There is a reason we call our little island, “Great Britain.” It is a nation saturated with thousands of years of history, innovation and culture. But above all, it is home. Home to millions of people with millions of different stories and a rich blend of faiths and cultures. As someone who is from a few different places in the world, being born in Canada to Scottish/Irish and Italian parents, I’ve only found one nation I can truly identify with: Britain. I was raised to admire it, to value its institutions, and to believe in the quiet strength of its tolerance. It was a country that, to me, stood for fairness, decency and the ability of different communities to live side by side without fear.

Today, my perspective on Britain has changed. The sense of cohesion and tolerance I once took for granted has begun to fade, replaced by hostility and tension. The Britain I grew up in, a tolerant and confident nation, feels unrecognizable.

My first memory of this change was in 2017 when eleven-year-old me was visiting my grandmother in hospital. As I was in the........

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