Main Edition
US
FR
September 4, 2024 - 1:30pm
The 2023 survey data published this week by the National Centre for Social Research is revealing on the subject of how Britons think about themselves. The survey shows that while the UK is an overwhelmingly inclusive society in terms of how people frame British identity and belonging, there remains a significant minority which continues to support more ethnocentric and exclusionary understandings of these qualities.
According to the data, a little over two in three people (68%) believe in a “primarily civic” conception of British identity. This group gravitates towards “attributes” of national belonging such as having respect for Britain’s political institutions and its laws, holding British citizenship, and “feeling” British. Per the 2023 data, 86% of people believe that respecting the country’s political institutions and the rule of law is an important element for being “truly British”.
There is a significant proportion of society — just under one in five people — which reports a “primarily ethnic” understanding of British identity. It is not a fringe group by any stretch of the imagination. This rises to 20% for white Britons, 26% for those aged 65 years and over, and 27% for people with no formal qualifications. It is worth noting that compared to those who support more “civic” framings, these people are more likely to be proud of British history but less likely to take pride in how our democracy works.
The profile of Britons who hold more ethnocentric understandings of what it means to be British somewhat overlaps with many who participated in the recent riots which engulfed relatively left-behind parts of England. That is, members of the White British majority who tend to be older, who hold anti-establishment views, and who have spent less time in formal education. Some of those sentenced to prison over the violent unrest are well into their 60s, such as 69-year-old retired welder William Nelson Morgan. Separate to the riots, but relevant nonetheless, it was unemployed 66-year-old Andrew Leak who threw firebombs at an immigration processing centre in Dover back in October 2022.
Other European countries such as France, Germany, and the Netherlands have more coherent and influential hard-Right movements, in which younger intellectual “protectionists” play an influential role. The story in modern Britain is somewhat different, with the recent violent unrest being disorganised, fragmented, and spontaneous in nature — much of it the fury of radicalised indigenous middle-agers. They are a world apart from the cosmopolitan mindsets of many younger Britons, who in high numbers — socialised on modern university campuses — take a generally dimmer view of British history and hold relatively liberal views on immigration-induced diversity.
The recent public disorder across parts of England and the new data published by NatCen Social Research should be a major wake-up call. The anti-establishment frustrations of older citizens who feel culturally left behind by the British political classes on matters of immigration, identity, and demography need to be taken seriously. Whether the UK Government will act, rather than merely condemn, is another matter.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeThe percentage of the ethno-nationalists would be less without the dog whistles from some on the Right in the UK. That said some of this group have a good reason to feel society and our economy has given them a v unequal set of opportunities and outcomes. But classically elements of the Right want to deflect away from the true causes and get this Group blaming immigrants and culture changes. And old playbook, but certainly not without some desired effect.
The real headline is 4/5s don’t think like this and the country is changing. Something to be v proud of and furthermore our good old British tradition of tolerance, live and let live, and reflection ever-present continuing to provide a strong serum to the tendency on the continent for more dangerous Far Right (and Far Left) crowd pleasers. It’s one reason we remain an attractive place to live and develop one’s life and that remains an economic advantage we sometimes forget.
‘Something to be v proud of and furthermore our good old British tradition of tolerance, live and let live,…’
All Brits can be proud of their British traditions.
And what are those for you? I outlined some of mine. Your go.
I haven’t seen many examples of the “good old British tradition of tolerance, live and let live” in the last year, and it doesn’t look like that tradition will continue in the next 10-20 years.
Suspect you were inside on your keyboard when the counter demos against the rioters were happening. Many more attended didn’t they.
This doesn’t make sense. By the definition of ‘dog-whistle’ you must already be a group member in order to react to a group’s dog-whistles.
I would agree you probably have a reflex that needs to be triggered.
sorry J, you’re spaffing sh+te. we wont be an attractive place to live and develop one’s life for long. look at india and pakistan’s tribal/ caste/ religious system, thats what will develop here. its already developed within the civil service and police forces. thousands of white working class girls were enslaved and repeatedly gang raped for decades. that’s the future now. not bright. not orange. coming to you straight from the 6th century.
Your racial reflex couldn’t be more prominent. Bile.
I suspect you are one of those who quivers indoors reading too much social media crap and doesn’t mix with a wide variety of folks. Thus no appreciation the vast majority just like us whatever background. Get out more and grow up.
An interesting piece.
I would be like to see research and comment on associated issues.
For example, whereas it is possible to become British (whether in the narrower sense of obtaining citizenship, or the broader sense of becoming thoroughly acculturated), is it possible to become English (or Welsh, or Scottish, or Northern Irish)?
It seems to me that there are plenty of people who are technically British (i.e., have a British passport), or have become culturally British, but are not English.
From another aspect, there are plenty of people (e.g., grandchildren of Britons who went to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and so on) who are not British citizens, but who are instantly and effortlessly at home when they come to work or settle in Britain.
Unfortunately this whole debate can’t be properly had, because we don’t allow essences anymore (in a way, historically: spirit). Since we have given up on genealogical and spiritual thinking in the modern era, for the fear of eugenics, racism, mysticism and fascism, it’s nearly impossible to explain people in a nuanced way without science or legalistic terminology smacking you over the back of the head.
