Brandon To: If we no longer teach decency, we lose Britishness

Brandon To is a Politics graduate from UCL and a Hong Kong BN(O) immigrant settled in Harrow

I recently went to the cinema to watch Zootopia 2. It was a family screening: parents, young children, prams lined up outside, the usual cheerful chaos that still makes cinemas feel like one of the few genuinely shared public spaces left.

When the credits rolled and the lights came up, something struck me. Around 60, or even 70 percent of the audience simply stood up and walked out, leaving their rubbish behind.

This was not a forgotten drinks cup or an empty popcorn box. It was bags of crisps crushed into the carpet, chocolate smeared on seats and even the floor. One family had left behind what looked like a small pot of chilli sauce, overturned and trodden into the aisle. Children followed their parents out without hesitation. No one turned back. No one apologised. No one seemed to think this was unusual.

In that moment, I understood something about Britain’s litter problem that statistics and council reports never quite capture.

Why our roundabouts are strewn with rubbish. Why parks are dotted with cans and takeaway boxes. Why motorways are lined with debris casually tossed from car windows. This is not a failure of bin provision or council funding alone. It is a failure of education. Of habits, of expectations, and of civic pride.

Put simply, we have stopped teaching people, especially children, how to behave in shared spaces.

Public decency is not enforced primarily by fines or CCTV. It is enforced socially, through upbringing. Children learn very early whether leaving a mess “for someone else to deal with” is acceptable. They learn whether public spaces are neutral, disposable zones, or something they belong to and should care for.

This is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable, but unavoidable. Because this is not just about litter. It is about what we mean by Britishness.

Some may find it amusing, even irritating, that an immigrant from Hong Kong is writing about Britishness. But sometimes it takes distance to notice what familiarity has dulled. I did not grow up here. I chose this country. And when you choose a country, you tend to notice what makes it distinct.

Britishness, at its best, has never been about ethnicity or appearance. It is a civic ethic. It is restraint. Courtesy. Order. Politeness. The quiet expectation that you leave places as you found them, or better. That you queue. That you do not spit in the street. That you do not treat shared spaces as if they belong to no one.

These habits may seem small, even trivial. But they are the glue of a functioning society. When they erode, the consequences are visible everywhere—from littered streets to a general sense that “no one cares anymore”.

In recent years, parts of the political debate have taken a different direction. Some voices on the right have tried to define Britishness by race or heritage, as if behaviour were secondary. This is a profound mistake. When Britishness is reduced to how someone looks, standards stop mattering. And when standards stop mattering, disorder follows.

Anyone: Asian, African, European, or otherwise, who embraces British civic norms, respects public spaces, and teaches their children to do the same should be considered British. And anyone who persistently violates those norms, regardless of their background, has failed the most basic test of belonging: respect for the country they live in.

At the cinema that evening, after most people had left, a small number of us stayed behind. Another family, parents and children, quietly began gathering rubbish. Not just their own, but what others had left. I joined them. No one made a show of it. No one filmed it. The children copied what the adults did, instinctively.

That, in miniature, is how standards are transmitted. Not through slogans, but through example.

If Britain has a future as a cohesive country, it lies in families that still teach their children that decency matters, and that pride in one’s country is expressed not by shouting, but by care.

And if we want cleaner streets, safer parks, and a society that feels ordered rather than neglected, we must recover confidence in our own norms. Not apologise for them. Not racialise them. But teach them—patiently, firmly, to everyone, be it newcomers or locals.

Because a society that forgets how to behave forgets how to be British.