National Conversation Project Launches Amid Warning of Divided Britain

Sajid Javid has warned that Britain risks “being torn apart by our differences” as a new nationwide initiative, the National Conversation, asks the public to define what it means to be British.

The Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion, co-chaired by Javid, the former Conservative chancellor, and Jon Cruddas, the former Labour Party policy chief, is urging people to share their personal vision for their community and country.

The commission includes human rights and counter-extremism activist Sara Khan, former West Midlands mayor Andy Street, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chair Laura Marks, former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, and Reform UK activist Tim Montgomerie.

Convened by the Together Coalition, the nonprofit cohesion campaign co-founded by Brendan Cox, widower of murdered MP Jo Cox, the commission aims to map out a shared vision for the future amid what it calls a fraught and fractured political climate.

Key questions driving the National Conversation project include what it means to be British, English, Scottish or Welsh. The research seeks to determine what unites and divides the public, what connects neighbors, and what makes the country feel like home.

“Our country is in real peril,” Javid said. “Unless we can regain a shared sense of what unites us – of what we have in common – we risk being torn apart by our differences.”

“That vision won’t come from politicians – it can only come from the public,” he added. “I’m a great believer in the wisdom of the public – we hope this conversation gives that wisdom voice.”

Members of the public are asked to complete a 10-minute survey and leave a 60-second voice note detailing their vision for the future, after providing information about their neighborhood.

Thousands of small group discussions, organized by partner organizations, will also take place across the country.

Melinda Mills, a professor of demography at Oxford’s Nuffield College and director of the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, which designed the survey, said artificial intelligence had “revolutionised” the ability to conduct mass listening exercises. The voice notes would be analyzed for “the language people choose, the emotional register, the texture of how they actually talk about their communities,” she said.

Polling by the British Red Cross last month found that 75% of UK adults believe Britain is divided, and 72% said the country has become more divided over the past five years.

A report combining public insight with academic research, expert testimony, and commissioners’ deliberations will be published later this year.

Previous commission exercises have gathered evidence on housing, education, the economy, and trust, with testimony from figures including Conservative peer Michael Gove, historian Mary Beard, former Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson, and former Prime Minister David Cameron.

Cruddas said: “Rebuilding Britain’s social fabric and sense of community has never been more urgent. But the answers to this don’t lie in Westminster. They lie in communities up and down the country. That’s why the National Conversation is at the heart of how we rebuild a shared vision of our country.”

James Graham, the playwright and author of “Dear England,” the stage portrayal of former England manager Gareth Southgate, advised on the project’s design. He said he hoped the initiative would be “the first serious attempt” to set out a shared national vision “in a political climate that often seeks to divide us.”