WHEN Tony Blair unleashed mass immigration on Britain in 2004 it was supposed to be good for us.
There is no reason why such ceremonies – reaffirming our Britishness and where our loyalties lie – should not take place regularly in schools across the country.
But we wouldn’t do it because it seems embarrassing or it might upset some sense of lingering multiculturalism.
However in the US they’re far less troubled by such displays and the part of the beauty of travelling throughout that country is seeing so many stars and stripes waving outside people’s homes.
In a country built on immigration they know that patriotism and a cohesive “American way” is not just a matter of taste, it’s a matter of national survival.
That’s why Donald Trump’s robust call to arms about the downside of mass immigration is playing so well in the American heartlands, especially among blue-collar workers.
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Trump’s supporters are now pointing to our Brexit as a way of liberating voters from their traditional tribal loyalties to the old Left or Right parties.
“Throughout history,” writes Buchholz, “prosperous nations have suffered from a powerful tendency to fissure, splinter and lose their unifying mission.”
In his book he quotes the research of Harvard Professor Robert Putnam which showed that citizens in diverse societies are less willing to work together, less good at volunteering to help the organisations that make their society civilised.
The results so shocked the liberal Putnam that he buried them for six years.
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The most extreme results of a splintered society have been seen only recently in a succession of violent events in France where alienated Muslim communities are at odds with their more prosperous secular and Christian neighbours.
When I was researching my book Protest Vote, former GMB trade union leader John Edmonds told me that the mass immigration policy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was part of a deliberate attempt to create a low wage, less regulated economy.
It hit manufacturing unions badly, trade union membership went down, which had a knock-on effect on grassroots campaigning for the Labour Party.
“But Blair is not going to get upset because there are fewer trade union activists in the Labour Party.
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I mean this is paradise,” said Edmonds.
“Blair didn’t want members of the Labour Party, he wanted voters.”
The consequences of this can be seen today in a shattered Labour Party – one of the prime organisations that kept Britain’s working class on the same page.
Now that unity has been betrayed and those same voters proved crucial in making Brexit happen.
If Labour isn’t taking care of them then they’ll work together to reverse the tide of immigration and wave the Union flag.
Their Britishness is their one point of certainty.
Ukip will benefit from this shift in electoral loyalty – just as Trump will in the US with his own “Make America Great Again” campaign.
Our middle-class decisionmakers are aghast at these developments but they need to catch up now with this patriotic working-class energy because instinctively it is making the same point as Buchholz’s book.
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If we need immigration then it needs to be controlled and effectively integrated.
This begins at school and we must embrace our national history and culture – not be embarrassed by it – and have more civic rituals that link our newest and youngest citizens to our British way of life.
Our traditional tolerance needs to be shown to be a two-way street, not a sign of weakness exploited by religious extremists.
There should be no room for faith schools teaching intolerance.
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Brexit should be at the heart of a “British way” – mirroring the American way – that celebrates independence, teamwork and our unfailing entrepreneurial spirit.
That should be the unifying mission, the sense of purpose that brings us together as a nation.
It’ll make us richer, happier and more at ease with each other.
That is a prize worth fighting for – and our middle-class decision-makers need to get on board with it before it’s too late.
