Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, recently took a pop at immigrants who she accused of failing to ‘embrace British values’. But these newcomers to our shores might be forgiven for being confused about what these ‘values’ are. We live in a country, after all, in which misgendering someone can land you in hot water but chanting for ‘jihad’ on the streets of London is deemed acceptable. Britain is a place where we frequently express solidarity with victims of terror attacks and atrocities yet stay strangely silent on the plight of Israel after the slaughter of hundreds of its citizens.
We hear talk of ‘values’ all the time but no one seems able to define them. Rishi Sunak told us last month that 20mph zones ‘aren’t the right values of the British people’. When Nigel Farage’s bank account was closed by Coutts, an internal dossier revealed that his Brexity views didn’t fit with the bank’s ‘values’. When people get cancelled, we often hear a stock phrase rolled out: ‘So-and-so’s tweet didn’t reflect our values’. It’s a polite, libel-swerving way of saying ‘this person isn’t our cup of tea’.
Britain is a place where we frequently express solidarity with victims of terror attacks yet stay silent on the plight of Israel
Every business these days, from ice cream companies to smoothie manufacturers, has its own values. Even the most innocuous products and businesses link noisily to modern slavery statements on their sites.
This is fair enough, I suppose, but I always kind of took it as read that, for example, Frazzles were not the product of unwaged toil. I trusted Smith’s Crisps that far, as much as I thought about them at all. Likewise the slew of statements against racism made at the febrile height of BLM fever in 2020, from brands as diverse as the Royal Society For The Arts, Vogue, Nike and The Vicar Of Dibley. I had assumed that the Reverend Geraldine Granger was not prone to sermons along the lines of ‘send them back’. But all of a sudden these people seemed awfully keen to let us know how impeccable they were. Brands are also very keen to trumpet their achievements on what they call the ‘gender pay gap’. This is especially odd, considering that it was made illegal to pay men and women a different wage for the same job in the UK in June 1975.
After hearing so many of these identical platitudes, you long to click on one and see something unexpected, like ‘Our values are those of the Ducal House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg between 1715-1761’ or ‘Our values are the Cathar heresy; we are passionate about Gnosticism and the dualism of the twin-natured God’. Or even: ‘Here at Brand X, we believe that grease is the word that you heard, it’s got groove, it’s got meaning.’ But no: it’s always, always the same bromide buzzwords.
Lloyd’s Banking Group, for example, tells us: ‘Our values are the foundation of our culture. They underpin the work of everyone here, from the Chief Executive to branch colleagues’ and goes on to list them – ‘people-first, bold, inclusive, sustainable and trust (sic)’.
Generally these statements make people and firms sound very non-specifically high minded, particularly when they’re sacking someone. You’d think trade unions would be all over this transparent and arbitrary exercise of power by the boss class, but they have more ‘values’ than anybody. The National Education Union, for example, has a lovely diagram on its website of its values, including inclusivity, empowerment, and integrity all linked to ‘commitment’: ‘We have a shared commitment to making a positive difference to our organisation, our members, the education sector and wider society.’
Yet when it comes to Israel’s plight, too many of these institutions fall silent. The NEU, in it defence, has spoken up for Israeli and Palestinian victims this month – but what about the other organisations that like to hold forth on ‘values’? Footballers are still taking the knee for BLM but few of them appear to be doing much to speak up for Israel after the terrible atrocity of 7 October; the FA didn’t even bother to light up Wembley’s arch as it did for the people of Ukraine at the start of their conflict. Why not? And while the Met cracks down with zero tolerance on hate crimes, does it consider what ordinary Jews in London might think of its pronouncements on which type of ‘jihad’ is acceptable to shout about?
‘With London communities and our people, we’ve reset our values and guiding principles to help deliver cultural reform across the Met,’ London’s police force tells us, before reeling off the typical jargon words beloved of HR departments. But when Jews are understandably afraid of what is playing out on the streets of London, these words offer little reassurance. I’ve had enough of wordy values that mean nothing – and I’m sure I’m not alone.
It’s becoming all too clear that these precious production-line values are pathetic. The businesses and organisations that shout about them in the easy times crumble or go strangely silent at the first hint of difficulty. There have been almost no statements of support for British Jews from big institutions. They are all suddenly as dumb as they were vocal in 2020 at the height of the BLM protests. Such pompous pronouncements of values are valueless. Perhaps speaking the truth about meaningless values is a value that Brits can finally get behind.
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