"Do pubs represent Britishness and British life too much for their liking?"
Unfortunately yes. We're seen as a nation of uncontrollable piss heads by many in other nations, precisely because we as a society seem addicted to the abuse of alcohol. It's a powerful, addictive drug. Ah yes, but of course, we raise a LOAD of tax from it. So that kind of shoots your argument in the foot, as politicians like money, even if it's from state permitted drug addicts. It allows them to do things that help them keep their jobs, cynical b'stards that many of them are.
But post-Brexit we need to get our act together individually and collectively. We make next to nothing. We're a service society, like it or not. Have been for years. With a few exceptions on quality products, there's no going back, unless you like the idea of reverting to 60p per hour wages to compete with less labour-expensive countries?
And being that means having your brain in good order, not half stewed by whatever six pints of local brew you quaffed down over lunch. Those days are over. For those who think it's not, good luck keeping / getting your next job. Employers simply don't want piss heads on their books any more, they cost them money. So people drink less and control their drinking, particularly over lunch. That impacts pub profits and the number that can afford to stay open.
But the pubs problem goes back even further than that. The limit on blood alcohol whilst driving was a major factor closing down country pubs, which is why so many diversified and offer meals, compared to town pubs. Customers simply can't risk it, so at least 25% of any family car (50% of adults = the drinkers in the vehicle) aren't going to be knocking back alcohol if they're behind the wheel.
And it goes back still further. Heavy drinking's less tolerated by society and the workplace, and the workplace itself has shifted from manufacturing sectors where you sweated buckets all day and needed to down six pints of mild to get yourself rehydrated (mining, steel mills, docks) to non-manufacturing jobs. Brewers were consolidating even in the 1960s and 1970s and closing down unprofitable pubs in areas where heavy labouring jobs no longer existed.
So yes, the pandemic's caused pubs problems, but it goes back way, way further, arguably to 1945 and the end of the British Empire, and maybe even the turn of the 19th/20th centuries, where we ceased to be the predominant manufacturing hub of the world. That, and we've got two generations who are better educated about personal health, so openly avoid heavy drinking, as they recognise that alcohol is a highly addictive drug which quickly causes behaviour problems. It's only the older generations that are dying out or heading for retirement that think it's still acceptable to get regularly tanked up and damage your health, the NHS and sometimes the very lives of those around you.
Times change.