Now I’m not contending that Anglo Saxons still exist. Clearly they do not, neither do Celts. Remnants of those civilisations exist in all of us Brits, but of course more so in others in both genes and in culture. For example, my Grandfather was a Merrie comedian and dancer and probably had Scottish Highland ancestry. I imagine he took some of the highland spirit for dancing and speaking up from his father and who knows who else, but he wasn’t a Scot by any stretch. And moreover the spirit is not just essence but the combination of families’ stories, histories, genetics and Will, which is real not just fiction.
Perhaps my above description is inadequate but using the words ‘technically’ and ‘acculturated’ are of course applicable to many immigrants who are culturally British, but it doesn’t change the fact that historical, genealogical Britishness is, and is considered, different by those who are of that lineage.
That doesn’t mean we HAVE to discriminate ourselves against immigrants (and most people do not because they are educated and liberal and that is noble too for a better world) but it does mean we CAN see ourselves as different and have a sense of our past that gives meaning and purpose to our future. But these modern legalistic and scientific textbook definitions of who we are, those are applicable but not the whole story, it’s oppressive to consider them definitive.
Perhaps we should read more of the last great classic English poet William Wordsworth, to regain the sense of spirit and genealogical mindset, mainly from his autobiographical poem, the prelude. It’s not exactly light reading however.
The Civic structure of Britain emerged over centuries from the largely homogeneous ethnic British. It’s difficult to disentangle the two.
Well, part of the problem is that there isn’t such a thing as ‘ethnic British’.
Britain is composed of multiple ethnic groups – the English, Cornish (hard to untangle these from each other, but they are distinct ethnic groups), Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish.
The Welsh, Scottish, Cornish and Welsh are descended from the early pre-Roman Brythonic peoples (and are also strong related to the people of Brittany, France, who are largely the descendants of Brythonic migrants to the mainland many centuries ago.)
The English people are a different genetic mix, due to the much greater extent of Anglo-Saxon intermixing, the influence particularly in the East of Norse settlement, and then the arrival of the Normans.
Quite correct.
In fact the term ‘British’ was rarely used before 1707.
That’s because there wasn’t a “British” state until 1707. No one used the term “English” until there was an England either. But there is more genetic sharing among the peoples of the island of Great Britain than there is with other ethnic Europeans on the Continent, in France or elsewhere, because there has been substantial interbreeding for centuries. There is no clear genetic division between the so-called “Celtic” peoples and the more Anglo-Saxon parts of the population. Lowland Scots in the Middle Ages were Germanic, not Celtic, and they spoke a variety of Anglo-Saxon (Old English), not Gaelic. Linguistic divisions do not always coincide with genetic divisions.
indeed, the anglo-saxon state of Northumbria extended up to modern day Edinburgh; but dont tell the bellends othe SNP that, they’ll have a collective stroke when they realise theyre actually Geordies!
I hope the wise and well-intentioned people at Nottingham University don’t catch you using the term Anglo-Saxon. It’s, you know … problematic.
That’s their problem and they might be dismissed by a few short Anglo-Saxon words. Hey! and I’m Welsh, Look you.
Tidy!
You may find it amusing/interesting to look up “Anglish”. Yes, spelt exactly like that. Fun little rabbit-hole.
Don’t know why you got downvotes for that.
Anyone interested in the English language must be aware of its fascinating hybrid nature, and speculation on what it might be like without Latin (and Greek and other exotic) admix is intriguing.
Ever tried reading The Anglish Times?
Afterthought: no ethnic British people (?) … no British language (?).
I think my comments pointing out that the ‘British’ are actually a collection of ethnic groups got misinterpreted by some very irritable people.
There’s no ethnic British people and no British language. There’s English people and an English language! Also Welsh people and a Welsh language! And that’s fine! It’s just inaccurate when people claim that there’s such a thing as an ‘ethnic Brit’ in any sense beyond shorthand for ‘this collection of different ethnic groups on these isles.’
I’ve noticed people downvoting my explanation but all of this is verifiably true and correct from genetic science.
There is no “British ethnicity”. Ethnically speaking, the Scots are not the same as the English (who are an ethnic group), for example. In terms of our national identity, Britishness is more than capable of integrating both English and Scotish within it, much to our country’s credit. But to pretend that the ‘British’ are one ethnic group is a laughably stupid claim. Ask the Welsh or the Guernsey people what they think of that.
These downvotes are very odd. Sometimes they appear on a simple question, or some factual statement, It’s difficult to understand exactly what they mean, Sometimes I think it’s because they just don’t like you, which is probably the case.
I haave noticed that both upvotes and downvotes are deleted quite quickly.
We are very similar tribes though that evolved in NW Europe over the last 10,000 years with similar (compared to a newly arrived Pakistani or Nigerian for example) world views and social customs/norms and spiritual practices. The ‘new arrivals’ emphasise that similarity, our connection and long history together.
Tribalism is a natural very powerful emotion that is emphasised especially when the low grade social anxiety we are so bad at living with is triggered by being forced to live in close proximity to people who are very different to us.
