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?

Shall we just agree it's whichever country you swear allegiance to and agree to fight for if needed (self-defence) against any and all other nations.

I'll add that we have to sign something when we become adults, agreeing to follow this country's fundamental values (which we all agree on at some point!)

Probably people now living in Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Reform should send those bloody Anglo-Saxons back to Saxony.

Not sure that's entirely true...who have you been hanging around with!?

But what are “this country’s fundamental values”? I’d like to think it was tolerance of all regardless of race skin colour gender religion etc. And if you want to attend a mosque or a Gurdwara or a cathedral and believe in any god you like or not believe in any god. Or love Morris dancing and fish and chips and pies or loath both or dress according to your religious practices or not then that’s fine because as long as we do no harm to other we as a country are not only tolerant of difference and diversity we positively embrace it and a accept that that is what makes humans so interesting that we are not all the same.

You can’t just go on where people are born. If someone has English parents, is born overseas, but spends their whole life in England surely they are English. It’s more about where people feel they belong.

I know what you mean. I’m English born and bred but since we’ve moved to Cornwall on 2001 I’ve learned the language and been accepted as a bard of the Cornish Gorsedh. I would like to identify as Celtic now and support more self governance for Cornwall as a separate Celtic country, but my ancestry is still back in England. I certainly don’t want to be associated with the type of ‘Ingerlund’ that Tommy ten names and Rupert Lowe are espousing.

You’re neither Cornish nor Celtic though. It’s not something you can identify as, you either are or you’re not. I’m surprised they let you in.

So add that to the list and we'll vote on it.

Unfortunately, your 'everyone just get along' stance isn't realistic. It doesn't work like that. We have borders for a reason. And we do need fundamental values. I vote to ban religion from public life entirely but whatever our fundamental values: we need to agree them and stick to them.

I can’t be the only English person who feels no shame whatsoever for being English, despite what our ancestors did? Yes, slavery etc was terrible and I am not excusing what happened, but I don’t feel personally responsible for any of it and don’t see why I should be ashamed to be English.

Of course @Lansonmaid is Cornish. She may have been born in England but she has moved to Cornwall, learnt the language and integrated into the local culture (for example viewing Ginsters pastries as appetising as Satan's diarrhoea). Integration into the established culture is all that required.

I return to my original point that a multi racial society is pretty much inevitable given Britain's history and to be honest it's basically irrelevant. Whereas a multicultural society creates balkanisation and a weakened divided nation.

I would say that she is.

I have a white American friend who was born in Nigeria, where she lived until she went to uni in Tennessee. She considers herself Nigerian. As far as I can tell, everyone else (including her husband) considers her an American who simply grew up abroad. So…what is she?

You shouldn't be

She's a white American who grew up in Nigeria.

Yes. But she doesn’t see it that way. I don’t argue with her. It makes her happy to identify as a Nigerian.

So, if your parents are from Spain, but you were born and mostly raised in England, what are you?

She is wrong. I wouldn't say anything as well but it doesn't mean she's correct.

If your parents are from Spain but you're born and raised in England. You're from a Spanish family that's now living in England.

The thing is, you keep presenting this as something that is either "correct" or not, as if there is actually some sort of agreed definition of what Englishness means. There isn't.

It isn't a legal status. It isn't a biological fact. And your opinion is just that. An opinion.

I’m a Scot who has lived most of my adult life in England. My DNA is majority Scottish, with bits of Irish and English. My formative years were spent in Scotland, all my family and friends were Scottish. I still sound Scottish, even after fifty years here,

I still feel Scottish in my heart, but consider myself, my English DH and our offspring as British. The biggest divisions are surely in behaviour, regardless of our ethnic origins.

If I was born in a coop and said "bok bok". It doesn't make me a chicken.

Indeed. But there is an agreed definition of what a chicken actually is.

There is no scientific or legal basis for saying whether or not someone is "English". And there is no general consensus on the matter either.

You are presenting your opinion as fact. It isn't. Your perception is not more valid than anyone else's perception.

You can't just be whatever. The English people are an ethnicity. You can't change your ethnicity, but what ethnicity you are doesn't define you as a person.

Nationality is something else.

I dont think english people are a different species than other humans?

The analogy really is if I bring my chicken round and intergrate it to your chicken coop and its accepted into the pecking order, does it now become part of that flock or is it still part of my flock.

The English are an ethnic group. That's what they are. The same way I'm not Japanese.

You're English. You can't identify as another ethnicity unfortunately however much you would like to be Cornish. You could see what your DNA shows though as you may have a lot of Celtic dna. Many people do even if they were born the other side of the UK. My English family were in the south East for at least 600 years..didn't move much and my DNA is half Celtic.

You keep repeating the same thing without engaging with the point that English identity is neither a legal status or a biological reality.

Saying the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true.

Ethnicity is primarily a social construct.