I’m not sure that immigrants swearing an allegiance to Britain – as Dame Louise Casey has suggested, lamenting the lack of integration among many migrant communities – is quite in the British tradition.
Historically, incomers didn’t develop allegiance to the United Kingdom through any formal coercion by the state. They “absorbed” Britishness through personal experience, through national activities such as the Last Night of the Proms, Christmas carol services, the Trooping of the Colour and the Queen’s Christmas Day broadcast. And, possibly, cricket.