“Very similar tribes” we may be, but the claim was about “ethnic Brits”, which is a false conceptual category that doesn’t exist except as shorthand for referring to the multiple ethnic groups (English, Cornish, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish) that make up the historic peoples of these isles.
Our genetic make up is almost identical the only differences are dialect, accent and local customs. So they qualify as ethnically British … ie historically endemic to the British Isles. In Ireland it’s very obvious that the majority of the population are ethnically irish. Ie the particular genetic make up is only found in the Republic and parts of Ulster. I’m not sure why you’re being pedantic on this there is nothing wrong with being ethnically anything. It’s shows a long and shared history together … this should be celebrated not despised. It does matter to us humans however inconvenient to liberal ideologues.
who the F does?? but there is most certainly a British ‘identity’, shared way of doing things (that used to be called ‘culture’ till uni Libtards decided to deliberately erase that as well), shared history and experiences for at least 300 years, and shared religion. its why we’re a country that works and has done for 300+ years and why certain other ‘countries’ and ‘peoples’ aren’t.
You are right but you are taking a rather narrow genealogical interpretation of ‘ethnicity’. There is a wider understanding of the term that is less biological and more social and cultural. ‘Ethnic cuisine’, for example. The British are just the people living in the British Isles, on this understanding, in contrast say with people living on the European continent who have distinct cultural inheritances. We slide between these senses without noticing.
I dunno. According to David Reich, British DNA is largely unchanged for 2200 years.
“by about 6,000 years ago, the [matrilineal genetic] pattern was set for the rest of the history of the Isles, and very little has disturbed it since.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1940284/
If you are correct, why do people deny that anti-semitism is racism?
A good example of that is when Ben Williams born in Wales got to what was called Connecticut in 1740 (that land later became north east Pennsylvania ) there were very few white women to marry. A boat of old maids was sent from England. Ben reluctantly married one. He didn’t so much care she was ugly and 12 years older than he. No, he resented her Englishness. Have Wales and England ever made it up?
so, although I am 100% American, I am proud to be descended from folks smart enough to write the Magna Carta, produced Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth 1, Margaret Thatcher. and I am sorry to see that small island go downhill.
Only one in 5 !!!
Those are rookie numbers, you gotta pump those numbers up !!!
‘The survey shows that while the UK is an overwhelmingly inclusive society in terms of how people frame British identity and belonging, there remains a significant minority which continues to support more ethnocentric and exclusionary understandings of these qualities.’
What is an ethnocentric understanding of identity, and why is it something shameful?
Is Elon Musk African?
Was Olivia de Havilland Japanese?
Is Tom Alter Indian?
Was Richard Leakey Kenyan?
Is Kamala Harris Indian? How important is ethnicity to the identity of Kamala?
Actually, no its not overwhelmingly ” inclusive” and there is no reason why it should be? Try joining the Orange Lodge as a Catholic?
LOL! try joining the Black Police Officers association if you’re white! or getting into university if you’re a white working class male. or getting your PHD funded to look at anything white or non-trans. or……..
Julius Malema of South Africa and his supporters know very well what they make of the ethnic identity of their ‘white’ minority…
Ethnicity is very important to Kamala Harris. She has been flogging her 25% black genes to gain the support of the very important black constituency in the Democrat Party. Although it went over most people’s heads, Donald Trump in his interview during the Black Journalists Conference, slyly pointed out Harris’ pandering, her use of the ‘one-percent rule’, even to the extent that she will perform an American black southern accent, although her half-black father was Jamaican. Harris also conveniently relies on her East Asian ‘Indian’ genes when needed as well. One could say she’s ’fluent’ by opportunistically using various parts of her gene heritage.
I don’t think of British identity in terms of ethnicity. I think it’s more of a political and cultural identity, shaped by a shared history through the Empire and Commonwealth, shared values of tolerance, fair play, the Common Law, parliamentary democracy governed by convention and precedent, policing by consent, and respect for private property and industry.
I think that the English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish identities do have very strong ethnic components to them, but to varying degrees. The English are a distinct ethnic people whose genetic heritage and distribution can be traced today with a simple DNA test, with a shared history, language, traditions, and customs, just as, say, the Kurds or the Japanese are.
I think that’s one reason why ethnic minorities of, say, Caribbean or Bangladeshi heritage born in England tend to identify primarily with ‘British’ rather than ‘English’ – which is fine, it’s good for our society for people of different ethnicities to be able to identify with a shared but non-ethnic national identity, it helps us to be more unified as a country.
I just wanted to expand on this: I think that’s actually a profoundly useful and good feature about our country which many other European states don’t have. You can be English and British, Welsh and British, Scottish and British. You can also just be British, that’s fine too! If you love this country and want to see it prosper, if you’re invested in its success and understand the principles that have helped it prosper so far, then welcome!
What it means is that we actually have a really supple understanding of who and what we are which can both sustain the necessary basis of any nation-state (by delimiting a demos) and welcome in people of all sorts of different ethnicities without it posing an a priori problem for us. France doesn’t have that luxury. Neither do Germany or Italy or many other states.
