Suella Braverman a disgrace to humanity

No one is telling your kids or anyone exactly who is English and who is not and what genes define it or how many years you are meant to go back.

What Suella Braverman said on Question Time is: “I’ve always considered myself British, of Asian ethnicity, and that’s never been something that I would question. Of course I’m not English. I’m not an English person – I am of Asian origin.”

Notice the words she used - she considers herself to be British of Asian ethnicity rather than English.

If you kids grew up in a very mixed and international environment in London, I expect they are worldly enough to recognise that it's ok for people to self identify as British or Asian or English - up to them!

I think we need to build a country for the future, not the past I am afraid. And my kids have grown up hearing about how wronged the Windrush generation was and catching the Windrush line regularly so they aren’t going to be reacting well to anyone telling them exactly who is English and who is not and what genes define it and exactly how many years you are meant to be looking back (whether 70, 200, 300 or a 1000). It is frankly ridiculous. Honestly I think they would be pretty angry if anyone suggested someone with a Windrush grandparent who came over to serve the Welfare State last century is somehow not entitled to feel as fully English or not, as they choose.

“When you travel, do you notice and appreciate the differences in language and culture between countries? Would you prefer that they were homogenous? Would you like China to be more like Japan, or Africa to be more like Europe, or vice versa?
We give and take influences from all over but still retain an essence of what was there originally surely.”

@quantumbutterfly - I think I have been noticing rapid change more than anything else to be honest. Especially in countries like India or China. I have noticed how teens everywhere seem to follow similar fashion and consume similar content. Obviously languages will remain different and nobody can change history.

However, my 4 DC grew up in London in a very mixed and international environment so I really do not think their generation of London kids is going to recognise any type of quinessentially English stereotypes that Reform intends to thrust upon them. It is just not on their radar, considered totally out of date and unfashionable. It is a bit like they grin and bear it when some of their grandparents start harping on about racist notions.

When you travel, do you notice and appreciate the differences in language and culture between countries? Would you prefer that they were homogenous? Would you like China to be more like Japan, or Africa to be more like Europe, or vice versa?
We give and take influences from all over but still retain an essence of what was there originally surely.

I have no issue with people identifying by ethnicity, but when a country starts making policy based on ethnicity and colour, you're in deep trouble.

Realistically though, the world really is a more and more global place and people are becoming more and more mixed because of it. And humanity has to look at the bits that unify them - let’s say a respect for rule of law and democracy - and not the bits that divide them. That is if you want to be a successful country in the 21st century.

Well quite

I think the level of power @quantumbutterfly - the country still has borders etc, but the concept of “nation” and this whole thing about sharing a common culture harping back 100 years etc clearly is not going to work in the 21st century.
There is also a current very very clear generational divide. Which I am more worried about than the decline of the nation state.

What is the difference between a nation state and a country in your view?

You don't get to decide. You may want that to happen but it doesn’t make it true or mean it is going to happen. I am not going to throw away my ancestry to suit globalists and migrants who have rocked up on our shores in the last 70 years.

OK I did not put anything offensive just mentioned one of the supposedly banned words.

@quantumbutterfly - mentioned NATION STATES.
The decline of the nation state is very very real and the harping back to concepts of nation state based on ethnicity is not going to work in the 21 century, in my opinion.
You have to redefine yourself as a “country” in the 21st century. I really don’t see the point at harping back to the 18th century on ancestry in the 21 century.
It is an increasingly globalised world, modern war far has changed, nation states have lost control over capital and people. That is the world we find ourselves in. You cannot just ignore it.

The problem I have is that Reform is both regressive and hypocritical.
You cannot try and use traditional concepts of nation state to your advantage, but simultaneously take donations from crypto currency billionaires.

The nation state as we knew it in the last century, including the control it had, has declined, significantly due to globalisation.

You have to redefine yourself successfully in the 21st century, not look back to the last century. It is just not going to work, as the modern world is navigating the decline of the powers of the nation state, the rise of superpowers and globalisation, the lack of control over moneys, the new modern warfare etc…

Yeah, they were generally a bit rapey & pillagey and the locals fought back. Not sure that's a great analogy.

English ethnicity would be having ancestors mainly born in England. Which is most people living in England until this century. More immigration happened this century than in the last 1000 years so people didn't move about as much as some people like to make out.

Many many countries have had a lot of immigration in the last 30 years. It is called globalisation, to do with international students and the international flow of money, air travel, global job opportunities as much as anything else. And probably the internet plays a massive part in it too as it is much easier to access information to leave a country in the first place.

@thegrind - depends how far and where you look exactly. South of England is more Anglo Saxon, North more Celtic (very broadly speaking). I mean they do actual studies on this type of thing to understand historical migration patterns.

“The researchers were then able to 'zoom in' to examine the genetic patterns in the UK at levels of increasing resolution. At the broadest scale, the population in Orkney (islands to the north of Scotland) emerged as the most genetically distinct. At the next level, Wales forms a distinct genetic group, followed by a further division between north and south Wales. Then the north of England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland collectively separate from southern England, before Cornwall forms a separate cluster. Scotland and Northern Ireland then separate from northern England. The study eventually focused at the level where the UK was divided into 17 genetically distinct clusters of people.”
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2015-03-19-who-do-you-think-you-really-are-genetic-map-british-isles

And

• The Welsh appear more similar to the earliest settlers of Britain after the last ice age than do other people in the UK.

So I reckon it is the Welsh that win!

But it won’t be her personally who is next, so she’s ok with it. Zia is the same.

And we have become a much better country for it. The food in particular is to die for.

Yes ik you want British Asian female politician to couch an answer that’s directly to her in some other way. And it doesn’t bother you that the BBC use their platform to other her.

At least Margoyles was merely a guest not presenter and Andi Peters had the control and professionalism to deal with it well. In SB case you offer up not going on the show at all if she doesn’t like being othered.

Tg we have more female politicians in power to set their own views out from a position of relative power.

We've had more immigration in the last 30 years than the previous 1500.

She doesn't have to do anything. I'm suggesting what a more measured response might have looked like, since you specifically asked.

I don't disagree that the BBC's questioning can be scrutinised. But being asked a question on a political programme doesn't place a politician's answer beyond scrutiny. Nor does questioning the wider implications of her remarks amount to denying her identity.

I'm not sure why you keep treating those things as mutually exclusive.

Ok so asked a direct question about how she feels personally she has to couch it in a group answer. I don’t see why someone who is British-Asian specifically has to do that.

The BBC do a good line in othering by targeting SB with this. I can see why female politicians don’t always sound pleased to be on the receiving end.

It reminds me of the Margoyles questions to Andi Peters. But politically SB is enough to get extra rancour .

She could quite easily have said that she personally identifies more strongly with her Asian heritage doesn't see herself as English, while acknowledging that many people of Asian heritage feel entirely English. That would have been a perfectly truthful and rather more nuanced answer.

What should she have said in your view?

Should she have lied about how she feels? If so why

Is Celtic considered English though? I don’t think so.

The indigenous people of the British Isles were the Celts. And some Gaelic and Scottish tribes?

Those were taken over by the Romans, Anglo Saxons, Vikings, Normans. That mix is the ethnically English population.

Happy to stand corrected