as just another immigrant."

What a shocking state of affairs. As I've said before, I'm not ashamed to be British because I don't identify with the mindless bigots persecuting "foreigners" in this way. But I'm certainly not proud to live in a so-called civilised country that's so saturated with xenophobia.