I also think it’s counterproductive to claim in general terms that multiculturalism has failed. In so many cases, Britain has been world-beating at this. We’ve integrated people from the the Caribbean, from India, from continental Europe, from east Asia and their contributions have nourished our nation. Would anyone want a British Army without our Gurka servicemen? Are they ethnically English or Welsh? No, of course not. But when the Caribbean British person’s grandfather fought in the Battle of Britain, or the Indian or Sikh Brit has relatives who fought and died for this country, or nursed our relatives back to health in our hospitals, you’re damn well part of our country and I dare anyone to say otherwise.
We risk throwing under the bus the extraordinary success story of British multiculturalism (or whatever you prefer to call it) in general because we won’t name the real problem: Islam. That’s the area we’ve failed in, and failed badly. Or maybe they failed us, or both. I’m not sure. But nobody worries about the impact of taking in Ukrainians, Hong Kongers, French, Czechs, Portuguese or Boers on our national character.
Like any nation we would require reasonable limits on numbers, but in principle nothing about Britain would be lost if, for example, we had tomorrow double the number of Hong Kongers living and working in Britain as British citizens. They share in our culture, our history, our traditions, even in a slightly removed way from the indigenous peoples of this isle. They understand our ideas of fairness, the justice of Common Law, traced back to the Magna Carta, the importance of liberty from repressive state powers, because they also share in part of that history through the Empire and later the Commonwealth. We can build a successful and diverse country around that.
What we can’t build a country around are people who profoundly hate not just Britain but the West in general and everything Britain has ever stood for, who loathe our values, hate our history, demonise our nation, and endlessly seek to denigrate and undermine it.
And, let’s be honest: it hasn’t been the Poles or the Jews or the Indians who have been doing that. Our children of Chinese, Indian and Japanese background are among the highest performers in our schools, who bring to our nation a culture of hard graft, the emphasis on the importance of education, and discipline in behaviour. This is a good influence, and sorely needed in so many of our white-majority communities in Britain.
The Poles for example turned up here, worked hard, and – guess what – even went to Church and refreshed our parishes! I happen to be Catholic, so I can speak to that personally. My local Church was never more active than when we had large numbers of Polish and Central-Eastern European migrants and workers living and working here, and we valued them enormously. People would chat after the service and the elderly would suddenly find a polite young Christian man who, even if his English was a little broken, could sort their house’s roof tiles or plumbing out or trim their hedges and not demolish their savings and could be trusted to be a person of sound, decent moral character.
Bit of a ramble but I’m trying to say that I think sometimes people risk throwing out genuine successes in this country because we can’t name the problem. We should actually be really happy and proud to be able to lord over the French that we have no equivalent to the Banlieues, to the Germans that haven’t seen thousands of ‘citizens’ marching calling for a Caliphate, and so on. We do have a problem in particular with poor, borderline-already-radicalised Muslim south Asians from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The folks who come here from Saudi Arabia with a master’s degree in engineering to help figure out North Sea drilling aren’t the ones causing the problem here. So let’s not throw all migrants under the bus with this. I couldn’t care less if there’s some more Poles or Ukrainians or Hong Kongers. I don’t think many people in this country could either!
I agree with much of this. But I’d want to say that what success we have had is due precisely to our avoiding multiculturalism. The areas where we seem to be failing are those where multiculturalism is taking root.
oops
just wanted to expand on this: I think that’s actually a profoundly useful and good feature about our country which many other European states don’t have. You can be English and British, Welsh and British, Scottish and British. You can also just be British, that’s fine too! If you love this country and want to see it prosper, if you’re invested in its success and understand the principles that have helped it prosper so far, then welcome!
What it means is that we actually have a really supple understanding of who and what we are which can both sustain the necessary basis of any nation-state (by delimiting a demos) and welcome in people of all sorts of different ethnicities without it posing an a priori problem for us. France doesn’t have that luxury. Neither do Germany or Italy or many other states.
I also think it’s counterproductive to claim in general terms that multiculturalism has failed. In so many cases, Britain has been world-beating at this. We’ve integrated people from the the Caribbean, from India, from continental Europe, from east Asia and their contributions have nourished our nation. Would anyone want a British Army without our Gurka servicemen? Are they ethnically English or Welsh? No, of course not. But when the Caribbean British person’s grandfather fought in the Battle of Britain, or the Indian or Sikh Brit has relatives who fought and died for this country, or nursed our relatives back to health in our hospitals, you’re damn well part of our country and I dare anyone to say otherwise.
We risk throwing under the bus the extraordinary success story of British multiculturalism (or whatever you prefer to call it) in general because we won’t name the real problem: Islam. That’s the area we’ve failed in, and failed badly. Or maybe they failed us, or both. I’m not sure. But nobody worries about the impact of taking in Ukrainians, Hong Kongers, French, Czechs, Portuguese or Boers on our national character.
Like any nation we would require reasonable limits on numbers, but in principle nothing about Britain would be lost if, for example, we had tomorrow double the number of Hong Kongers living and working in Britain as British citizens. They share in our culture, our history, our traditions, even in a slightly removed way from the indigenous peoples of this isle. They understand our ideas of fairness, the justice of Common Law, traced back to the Magna Carta, the importance of liberty from repressive state powers, because they also share in part of that history through the Empire and later the Commonwealth. We can build a successful and diverse country around that.
