Most commentators have been over-hasty in ridiculing Sajid Javid’s proposal of an oath of allegiance to British values, to be sworn by those holding public office. It’s an opportunity to go right back to basics and ask a huge and naïve-sounding question. What is our public creed? What do we as a society hold in common?
Some sneer that there is nothing particularly British about respect for the law, tolerance, human rights. True enough, but the alternative is to call them ‘Western values’ which is more contentious, more clash-of-civilisations-ey. Those who rubbish any attempt to articulate such values make the mistake of implying that such values are just natural, shared by all decent folk everywhere. They are not. We in the West have a very precious tradition that must in some way or other be affirmed. Of course it must be affirmed in a very general way, so that people don’t get all uppity.
But can any verbal formula do the trick? I think one of the core difficulties is whether to mention religion, or rather how to mention religion. What’s wrong with this?
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