The British must decide if they are lions or lambs

50 years since Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech, racism still fuels much of the Brexit debate
Rex Features
Mihir Bose15 August 2018

Four years ago, while on holiday in Yorkshire, my wife and I met a farmer who admitted that he relied heavily on EU subsidies but said that he would vote to leave the European Union. The money did not matter. There were far too many people flooding into this country. Then, having told me, “I can see you are from Sri Lanka”, he said: “I want my country back.”

However, while the farmer got my country of origin wrong — I come from India — his words have resonated with me since the Brexit vote. What country did the farmer want back? That of the rapacious “lion” or the cuddly “lamb”, whose favourite word is “sorry”?

This has always been the British dilemma. In the days of Empire the country had a democratic face at home — Magna Carta, the right of habeas corpus — but in the colonies would ruthlessly crush rebellion, blowing people from cannons, flogging, firing on unarmed crowds and machine-gunning rebels from the air.

In the past 50 years I have seen both sides of this British duality. I arrived here as a student nine months after Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech in 1968 with much talk of sending home “coloured” people, as we were called. Two weeks after my arrival an old lady I met in Loughborough who, thinking I had lived here for a long time because of my good English, suggested I return to India and use my education to improve the poverty stricken country.

Four weeks later I was elected president of Loughborough Students’ Union. One female student said: “I voted for him because he seems honest. Looking at his face I feel he will not run away with the cash.” Not that the union had much cash to pilfer.

In London until well into the Eighties this duality struck me. Landladies often refused to rent out bedsits to me — one in Hampstead confessed that her husband would not like an Indian in the house while prefacing her racist rejection with, “I’m sorry”.

London then could be a frightful place for people of colour. I was assaulted on the Tube and often called a “Paki” but for every rapacious lion who wanted to devour me there were a dozen lambs keen to reassure me the lions did not represent this country. In India the only job I got was through nepotism; in this country I fulfilled my ambition to be a writer. And when I became the BBC’s first sports editor it was not because my father was the director-general.

I have seen this country change for the better, but the Brexit debate shows that the fundamental conflict between the lions and lambs has not been resolved. It is understandable that India, the land of my birth, has terrible problems resolving its complicated history. This country, with a more glorious history, should be mature enough to do so. Unless it does so Brexit will never be resolved.

  • Lion and Lamb: A Portrait of British Moral Duality by Mihir Bose is published by Haus Curiosities, £7.99