What we can’t build a country around are people who profoundly hate not just Britain but the West in general and everything Britain has ever stood for, who loathe our values, hate our history, demonise our nation, and endlessly seek to denigrate and undermine it.
And, let’s be honest: it hasn’t been the Poles or the Jews or the Indians who have been doing that. Our children of Chinese, Indian and Japanese background are among the highest performers in our schools, who bring to our nation a culture of hard graft, the emphasis on the importance of education, and discipline in behaviour. This is a good influence, and sorely needed in so many of our white-majority communities in Britain.
The Poles for example turned up here, worked hard, and – guess what – even went to Church and refreshed our parishes! I happen to be Catholic, so I can speak to that personally. My local Church was never more active than when we had large numbers of Polish and Central-Eastern European migrants and workers living and working here, and we valued them enormously. People would chat after the service and the elderly would suddenly find a polite young Christian man who, even if his English was a little broken, could sort their house’s roof tiles or plumbing out or trim their hedges and not demolish their savings and could be trusted to be a person of sound, decent moral character.
Bit of a ramble but I’m trying to say that I think sometimes people risk throwing out genuine successes in this country because we can’t name the problem. We should actually be really happy and proud to be able to lord over the French that we have no equivalent to the Banlieues, to the Germans that haven’t seen thousands of ‘citizens’ marching calling for a Caliphate, and so on. We do have a problem in particular with poor, borderline-already-radicalised Muslim south Asians from Pakistan and Bangladesh. The folks who come here from Saudi Arabia with a master’s degree in engineering to help figure out North Sea drilling aren’t the ones causing the problem here. So let’s not throw all migrants under the bus with this. I couldn’t care less if there’s some more Poles or Ukrainians or Hong Kongers. I don’t think many people in this country could either!
(Sorry, this comment didn’t sem to go through for some reason. I hope it doesn’t get doubled.)
I have Italian and Irish parents, was born in England, but being born in a stable does not make one a horse, and so no, I am not as English as most.
But you are British.
And that is one of the quite unique and amazing things about our country and of which I think we should be very proud.
You don’t need to be English, or Welsh or Scottish or Northern Irish to be one of us as a true Brit. These are the peoples of this island who have historically made up this country and continue to do so and, God willing, will continue to do so.
But that doesn’t mean that if you have foreign parents or whatever that you can’t be British to your core.
I love that we as a country can have this relationship between being English (involving some sense of indigeneity) and being British (which is utterly shorn of ethnicity and entirely about cultural norms, values, shared history, institutions, etc.)
Our identity is almost uniquely capable of having this mixture of ethnic groups.
It’s fine. I’m sure this country is glad to have you.
But I am not English: my views, attitudes, temperament, reactions, and habits ( ask any women friend and my ex wife?!) are so un English: I love cooking, and racing, clothes and women, had to give up the drink 21 years ago… the product of my blood… Hence why the woke obsession with ” race” is such utter dishonest, American created nonsense. Peoples in different regions of countries are as different as dog breeds are, let alone in different countries or parts of other continents- at least I have the courage to admit and stand by this empirical fact.
You say – “But I am not English”… but your command of the language, I suggest, is as good as most who are English and far better than those who have defied the opportunity of the vast number of educational opportunities they’ve been offered, almost since the day they were born.
And there is the conundrum, for English is also a language and probably more importantly, the official language of 67 countries and 27 non-sovereignties, (whatever they are). And also the most popular second language in the world. (Imagine trying to travel the world if you only speak Welsh or Gaelic.)
Of course with 1.4 billion people and only two officially recognised languages – Mandarin and Cantonese, and 56 state recognised nationalities, (and a further 20 or so who aren’t ‘recognised’), most of which also have their own language, as usual China could easily claim the prize in this competition which ever way the rules are devised.
Francis is *administratively* British, but he has no lineage to the state-forming peoples of these islands. And he knows it, likely cos he has a modicum of self awareness.
Interesting that the only ethnic grouping and cultural identity in our multicultural, multi ethnic utopia, which is not allowed to be celebrated and promoted is that of “White English.”
In addition it apparently is solely this ethnic group which is responsible for every historic grievance from empire to colonialism to slavery to climate change.
“White” doesn’t mean anything. It’s a weird, fictional category invented by 18th century Western ‘scientific’ racists and then doubled down on by 20th-21st century post-colonial racists to generalise about people. The utterly bizarre nature of that transition is, of course, lost upon the race-grifters.
There are plenty of non-English/non-‘British’ (no such ethnicity but you know what I mean as a shorthand) ethnic people in Britain who have long played a profound and positive role in our country, from Poles (who piloted planes in the Battle of Britain against Hitler) to the French and many others.
Britain is not currently suffering under the pressures placed upon us by our Polish- and French-heritage population.
Perfect example of what I posted.
“White” isn’t an ethnic group, it’s a racial category, and race and ethnicity are not the same.
Poles and Irish are not the same ethnicity, nor do they share a ‘race’ in common if that’s meant to describe anything beyond melanin.
White means native European. It includes Poles and French.
