Only 45% of the young are proud to be English

FEWER than half of young people are proud to call themselves English, a BBC research project reveals.

Their patriotism is in doubt even though most associated English identity with civilised values, it found.

Only 45 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24 living in England told a large-scale poll that they were proud to identify as English.

Nearly one in ten were embarrassed to be English, and another eight per cent said they did not call themselves English at all.

Yet more than seven out of ten teenagers and young people in their early 20s linked Englishness with good manners and a sense of humour, and a majority connected English identity with tolerance and a sense of fair play.

Most people in all age groups felt Englishness means people are welcoming, friendly, generous and likely to show a stiff upper lip.

The decline of patriotism is greatest among the young, while at older ages, pride in being English is felt strongly, the poll of more than 20,000 people found. The BBC called it the ‘largest and most comprehensive’ attempt to chart beliefs and feelings about Englishness. But it failed to ask about views of immigration – in contrast with a similar research project published last week which said most people in Britain believe immigration has had a damaging effect on the country.

Just over half of those in their late 20s, 30s and 40s take pride in their English identity, the survey said. However nearly two thirds of those in their 50s and early 60s, and more than seven out of 10 over-65s did, the research found.

Among all age groups, the most common view of England was that it is better than most other countries. More than three quarters of adults between 18 and 50, and over eight in ten older people, think of themselves as English.

By contrast, only one in four people call themselves European. They are most likely to be found among Liberal Democrat supporters, among whom, the BBC poll said, more than half think of themselves as Europeans. No other group had a majority that considered themselves primarily Europeans. Even among referendum Remain voters, fewer than half said they were European, but 72 per cent indicated they were English with 44 per cent proud to be.

Just over one in ten see themselves as belonging to a country outside the UK. The survey conducted for a BBC project on the ‘English Question’ follows a similar exercise by the prominent Leftleaning think tank Demos, published last week. Both organisations found that most people think the past was better than the future is likely to be.

The Demos paper said people in Britain were united around the view that immigration has harmed the country. But the BBC queried only whether people thought history, tradition and pageantry were important in England. Fewer than half those under 50 thought they were important, while most of those over 50 thought they were.

The BBC consulted former Labour Cabinet Minister John Denham, director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Winchester. He said: ‘Young people will tend to be less patriotic than older people wherever they are, whether that’s England, Scotland or Wales. They will have a more cosmopolitan view of the world.’