The conceit that we can “define and express” our own identity is perhaps the cruellest hoax ever perpetrated on civilised peoples. We are neither clever enough nor strong enough to do so; to the extent that we succeed in such an endeavour, we make ourselves into monsters. There is a better word for postmodern identity, and that is anomie. Cut off from its past, the postmodern West has no vision of its future, and its most characteristic response is to fail to bring children into the world, thus ensuring that it will have no future of any kind.

The New Nationalism proposes instead to return to the well of our national culture. But what is this? T.S. Eliot’s formulation seems quaint today: “[T]he term culture . . . includes all the characteristic activities and interests of a people: Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the 12th of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin table, the dart board, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, 19th century Gothic churches, and the music of Elgar.” The enumeration of “characteristic activities and interests” hardly seems adequate. The Brexit vote did not coincide with a renewed fancy for grouse shooting. We must isolate what is sacred in our culture from the merely contingent. In the contemporary United Kingdom this may seem an odd endeavour, given that a majority (53 per cent) of all Britons and nearly three-quarters of young people declared themselves to be non-religious in the 2017 Social Attitudes Survey. But the sacred does not necessarily manifest itself in organised religion. One gauge of British identity is stronger than ever. Three-quarters of Britons believe that the monarchy has an important role to play in Britain’s future, compared to only two-thirds shortly after the death of Princess Diana.

Democracy without an overarching sense of the sacred would be a nightmare. The American Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod wrote in 2010:

To discuss theological criteria for the constitution of a secular republic runs against the grain of modern political thought, even though constitutional restrictions on popular sovereignty imply reliance on an authority that is greater than human. In a republic the people are sovereign, yet the purpose of a constitution is precisely to restrict the power of any future majority . . . The only basis for a polity to accept severe restrictions on popular majority rule is the conviction that the founding constitution derives its power from a higher form of sovereignty than the voters in any given legislative session. Without such a theological foundation, a republic cannot feel bound by the rules laid down by its founders. A purely secular republic would self-destruct because it could not protect its constitution from constant amendment.