Suella Braverman a disgrace to humanity

Parish burial records don't go back a thousand years as they didn't exist before the 1500s. You can be related to most of the graveyard but be equally related to people from far away. Your ancestors from a thousand years ago will number hundreds of thousands of people (millions mathematically but that's not possible) and unless you have documented evidence of them all or a DNA test, you have no idea where they all lived.

I have documented evidence of most of my ancestors going back to the 1600s and they're all English/Scottish but from the surnames, some of them were probably from Normandy. I've done a DNA test, which says 100% of my DNA is from Northern Europe. I'd say I was ethnically British, which is Celtic, French, German, Scandinavian...

I think we might be able to say that we're ethnically British but what is English ethnicity specifically?

That’s a weird take. So the ethnics are the other lot and we are just, what, normal? The default? Above that kind of thing?

Obviously ethnicities shift and form and fray. But the English have ~1000 years of a fairly stable genetic stock, and the Germanic language influence was ~1500 yrs ago, and there is a cultural or national identity tied to Englishness. That’s generally enough to recognise an ethnicity in any other group.

Why the English exceptionalism?

I really don't think politicians should keep their feelings to themselves. We need to know what they think and feel so that we know who to vote for.

Of course "because its true" answers that. Hiding the truth that there is such a thing as an ethnic English person is the left's political point that has led to the rise of the far right. We should acknowledge there are lots if ethnicities here including English.

that was tragic but Ann Widdecombe , David Amess . Tbh I wasnt really thinking about murders but general rhetoric. The left seem far quicker to resort to hateful comments and personal attack .

She’s not making the distinction just for the satisfaction of being factually correct. She’s making a political point. I’m questioning what that point is and what she wants to do with it. “But it’s true” doesn’t answer that.

The long march through the institutions is complete. The left totally dominate academia, publishing, the arts, the BBC, even the police. We are being taught to hate ourselves, slowly but surely, and when you hate yourself you don't complain.

If a white English person said to a leftist "I'm proud to be English. I'm proud to be from the culture that produced Newton and Darwin. I'm proud of our literary heritage, from Chaucer through Shakespeare and on to Blake and Jane Austen and Dickens, etc" they'd go purple with hatred and rage and scream "nationality is all nonsense and race is a social construct and England's history is disgusting and shameful" and so on (and on).

But if that same leftist met a Native American who started talking about their pride in their history and culture, he would grovel at their feet.

If you make everything about race and skin colour then its not really a shock when people make things about race and skin colour.

And yes I agree with @AgeingMillennial that there are always far right nutters but it shouldn't mean we deny facts.

Exactly!

Every country has a right wing party spouting this kind of stuff. Doesn’t mean we need to deny bare facts.

The concern is where this leads. Restore UK are already talking about “remigration”. Once you define who counts as ethnically English, it’s a short step to saying everyone else doesn’t belong and should be kicked out.
Suella provides convenient cover for that divisive politics. Having a brown woman front it doesn’t make it any less ugly.

I was confused at reading the OP. I thought Suella must have been on the pro Pally march celebrating the rape and murder of innocent babies
My bad....

I was born and raised here and have an English parent and a non English parent. So I describe myself ethnically as half English half X. And my nationality is British. I've always loved that and being made up of two countries. I don't know why people try and deny there is an ethnicity called English.

Extreme hatred for politicians is wrong whether it comes from the left wing or right wing.

Personally I think you’re English if you’re born and raised here and skin colour doesn’t come into that.

Ethnically yes of course there is such a thing as English. But that in itself doesn’t make you English if you weren’t born and raised here. I have significant Irish heritage but that doesn’t actually make me Irish.

But to say there’s no such thing as ethnically English is a nonsense, I agree.

what on earth is ‘ethnically English’?

Like every ethnicity there is, it means that someone’s parents, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents etc are English. Do you take offence to ethnically Italian, ethnically Chinese, ethnically Indian? Someone born in England isn’t necessarily English. Just like how a white English baby born in India isn’t Indian. I say this as someone who is mixed race.

Obviously there were other groups that came in. But you are implying that groups like the Hugenots invaded the British Isles and displaced the whole of the indigenous population. If you look at the DNA maps there are hige swathes still of people with Celtic DNA.

I'm not saying the Celts are ground zero for being defined as English. But when the OP suggests we are "all immigrants" and should be speaking German she is of course wrong.

The French, the Danes, the Germanic tribes, the Romans, the Hugenots - what were they then?

Why is English such an amazing language? Because we have Germanic and Latinate words which gives us tremendous richness.

Remember Jo Cox, stabbed to death by someone on the far right?

We aren't a nation of immigrants really. More immigration has happened this century than the previous 1000 years.

Of course there is a thing as ethnically English just as there is ethnically a thing as Japanese. Does the OP think the British Isles were completely devoid of humans until the Anglo Saxons came over? I don't understand what the issue is. The Celts were the indigenous people and plenty of people have Celtic DNA still. Not everyone upsticks and left!

"Devoid of humanity" is a ridiculous thing to say.

Why though? Every other part of the UK participated in the Empire. Scotland and Northern Ireland have had anti immigration riots fairly recently. England is the most diverse country by far.

Ok but if we are a ‘nation of immigrants’ because we had various groups arriving hundreds or thousands of years ago, does that mean absolutely nobody is ever ‘native’ to their country because virtually everywhere has that same backdrop?

Or do you think there is such a thing as natives when it comes to other countries, just not England?

Personally I couldn’t care less about the whole issue but the double standard is interesting.

The socialists always bang on about division yet the most hate ive seen always comes from them .