Campaign seeks 50 objects to ‘take the heat’ out of Englishness debate

For some people it’s a Morris Minor, for others, a beach windbreak, chicken tikka masala or Magna Carta.A new campaign is aiming to collect 50 objects that sum up Englishness in an effort to move the conversation away from reductive arguments over whether to hang a St George’s flag or not.Supported by the Green party politician Caroline Lucas, the musician and campaigner Billy Bragg, and Kojo Koram, a law professor, the A Very English Chat campaign hopes to tackle England’s growing social divisions and political polarisation by encouraging people to share the five objects that define their Englishness in 2026.Cultural artefacts might be objects, places, people or even anecdotes. Contributions also include music, food and nature; anything that captures people’s feelings around, stories of and affinities – or lack thereof – with England.These will be collected and used to make items such as decks of cards, posters, T-shirts and tea towels for St George’s Day on 23 April.Andy Green, the founder of the campaign, which is funded by donations, said he was aiming to “take the heat” out of divisive conversations around Englishness, which often revolve around battles over whether to display a St George’s flag.A family have a picnic in the sand dunes in Norfolk, England, protected by a windbreak. Photograph: Jill Mead/Alamy“Our country is tearing itself apart – [similarly to] what we’re witnessing in America – and we urgently need to take action to avoid sleepwalking down the same path,” he said.“With St. George’s Day approaching we want to create a richer, inclusive way of responding to what will be another focal point for our divided identity.”He is seeking to encourage a nuanced, wider ranging, more generous chat around the things – from the historically significant to the seemingly incidental or amusing – that connect English people and tell a bigger story.The initiative is supported by the Jo Cox Foundation’s More in Common Network and other social campaign groups, including Grow Social Capital, which helps communities tell their collective story from the bottom up.Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.For Lucas, author of Another England, a book exploring English identity and how the country’s underlying narratives fuel division, one of the cultural artefacts that sums up Englishness is The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.She said the project “could not be timelier and more important”.“With the UK more divided than ever, by bringing individuals and communities together to share their own reflections on national identity, we can discover far more compelling and inclusive stories of who we are and who we can be,” she added.Marmite was one of the objects chosen by Billy Bragg. Photograph: StellaPhotography/AlamyBragg, who chose Marmite and George Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn, said: “Patriotism is about giving a shit about your country. Identity is always contested. We’ve seen that with the arguments about flags on lampposts. But what do those symbols mean? This project to bring Englishness into focus could not be more timely.”Kojo Koram said: “At a time when conversations about identity can so easily become polarised or exclusionary, this initiative offers something generous, open and unifying. England has always been shaped by layers of history, culture, creativity and dissent. To explore that richness through shared reflection, feels both necessary and hopeful. It reminds us that England isn’t just something that is but something we can continually make.”