“And what should they know of England who only England know?”

Winds of the World, give answer!  They are whimpering to and fro—

And what should they know of England who only England know?—

The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,

They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag!

Kipling’s verse should be seen in context.  It is his complaint about Little Englanders, those limited fellow countrymen of his who knew and cared little about England’s obligations to the wider world.  Prevalent then and now – Brexit!  Superficially, Kipling is writing about Empire while today’s Little Englanders are “whimpering” about quitting  Europe, but the same mindset of parochial ignorance, xenophobia, national self-absorption and lack of imagination is on display.  I know Britain can no longer run to an Empire, can no longer pretend with any conviction to be a great power, but surely we should be trying to create a better world. 

My late 19th century political hero is Lord Salisbury, an intellectual, deeply religious, self-critical man.  He had to keep Britain in balance between the great powers of Europe and the Middle East while trying to hold the Empire down to manageable size, for he reckoned that conflict and killing was contained by village elders or local warlords or nation states or great confederations and the bigger the unit was, the fewer the flashpoints.  The huge British Army could barely contain the little bushfires that popped up around the globe and was never strong enough to take on any one of the other Great Powers without allying itself to another.  His main ally was Germany but as it grew too ambitious so he was forced to think about courting old enemy France. 

And now I support the European project not primarily for economic reasons or to save us from falling into savage American and Chinese hands (though these motives are very valid) but because the European Project is a fine ideal and it could be strengthened and improved by Britain, and Britain outside it could do it harm.  You see, I am old enough to remember when we could be proud of Britain’s role in the world, even just old enough to remember the Second World War (my father went away for three years), and so I am also old enough to remember when Europe last forgot to pull together. 

Note, by the way, how I have segued from “England” to “Britain”, but I do know they should never be used synonymously.  Scotland, who made such a brilliant contribution to Empire, has its pragmatic head screwed on properly, and wants to remain in Europe.  Meanwhile, at a visceral level, I like going through Europe and learning from other countries’ strengths about the failings of our own.  

Can I ever be English?

There was a phrase in Southern Africa – “pass for white” – applied to “Coloured” (Eurafrican or Eurasian) people who were light-skinned enough to pretend to be Europeans in apartheid society.  Which gave them a lot of advantages.  (It also meant they found they did not have to show a “pass”, or permit, but that’s a side issue.)  And it was a precarious existence in the longer term, particularly if you cohabited with a white and produced what we charmingly called a “throwback”, a child no longer quite light-skinned enough to pass.  Silly, really, because all the main proponents of apartheid had a little bit of black blood in their veins, just as Englishmen can boast varying amounts of Celt or Neanderthal. 

It was even tougher if you were middle class (here the term is used as a slur) – as with a lot of superficial anxieties.  Though the class structure was less pronounced than it was in European countries, being overridden by race, there was still of course a class hierarchy. 

Anyway, this is merely a long introduction to my claim that in Britain today I can pass for English.  I have to be a bit careful about my accent in the South (many Northerners cannot distinguish between a Rhodesian accent a strangulated toff’s).  Accent aficionados, of whom there are many, for the English are obsessed with accent, sometimes pinpoint me to Zimbabwe; others think I may be a New Zealander, for New Zealanders swallow their “e”s, too.  Plenty of folk cannot place me at all and if they are charitable souls may even default me to high-born.  In fact, strangers have occasionally assumed I have an entrance hall forty feet long.  Very flattering.

But eventually they sense there is something wrong.  I am deficient in an essential characteristic of the English, and that is a coating of impermeable complacency.  No migrant exhibits complacency.  And if I do find myself getting on with an English person it is probably because they have a dodgy CV – lived five years in Nigeria, an aunt married a Sri Lankan, caught cholera in Venezuela, something like that.

It is hard to avoid topics that will reveal my defect.  Sport?  I cannot stick to football, because I know nothing about it and only found out yesterday that it is what I used to call “soccer”, an excitable game played in Salisbury (Harare) by Africans.  In motor racing circles I can get by for slightly longer.  I know no cyclists.  As for politics and religion and sex: if I want a fight I can talk about them, but we’ll surely end up at cross-purposes. 

Solihull Immigration and Naturalisation Centre

Australia was very kind to me when the only passport I had was a Rhodesian one – and only South Africa and, I think, Uruguay, recognised it.  Despite my British heritage and my opposition to the Rhodesian government’s disastrous policies, the UK would not grant me a passport in the 1970s, nor even agree to admit me should I choose to rock up at Heathrow.  Canada, New Zealand, the US, even Hong Kong, were in their various ingenious ways, unhelpful.  But Australia accepted me on my perceived merits and gave me a temporary travel document.  You can see why, though I no longer live in Australia, I am fiercely proud of my Aussie passport.

I had to get a special visa when I emigrated from Australia to Britain.  My grandparents were, all four, English, but that was considered irrelevant, though two had patriotically responded to the British government’s campaigns encouraging settlers in the colonies.  But now that Empire was inconvenient I discovered that loyalty works one way only and is anyway time-limited.

Fortunately, my wife had been born in Colchester.  The Consulate in Sydney interviewed me at length before deciding our marriage of ten years was not one of convenience.  I was in – would it be worth the trouble? – but I had to apply for an “Indefinite Residence Permit” stamp in my Australian passport.  Then, after twenty years of increasing panic about immigration, it became more difficult and more expensive exercise to acquire such endorsement.  (Immigrants, by the way, are more enterprising than people who have not chosen a country but just happened to be born there.)

Anyway, I was summoned to attend the Immigration Enforcement Centre at Sandford House in Solihull, and joined the other applicants as they waited fearfully for ages in their serried rows.  My name was eventually called and three minutes later, after a perfunctory interview and a cheerful welcome, I was pronounced genuine!  Great.

But of course I am white, aren’t I?  There was an Asian student nurse ahead of me and one of her documents was slightly wrong: extension denied.  “Can I come back with the right document later?”  No, she would have to reapply from scratch.  The official’s tone was curt, unsympathetic, dismissive.  And it would have been cripplingly expensive for her.  Then there was the fellow who had bought a Post Office cover for his worn Pakistani passport, to keep it tidy, he said.  The official positively screamed at him: “The cover says ‘UK Passport’!  You are committing a criminal offence!” and the offending cover was snatched away and binned.  A large black man with a tiny baby was behind me in the queue.  He looked like Joshua Nkomo.  He was sweating with fear.  Uncharacteristically emotional, I laid my hand on his arm and whispered: “Good luck, mate.”  Officialdom was probably worse where he came from. 

At first I was not allowed to have dual nationality unless one country was my place of birth – and Zimbabwe wanted none of me.  Later the rules changed and I was allowed to hold two passports, and neither had to be my place of birth, but I carried on with just the Australian one.  There was an element of bloody-mindedness in my attitude, but I was more Australian than British, though I feel an alien in any country.  However, it became hideously expensive to have the embossed mini “Indefinite Leave” authorisation placed in my Australian passport – cheaper to become a UK citizen and sport two passports.  No more trips to Solihull.  God knows how crassly ill-mannered, after a few more years of practice, they are today. 

And when I next pass through Heathrow I hope I will be received politely, as I always have been.  And who knows, perhaps darker-hued folk will also be well-received.  And how will Brexit affect things?  I bet ours won’t ever be as offensive as the rudest of all passport officials in the history of immigration control, the South Africans at Beit Bridge in the 1950s.