The Non-Drinkers Are Coming

Britain's drinking culture is under siege

Recently, Britain has been under invasion. The statistics are shocking and, like many, I am lamenting, "What is happening to this country?" But wait — before I am accused of painting St George’s Crosses on roundabouts and making rackets outside Portsmouth hotels, that’s not where this article is going. Indeed, it concerns itself with a completely different, truly disturbing crisis: sobriety is settling in Britain.  

Yes, recent research all points towards drinking culture’s decline in Britain as people choosing sobriety are quickly multiplying. Gen Z, in particular, is drinking significantly less than previous generations, with supposedly 21% being teetotal and considerably more foregoing the great British binge entirely. However, whilst this supposed death of British drinking culture is being praised by influencers, health gurus, andother perverts, I consider it my patriotic duty to warn of the consequences of a teetotal Britain.  

One of our uniquely British characteristics is our veneration of booze. No other nation can get as utterly s***-faced in whatever distant town Mr. Ryanair can reach. We are a people who would go to the opening of an envelope if there was booze at the function. How else would we get through sports matches, funerals, or our niece’s third birthday party? We must be intoxicated, and a humble J20 doesn’t provide the buzz it used to. It’s perfected at university with raucous Wednesday nights, “welcome drinks,” and slurred society chants. As a fellow British student, I don’t see a drunken fresher or a “tactful chunner,” I see a patriot.  

 or ‘Tubthumping’ by Chumbawamba. Who would take the baton to preserve such heritage if we went sober? Would British culture collapse? 

OK, I jest, but there is some truth about sobriety’s incompatibility with Britain: it’s reflective of an obsession with perfectionism that has just never suited us. 

Today this attack comes not from the few who cannot drink for religious or medical reasons, but from influencers who bang on endlessly about “wellness” and “the grind.” In this virtuous vein, they are convincing the world to go sober. They have an extreme suspicion of pleasure and indulgence, a water bottle fetish, and recipes for blueberry-protein-oat-based pancakes the same colour and taste as clothes dryer filter fluff. They are sober, smug, and strangely familiar ... 

Looking to the 17^th Century, there’s an uncanny reflection of the Puritans who similarly condemned any pleasure and excess, particularly drunkenness. Their beliefs were initially rejected by most Britons for being as weird as they were boring, and consequently the Puritans rightly deported themselves in 1620 to set up their own land to be run by sober madmen where it remains as such today. Unfortunately, the Puritans gained control over England in 1649, but after eleven years of sobriety and sinlessness under Cromwell, the misery finally ended with a drunken cheer by (as any British child knows) “The king who brought back partying.” Any future attempts to condemn boozing always failed. British drinking culture brought communities together. It was ingrained in our traditions and today remains part of our raucous, imperfect, but unpretentious personality.  

Fast-forward to 2026, and health obsessives are trying to recreate Cromwell’s Britain, warts and all. However, whilst temperance resonates with American almond mums channelling their Puritan ancestors, Britian cannot surrender its future again to soulless and sober misery. And I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my glass sleep in my hand, till we have our boozing back in Britain’s green and pleasant land.  

Illustration from Wikimedia Commons