Lots of Iranians are white. The term “Iran” itself means “land of the Aryans.”
but you fail to mention that for 1,400 years theyve been raped, colonised, subjugated and exterminated to create a ‘muslim’ state. rather like the rest of the middle east, north africa and eastern Mediterranean. Turkey was white, but 500 years of central asian muslim invasion and extermination of the indigenous christians (2 million in 1915 alone) has changed it beyond recognition.
Persia has been called “Iran”, or the land of the Aryans, only since the 1930’s, when the first modern shah, Reza Shah Pahlavi, changed his country’s name to curry favor with Hitler. (It didn’t seem to work too well.) His son, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, was the last Shah.
Yes and lots of Turks are very white, whiter than me (I’m Celtic so more pink, especially in the sun) but they are not white in the way ‘white’ is used to denote native Europeans.
it also largely means Christian. and the groomer gangs aren’t CofE, that’s for sure!
‘White’ is no more a fictional category than ’18th century Western scientific racist’ or ’20th-21st century post-colonial racist’. If it were meaningless—if it signified nothing to people—then the race-grifters would get no traction. And how does the meaninglessness of ‘white’ jibe with your earlier comment re Julius Malema?
We should perhaps say that ‘white’ is a ‘quasi-ethnicity’ associated with an obvious visible marker from earlier times when we had no DNA tests for invisible markers of descent.
Okay, how about “melanin challenged?”
See my reply to your ‘I’ve noticed people downvoting…’ comment.
Here are two ethnic groups as an example:
WelshGreek CypriotDo you see the point here?
White isn’t a ‘quasi-ethnicity’, it’s a racial category, and with no real scientific basis. You can’t test DNA for race, but you can test DNA for ethnic heritage.
I take your point but I’m not sure it is relevant to the discussion. Very few of us know anything of the genetic ethnicity we British carry in markers on our DNA. Instead, being an island people not subject to invasion for a millennium, we can assume a degree of homogeneity, at least until recently. And this is born out by visible similarities of skin colour and physiognomy relative to the wide variation we know exists across the world. Further, given that a tribalism of us and them seems built into human nature, I don’t find it surprising that there is a sense of what we might call a ‘folk-ethnicity’ (by analogy with folk psychology) in us. I feel it myself. Whether, and how we act on this is another question. And this is prior to the bonds of language, history, custom, religion, morality, and so on, that amplify this sense. Beyond these, perhaps the more sophisticated among us can see the unifying effects of more abstract things like the common law, parliamentary democracy, political and economic freedom, etc.
One bone I would pick with the designers of the survey is that they count ‘feeling British’ as an indicator of a ‘civic’ rather than ‘ethnic’ identity. Under the above analysis the reverse seems more appropriate.
“The peoples of Britain show marked genetic structure”
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10326
Which 18 century Western scientific racists are you thinking of’ Alexander Pope? Leibniz? Defoe? Benjamin Franklin? Do tell.
‘Black’ doesn’t mean anything either.
Why is it that ethnic Japanese, Chinese, Zimbabweans, French, Finns, etc. (even Scots, Welsh and Irish to a significant degree) are apparently allowed to proclaim and promote, without fear of castigation or vilification, their ethnic identities; and yet White English people have had their ethnicity, culture and identity demonised and disavowed? No wonder the young generation, brainwashed and subverted on modern university campuses, have so little pride or respect, let alone any informed understanding, of their history and heritage.
I agree with the author that “The anti-establishment frustrations of older citizens who feel culturally left behind by the British political classes on matters of immigration, identity, and demography need to be taken seriously.” I just don’t get it why some people (e.g. White English) who have a legitimate ethnocentric perception of their own identity should be viewed any differently to other people (e.g. Japanese, Senegalese, Chinese, etc.) who have a primarily ethnic understanding of (and pride in) their own identities. I get that everyone in the UK may identify as ‘British’; but surely identifying as English is an ethnically focused perception, so not all people living or born in English can lay claim to that ethnic identity. Why should this legitimate self-perception of being ‘English’ be viewed as ‘exclusionary’ any more than (say) being ‘Japanese’, etc.?
“but surely identifying as English is an ethnically focused perception”
For some. For others it’s an expression of cultural belonging, perceptions of “home”, and where their loyalties lie. And those are also legitimate views of their own identity.
I’m not sure why you’re asking me any of these questions, I’ve never made any of the claims you’re referring to.
My only point was that British isn’t an ethnicity, and there is no single British ethnicity. The Welsh have very different ethnic and genetic histories to, say, those from Yorkshire.
“I’ve never made any of the claims you’re referring to.”
Fair point. I agree that being ‘British’ is nothing to do with ethnicity; same as ‘American’ is nothing to do with ethnicity. Both terms refer to citizenship. I did not intend explicitly or implicitly to react critically to your point, which was well made – indeed, very ably amplified in your subsequent posts. I think we’re pretty much on the same page in this area. I guess I was making a more general point rather than reacting specifically to your own. Shake hands!
In reality it is this group – white Englishmen- who invented just about everything of value, spread civilisation throughout the world and defended it from tyranny for 500 years.
I think Scottish people invented quite a lot as well…
That’s true. But only really after 1707 when they got into bed with the darned Sassenachs.
