Who is English?

[mids2019]

I see reform have started a debate about the meaning of being English which has stirred a few feathers. To my mind anyone who is born in the country is English..

I would say moving to a country does not necessarily make you a national of a country e.g. if I moved the South of Spain as a retired I don't know if could reasonably call my self Spanish but children of English people definitely could.

One thing that is worth debate is how you frame heritage and is this important? For instance would 2nd.generation immigrants from India would want to be referred as English but if Indian oriigin? Is there an actual desire for people of foreign heritage to maintain a part of their identity connected to their country of family origin for cultural reason?

You become a national of a foreign country only when you get naturalised. You can’t call yourself national and be one.

I am a British National but I am not British and don’t identify as one. Even though soon enough I would have lived in the UK longer than in my own country.

My daughter will be born here. But she will be half and half as she will have dual citizenship since birth.. it is complex and it does depend on how a person feels about their heritage. Edited to say her father is British. If he was too Eastern European, she probably would never see herself as Welsh even if she was born here

Prince Philip wasn't even ethnically Greek.

I think the specific circumstances of each case have to be looked at carefully, because it's complex and doesn't lend itself to generalisations.

I still don't really understand what you mean by "ethnic populations" owning land. Throughout most of the world, land is owned by individuals rather than whole populations.

Are you trying to argue that people who are not "ethnically English" (however you might choose to define that - I think it's deeply problematic) should not be allowed to purchase or own land in England?

Are you saying that the populations of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Central and South America, South Africa etc who cannot trace their origins back to the indigenous populations of those countries should not be allowed to own land in those countries or that they should have to leave? And the same for people of e.g. Chinese or Indian heritage who have lived for generations in South East Asia?

What about people in the UK descended from the Normans or the Vikings? Or the descendants of Jewish families who have been in the UK for generations? Where exactly are you drawing the line?

This makes me think of the children of the Kindertransport, so many of whom stayed and built lives here. There's one quote from Daisy Hoffner

“All I wanted to be was an English schoolgirl. I had no regrets, I didn’t feel homesick, and I didn’t want to speak German. All I wanted to be was an English schoolgirl, in my school uniform, riding my bicycle.”

The populations of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Central and South America, South Africa etc who cannot trace their origins back to the indigenous populations of those countries are the ones who actually built and set up the country and made it the modern nations they are today.

No, I don’t believe in removing settled people from their homes because their ancestors happened to take the land by force (as basically every bit of land has been).

Im just noting the dual logic of believing (eg) Israel should be dismantled to make way for the Palestinians, versus then saying ‘there’s no such thing as ethnic Westerners and your ethnicity doesn’t determine land ownership’

FWIW I think we agree

Stuff that happened centuries ago or a millennia ago doesn't mean there aren't clear cut differences today

The Royals are a mixture of mainly German, Danish, English, Scottish, Russian. Genealogists reckon the King is 57% German, and only 25% English/Scot.

Ironically most of the Royals’ British DNA comes from those who married into the RF like the Queen Mother and Diana.

Flat caps are Scottish Bunnets 😁

Perhaps it refers to the pale, white skin which was an historical beauty ideal and symbol of virtue and high status, because the aristocracy didn't work outside and become tanned. In the "blazon" tradition of Medieval and Renaissance European poetry it was common to compare white female skin to milk. In modern times Pablo Neruda, describes, "Body of a woman, white hills, white thighs...Body of skin, of moss, of firm and thirsty milk!".
"Peaches and cream" might be a better description of the modern beauty ideal; or the Goth look of skin that appears never to have been out in direct sunlight.

I'm not arguing for Israel to be dismantled at all - I would favour a two-state solution.

I don't really see the "dual logic" that you're talking about tbh. Israel's own claim to that land is based on a version of "we were there first", and many "settled" Palestinians were displaced from their homes. And indeed, many are still being displaced now by the Jewish settlers.

In my local green grocer Scotch bonnets are hot peppers.😁

I’m British English. My dad has traced ancestry back several generations and unfortunately still fucking English.

To me if you were born here/raised here then you’re English/British.

I think there's both ethnic and cultural English. To be ethnically English I would say a person needs at least one line of English ancestry going back a few centuries. To be culturally English I think one would have to probably be raised in England, consider themselves English and fully adopt English culture and history as their own, good and bad. I don't think someone can be truly considered English if they're culturally foreign or don't feel English history is their history, even if they were born here.

Someone can certainly be ethnically English, and even born in England, but not considered English if they were then raised elsewhere. I would not call Americans who've traced an ancestor back to 18th century England either ethnically or culturally English; I'd call them American with some English ancestry.

I don't actually think being ethnically English matters at all, unless you're researching your family tree. I don't think skin colour matters at all, full stop. There are many non-white people who have English ancestry, and obviously many white people who have none. I think being culturally English is the only thing that really matters if you want to call yourself English.

Yes and he is Scottish. Born in Scotland.

A bonnet is not a bunnet! 😄

bit hard to do it once you are dead!

This is an issue I genuinely do not care about. I call myself English not British. That's as far as my concern goes.

If he was born in China would that mean he's Chinese?

That has nothing to do with either him or Anwar. We have Scottish people with Chinese heritage too. They are Scottish.

We don't have a culture. We have lots of different cultures. I grew up in rural Dorset. My outlook is likely to be different from someone from inner London.

But I would assume French people from Normandy are different from people from Languedoc. People from NRW probably dothibk themselves that similar to Bavarians. They're all German to us. There are lots of regional differences the world over in every country.

So culture doesn’t really exist apart from in micro areas?

We come under the first point - the humour!

I think the sentiment in this song nails it

He was half Russian with Danish and German grandparents. Given your previous definition does that impact your view of King Charles as English or not?

Love them. Those lyrics give me a lump in my throat. But yes, they nail it.