The London Underground has its own species of mosquito, uniquely evolved in the dark subterranean tunnels that connect the city’s neighbourhoods. In fact, so distinct are these biospheres that the mosquitoes on the Piccadilly line are different from those on the Bakerloo line.
These pests are perfect ambassadors for the story of London writ large. Not because the capital is hostile and parasitic – though it oftentimes is. Instead, just as the tube has become evolutionarily isolated from the surface of the city, London’s ecosystem is distinct, and it sits outside narratives of Britishness.
We are all too familiar with the dominating ideas about British decline. It is apparently a nation clinging on to ideas it was once defined by: global supremacy, an empire on which the sun could not set. Brexit, rather than releasing the United Kingdom from its chains, instead replaced them with shinier British-made ones – not the same but just as suffocating.
We should be wary of these claims – they are often overblown and based in a snobby dismissal of “Little England”. But their actual veracity here is secondary. Because just as the Piccadilly line mosquito does not feel the environmental change of Yorkshire, London in many ways is a city that transcends whatever the rest of the country is doing.
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Whatever wonderful images of old-fashioned Englishness we can conjure up, they are more appropriately ascribed to the shires than Soho
It sits not above nor below these diagnoses of Britishness, but simply apart from them. Cities follow their own trends, sometimes becoming so gargantuan they could not possibly reflect the identity of the nation they belong to. No one could go to New York and claim to make credible assessments about the qualities of pan-Americanness. Chicago is not an indicative microcosm of the American midwest. Super-cities are global. They are defined by thousands of international inputs. London’s characterisation as a cultural “melting pot” is a cliche only because it is true.
But its international reputation may still precede reality. Come to London and you are unlikely to be greeted by a man in a bowler hat; there are not many places left to eat pie and jellied eels; the East End is not overrun by Dickensian Urchins; top hats and monocles do not populate affluent Mayfair. And whatever wonderful images of old-fashioned Englishness we can conjure up, they are more appropriately ascribed to the shires than Soho.
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What you might find instead is a banker from India, an Uber driver from London’s northwestern suburbs, every continent represented in the consultancy firms, and a friendly American guiding you around Cezanne’s exhibition in the Tate Modern. In very recent years, Westminster may have been a place of hostile home secretaries – each somehow conspiring to be less friendly than the last – but London is one of those rare western metropolises where immigrants might be more welcome than tourists.
The city’s gravitational pull has always been strong for the Irish. In the middle of the 20th century, they moved to Kilburn in the city’s northwest, a place still teeming with Irish pubs. Then to Camden, where the London Irish centre bustles with visitors. Then on to Clapham – leafy and south of the river, beloved by young professionals. Now, the Irish are off to the trendy Hackney, as they hone in on the cafe and canal culture of London’s northeast.
Brexit may reduce the number of Irish people who move here in the short term but it does not seem likely to reverse the long-held trend
It is a natural city for Irish émigrés – in 2011, the Irish-born population of London was 162,581. The professional opportunities and largely similar culture help, the proximity and shared language probably matter more. Success is found in all places – whether a corner office in Goldman Sachs, a construction site in Nine Elms, a kitchen in the West End or a gallery in the southeast.
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Of course it is not just the Irish who make up London’s cosmopolitan nature. While walking up and down the queue of people waiting to see the queen lying in state something became overwhelmingly apparent – if there was just one characteristic of being a Londoner, it is that it is as much an adopted identity as it is an inherent one. We were told so many times that coronavirus would be the death knell of cities – especially those of overwhelming scale. The draw of a back garden would ultimately outweigh any perceived benefit of urban density. And the toxic potion of the pandemic and Brexit would reduce London’s financial supremacy to dust, too.
In spite of all of this, the city has not lost its magnetic pull. The anonymity of such a vast city is obviously still alluring. Brexit may reduce the number of Irish people who move here in the short term but it does not seem likely to reverse the long-held trend. There may be plenty of things to say about the direction of the nation, especially as it gets swept up in the tides of European crises and a bad government.
But if you stand on London Bridge and look north to the City of London – the financial district with its towering glass skyscrapers – does it really look like a place in decline? You may have to suspend your faith in screeds about the city’s fate. But optimism – self-deception, sometimes – are what cities are all about. The mosquitoes aren’t that bad either.