Pretty dull piece. What, only old people see and feel English and there’s the statistics to prove it? Oh, must be true. Young people have been rendered incapable by propaganda, masquerading as education, from experiencing the same? High cost of housing, student debt, fuel costs, low paying jobs, queues for doctors, dentists, hospital appointments and candle stick makers, are totally invisible to them? At best this piece supports the definition of the Left that anyone who claims to be English is a racist.
“There is a significant proportion of society — just under one in five people — which reports a “primarily ethnic” understanding of British identity.”
So, one in five are entho-nationalists.
And one in five voted for labour.
Hmmmmm – I’m guessing there is little overlap in that venn diagram.
I think it’s time we gave research companies the boot. We know that stats either reflect those that paid for the research or that they reflect a group of people chosen for research. It’s a big assumption to engage a group of people in research and then extrapolate that to the rest of the country.
“a little over two in three people (68%) believe in a “primarily civic” conception of British identity.”
That may or may not be true. But in the end it will be agreed upon by those who want it and denied by those who don’t. Only a truly national consensus could reflect true feelings, but the questions would be too involved and the answers overwhelming in numbers.
Nor am I sure the research is of any help anyway.
It’s a good point Brett H, after all, I can’t imagine I’m the only reader of UnHerd who struggled with the meaning of the “primarily civic” conception of British identity.”
But I do know that every UK government since opinion surveys were considered to be a good indication of who would form the next government, that those who conducted them, whatever the result, stood to earn a great deal of money.
Time for a change of some kind, but what?
A UK or European passport means very little as they give those away with breakfast cereal tokens.
Way more indigenous Europeans are ethno nationalists than 20% … at least to some degree. Especially in France and Germany I find. Most older English people are to a degree. The young have been indoctrinated by post modernism in uni but that’s changing I’m finding as objective reality bites them.
This figure is sure to skyrocket as lying weak government after lying weak government ensures our countries are turned ever faster into dangerous third world kips.
“A UK or European passport means very little as they give those away with breakfast cereal tokens”.
Says someone who’s never been escorted past long queues of nationals of the diminishing number of the world’s dictatorships, when with a British passport, I’ve been waved through without so much of glanced eye contact and a press of the button to open the gate. While nationals of the country I’m visiting wait ages while their bona fides are meticulously checked, often along with much threatening shouting.
A British passport, providing you’ve got by an accident of birth, a white skin, is almost as good as a Monopoly ‘get out of jail’ card.
But in my experience, not always.
Or good fortune of birth.
How can I respect a democracy that gives a party with 33% of the vote a huge majority in Parliament? This is expediency, not democracy. I am completely disaffected with the political system. No, I am not at far-right thug and there are thousands like me.
Those numbers feel too low. Once introduced to the idea, a great deal more would agree that Britain is an Anglo-Celtic culture with liberal multiculturalism mistakenly tacked on.
I agree. They are too low.
As someone who has never even visited any parts of the UK, I am immensely grateful for Britain’s contribution to the civilised world. I hope the likes of Katharine Birbalsingh will be able to counteract the insanities of our age, restore faith & pride in what so many generations achieved with so much sacrifice.
Unintelligible gobbledygook – just WFT is an ethnocentric understanding of identity?
Invented and obscure language used to hide a political position?
There exists a peoples who formed the countries of England, Scotland, etc. By virtue of being an island, those peoples were remarkably undisturbed for the better part of a millennium.
It is perfectly common for someone to identify as part of these state-forming peoples.
How much in common do you really think you have to an 11th century feudal peasant other than possibly some DNA?
What is an ethnocentric understanding of identity?
Well, Kamala Harris has one, or possibly two, ethnocentric understandings of her identity.
“This group gravitates towards “attributes” of national belonging such as having respect for Britain’s political institutions and its laws, holding British citizenship, and “feeling” British.”
This is oddly reminiscent of the debate over what a woman is… is it XX chromosomes, female reproductive organs, etc., or is feeling like a ‘woman’ – whatever that may be, we can’t say?
What’s so intellectually dishonest about this new conception of ‘Britishness’ is how patently empty the category is. If you “feel” British then we’ll count it… even if you can’t tell us what the content of this “Britishness” that you feel is. You end up with a circular definition being employed for the sole purpose of trying to get people to forget the significance of history and culture on group identity.
There is, as always in our wonderful world, something deeply ironic going on here. If being British is a matter of “respect for the rule of law, governing institutions, etc.” one might dismiss that as no different from any other Western nation – do the French and Dutch and Swedes not have rule of law, powerful democratic institutions, etc.? But guess who doesn’t… the Nigerians, the Pakistanis, etc. So yes, when people of that ethnicity choose to come to the UK, they are in fact adopting Britishness in a sense.
But *why* does the UK have a culture of respect for the rule of law, but these other places do not?
Oh, that’s right – history. One group’s forebears took specific actions which, bit by bit, created the rule of law. The others did not. Identification with the historic peoples of a place – defined by language, arts, food, victories, losses, etc. – is the only thing that defines a people, in the end.
