What do you mean by English culture? It's such a hard thing to define, there are so many different facets of it. The culture is different depending on where you live and what class you were born into and even the class barriers are shifting.
What does it mean to be English? Many people hark back to this idealised 1950s rose-tinted world view along the lines of John Major when he talked nostalgically about vicars daughters cycling to church through country lane. The thing is the idealised 1950s view of the world never really existed. Yes things were different then, but life was grindingly tough for many people.
Mass immigration started in the 1950s when the governement invited people from the Commonwealth to come to the country to do the menial work that the British didn't want to. Those people experienced outright racism like you wouldn't believe. The young muslims that you see in the town centres are probably 2nd or 3rd generation and are British in every sense of the word. So what if they keep hold of their culture? If I moved abroad I would keep alive the traditions from my country.
I live in the south of England and work with lots of successful muslims. I don't feel threatened by that. Why should I? When I was a supply teacher in Manchester I found it so much nicer to teach in the muslim schools rather than white schools, because the muslim school children were so enthusastic and hard-working. My job was a pleasure rather than dealing with the outright abuse I got in other schools.
If you feel British culture is under threat, what would you like to see done differently? We don't really celebrate St Georges Day the way the Irish celebrate St Patricks day, perhaps you could start by organising a St George's day event on April 23rd this year in your local pub. What else would you do to celebrate our culture? A national tea-drinking competition? An event celebrating our greatest writers from Chaucer to Pinter?
We are a nation of immigrants! There a very few pure-blooded celts left here. Most people in the UK are such a mixture of different culture the idea of a pure-blooded white Briton is ridiculous! Our culture is a mish-mash of imported ideas and traditions from around the world. Our language has absorbed words and phrases from so many other cultures (although in the top 100 most commonly used words the majority are based on original Anglo-Saxon words). The influence the arab world has had on our culture over the centuries is immeasurable.
One of the great characteristics of the English is their tolerance and understanding of other people. So if you want to be an embodiment of English culture, perhaps you can start there!
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