I don’t get the British obsession with pub culture – there are more important things to save than boozers

There’s always been something curious to me about how tightly the UK is gripped by pub culture. It was an endearing oddity in my younger years: a quintessentially British pastime, harmful only to those who took things too far, like the ones I grew up seeing shamed on the news, spilling drunkenly out of venues, or vomiting on high streets.  

But it wasn’t until recently that I realised just how deep this affinity for the boozer goes. Or, more accurately, how closely tied to nationalism it seems to have become.  

I say this as someone who appreciates pubs. Though the notion of spending a number of evenings down the local wasn’t what I was used to seeing in my family, the whole experience is something I really do enjoy. Or used to. The loss of them wasn’t the first thing I thought of when lockdown first hit, but it was one of many former pleasures I did, eventually, find myself pining after.  

As much as I complained about it pre-corona, I’ve since come to enjoy the idea of going to one of my locals and knowing I’d likely bump into a friend or some childhood acquaintance, whether we wanted to bump into each other or not. There can be a beautiful sense of community in pubs, and the staff responsible for keeping that going should be valued.

Still, when a piece I’d edited and commissioned about a writer’s distaste for pub culture amassed widespread abuse and harassment at the start of lockdown, in many cases because it was seen to be a veiled attack on Britishness, I was reminded of the depths of the issue with the culture.  

Some of the criticism came from an understandable place. Pubs are businesses, and for people who have a stake in them, whether as owners, employers, employees, or punters, the idea of people delighting in their indefinite closure must be a horrifying thought. But for many other industries, that nightmare has been a reality for months now.  

When the recent coronavirus ban on gatherings of more than six came in a couple of weeks ago, and pubs and restaurants remained open, it felt like a grave mistake had been made. When more restrictions were announced this week, it was even more baffling. I wondered why it was that other buildings, businesses and support systems were seen as disposable, why those who do not see the pub as a staple in their lives were treated as throwaways. I knew the answer deep down, really. We all do. But I couldn’t shake that anger about our leaders’ insistence on retaining a culture that, in my view at least, we don’t need and, contrary to popular belief, haven’t always had.  

My colleague Sean O’Grady awakened me to that fact this week. Fifteen years ago, long before I’d ever been served in a pub, Tony Blair introduced the licensing act as part of ambitions to encourage a more “European” drinking culture in the UK.

Back then, many pubs closed at 11pm, or earlier, giving rise to worries that binge-drinking-related crime would soar once the landmark legislation came into effect. We now know that it didn’t. In fact, despite being received rather poorly initially, with fears that it would give way to a lawless trend of “24-hour drinking”, the new rules were soon accepted.  

Going back even further before the 1988 Licensing Act, it was against the law for pubs to open on weekday afternoons, and evening closing times were even earlier, between 6:30 and 9:30pm. These changes have been happening for centuries, and as long as they have been, people have largely adapted.

I say all that because as much as some people are comforted by so-called “tradition”, the idea that the way we know things to be is how they should remain in perpetuity is ridiculous, even more so in a pandemic, an issue of literal life and death for tens of thousands. The fact that our leaders are playing on the public’s sense of attachment to this culture is even more shameful. For those who do not drink, or for a number of valid reasons, do not enjoy pub culture or don’t see it as part of their heritage, keeping these establishments open for the sake of nationalism is terribly selfish at best. At worst, it could be deadly.  

Our sense of Britishness is not contingent on pubs being open. Having a pint is not a birthright. I’d rather see the government prioritise job retention and better support systems for anyone struggling right now, whether with addiction, exposure to domestic violence, homelessness, the list goes on.  

There are mounting crises, some of them predating the pandemic, that we urgently need to rally behind. Stubbornly opposing the closure of pubs as part of some misguided, flag-waving preservation of the status quo is not one of them.