I wasn’t in the survey, but I seem to be one of this ‘minority’: over 65, and with a DNA test that showed me to have English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and ‘Northern European’ ancestry, making me, I suppose, ‘British’. I often feel, however, quite alienated from the modern image of British as portrayed in and by the media, which is now ‘multicultural’, secular and anti-historical. I was surprised recently to hear a woman of non-European background ask a panel member on Radio 4’s ‘The Moral Maze’, “Am I English?” with the expectation of ‘yes’ as the ‘non-racist’ answer. Such developments have made me think that Britain is no longer a country with an ethnic British majority, which welcomes and assimilates foreign minorities, but one that is being newly defined by recently acquired outsiders. The future, it appears, will be one in which the ‘Old British’ will need to make many adjustments.
Abandoning our western culture is not going down well.
Just skimming this I see several problems w/ internal & external validity. Obviously tasked w/ producing SCIENCE! to reinforce the Regime Narrative, the “researchers” seem to have reverse engineered a study to generate a foregone conclusion: any organized, spontaneous, or online UK protests against 20 yrs of (unsustainable) mass migration are driven by WHITE, uneducated, aging Brits who resent how that DEITQ+ stuff has undermined their white privilege. But the data don’t support the authors’ conclusions–not because respondents answered in unexpected ways as much as b/c the study design rests of specious assumptions & poorly considered survey questions.
Off the top of my head . . .
1st. “Ethnic” Britishness–to be born in Britain and/or have British ancestry– could also refer eg to 2nd generation Brits of Indian or Caribbean descent, or kids of families escaping Iranian persecution, the USSR & Eastern Europe. BTW, did the survey precisely exclude former Empire colonies and/or Commonwealth countries?
2nd. How on Earth are they defining “nationalism?” The equation of “nationalistic sentiment” w/ agreement w/ any of the 6-7 statements about British areas of “pride” has no a priori social scientific basis. Yet they use this 1st unsubstantiated inference to then draw broader conclusions from the survey data and/or to comment that they are “surprised!” However, the more you’ve had pride in your country earlier in your life, or just pride in your country’s past, the more disappointment you may express NOW. Hence their conclusion that “nationalistic sentiment” doesn’t seem associated w/ “ethnic nationalism” is likely the polar opposite of respondent sentiment.
3rd.There’s a very revealing dynamic demonstrated by how the researchers take pains to distinguish & elevate Scottish “ethnic nationalism” as distinct from British & particularly “English” ethnic nationalism. The writers conclude that the younger age & greater formal education of Scottish respondents who support ethnic criteria for “Scottish identity” doesn’t mean they’re not “inclusive” (code for “racist,” I assume), particularly b/c although the “ethnic Scottish nationalists” support Scottish independence from Britain, they appear to support remaining in the EU. It’s just interesting that Regime Ideology will allow white people an area wherein they don’t have to apologize for their white identity & ancestry.. . . but presumably insofar as that whiteness is historically & presently acknowledged as simply incidental to organized opposition to a Bigger Badder Group of Evil White People.
4th. At a quick glance I can’t find interview method. But now more than ever, live interviews risk contaminating data through respondents desire to not offend the interviewer. Beyond that, even online “anonymous” surveys pose validity threats if respondents fear honest politically incorrect responses might be linked back to their name, to public approbation or worse.
5th. And do the interviewers EVER define “immigrant” clearly? What about a legal immigrant who’s assimilated & lived there for 30 yrs, who might have married a British citizen? Is the term used for both unassimilated single men from brutally patriarchal cultures who’re on full benefits, as well as professionals who migrate & already share modern Western JudeoChristian values? If the researchers REALLY wanted to get at white racism they might have clarified questions about Anglosphere or Western European immigrants vs African & Asian descent, and/or from countries w/ Islamist or brutal Christian tribal practices like FGM.
6th. And why do the researchers describe agreement w/ statements about immigrant crime as “negative?” Depending upon the subgroup or geographic location (which the researchers sloppily? or strategically don’t define), it could be a completely accurate statement. In the US, a subpop of illegal unvetted immigrants are causing a lot of criminal harm to recent or even 1st gen legal immigrants w/ small businesses. The latter–who could consider themselves “ethnic Brits” might report that yes, immigrants are increasing crime–aren’t their realities being invalidated by elite researchers who lump them in w/ all “immigrants?What about documented Islamist or other brutal cultural misogynist attitudes towards non-Muslim native Brits?
7th. Is it “negative” for females to report increased sexual harassment (not a crime, but bothersome) & attempted or successful assault by male migrants? What about 1st gen “ethnic nationalist” female respondents from Islamist countries like Iran who’re subject to random assaults like by the Iman a few years ago b/c they’re still Muslim? If Sharia/Sunni which they escaped is imported & not prosecuted in the UK, might they be describing increased misogynistic crime in a country they once believed was a haven?
Basically these are people who are fed up to the back teeth with seeing their country being taken over by foreigners from countries like Afghanista, Syria, Iraq, Iran, those in Africa, Pakistan, India etc. etc. Prior to the Blair government, Britain was very much a homogenous white nation with some small minorities and this was a unified society. It was Blair upon whom the blame can be laid for opening up the borders to all and sundry. 1.5 million new arrivals came in in 2022/2023 and it looks like under Labour this will not be reduced. Basically our country and its resources have been handed over to migrants by the ultra progressive ruling political elite who have completely transformed Britain’s demographics. An example? There are now only 1/3 of British white people living in London – our nation’s capital.