Suella Braverman a disgrace to humanity

I think she's just generally a hateful person. She seems aggressive and always ready to argue and sneer.

Also someone who when in government failed a simple basic rule about sharing documents. So potentially compromising security.

I hope someone who loses their seat at the next general election.

I can't stand the woman and her mission is to stoke hatred.

However, I know many people who would rather identify as British than English, because they feel that the term “English” carries certain cultural associations that they simply don’t feel represented by.

I think her take is not demonising immigrants who arrive in the same way her parents did. Controlled numbers and more effective cultural integration.

Hmmmmm, I'm not sure it makes sense to pretend white people don't have a race if we're discussing race.

I wish race didn't matter - I think it's a mistake, really, but it does have social impact. We should listen to what people think, including Suella, who is English too, if not ethnically so. Even if we feel awful about what she thinks.

I'm English. I was born here. My skin is white. I wouldn't necessarily describe myself as ethnically English because my ancestors were from a large mix of other countries. I'm not Anglo Saxon. That's normal - that's a part of the history and culture of my country, England, and its "seafaring" ways. That history is written into my DNA and I will write it into the ethnicity of England, over time. We all will. We will change the ethnicity of the English generationally, over aeons. We definitely all own the future, but for this we must also acknowledge and inherit the past.

In your opinion.

I think it's obviously down to individual choice how we identity. And that point doesn't have to be laboured every time someone (even a politician) says anything about their own identity.

She doesn't identify as English, does identify as British & Asian. Others might disagree with her assessment but that is how she feels. It's up to her and certainly doesn't make her a "disgrace to humanity" for saying it.

Our language is Germanic, not German. Swedish and Dutch are Germanic languags, do you call those languages German too? English people have a large portion of indigenous Briton ancestry, followed by ancestry from the various Anglo-Saxon tribes. So yes we are a mixture, like most people around the world. It is this mixture that makes us English. I think it's disgenuous to say there isn't an English Ethnicity when you could day thay about every Ethnicity. The Scottish too for example are very mixed in their ancestry.

I consider myself ethnically English. I come from a rural English village and am related to those in most of the graves going back a thousand years. That's a fact evidenced by the parish records. I can't change that, nor do I want to.

Children who are adopted can feel cut off from their heritage, and describe not knowing who they are. The authorities go to great lengths to place children with families of similar heritage, to prevent that disconnect. Adopted children can trace their birth families for exactly this reason.

People need to know their own heritage. That doesn't change what is on their passports or what they are entitled to. I can't bear SB but I don't see an issue with acknowledging ethnicity.

What a nasty thing to call someone OP. I think you need to get a grip . Axel Rudakubana is a disgrace to humanity not a politician with whom you disagree.

Yep.

I agree with this. Feeling British is somehow quite different to feeling English.

Worth remembering that this over the top hatred for politicians can have disastrous consequences. Ann Widdicombe being the most recent example.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.