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?

The pp who suggested national shame is illustrating part of the problem.

It seems fine to make a thing of being proud of any other country than England.

How often on tv programmes like for instance Bake Off do the contestants frequently refer to their heritage from other countries and the hosts are then ridiculously celebratory about it but nobody seems to feel they can do the same about being English.

Actually I find it all rather wanky and my eyes roll whenever I watch it happen and would do the same if it was about English heritage but my point remains.

As for being British rather than English, well for me that is only a term used in passports or by foreigners. I have never referred to myself as British. I am English.

I don’t subscribe to the concept that I should be ashamed of any historical wrongs and I would add that other countries have historical faults too but it seems to be only us English people who are expected to flagellate ourselves.

Extremism on one hand drives extremism on the other and helps nobody.

Glad to see someone else has pulled you up on your comment too!! Aye go on, peddle backwards and start playing the victim!!

Fair!

We in NI have some(!) experience of the complexity of this, although obviously not Englishness. I was brought up in a Protestant area where the vast majority of people identified as British. DP was brought up in a Catholic area where most, of course, were Irish. Obviously there are exceptions to these stereotypes. When we are filling in forms, we now have the option of stating ourselves to be Northern Irish. This is how I feel. I would like to feel Irish (as I would like a United Ireland) but, as things stand, I don’t. Partly due to my upbringing and partly due to the distinctive mix of Irish, Scottish and English culture here. I love it when black, Chinese, Indian etc people here refer to themselves as Northern Irish or Irish. I absolutely don’t mind if they think of themselves as the nationality of their country of origin, particularly first generation immigrants. But it fills me with pride when they say they are Northern Irish or Irish. As far as I’m concerned you are what you feel yourself to be and trying to define true ‘Irishness’ is an interesting study in DNA and nothing more.

My DH was born and raised in England moving to Scotland at 18. He’s now lived here for 30 years.

He regards himself as Scottish and British. As do I.

Nationality. As in the legal status...
No

Well the celts were pretty swarthy, I don't think you can possibly judge whether someone is English by colouring, people from all over the world have settled here for centuries, there were black Roman soldiers on Hadrian's wall.

Exactly.

Who is trying to erase you?

Yes, I consider myself firmly put in my place place 🥹

My father was Spanish my grandmother (mothers side) was French I was born in London and I live in Scotland. I’m not English (or Scottish) my passport states I am a British citizen but on a day to day basis it’s totally irrelevant. I’m just me with all my strengths and weaknesses.
My friends and colleagues who were born and bred in Scotland would if asked describe themselves as Scottish and they are justifiably proud of their country but they are not jingoistic about it, Like me on a day to day basis they don’t feel the need to constantly bang on about it.
I loath this current obsession with nationality thinly veiled as racism.Im coming up for retirement at school it was drummed into us that we should not be judging people on the nationality or colour of their skin or their gender disabilities etc. This was seen as a break from the past when we did all of these things and how a modern outward looking civilised society should behave. I don’t understand how and where this intolerance of anyone who is not “like us” is coming from it makes me very sad.
Im all for debates but I don’t want to be part of society which judges you on you nationality.

Great!

Me apparently 🫤

Yes you're right, no one is ever judged on their Englishness by their their skin tone.

I'm bailing out of this thread now.

Blankitout, you absolutely belong to Scotland.

It seems fine to make a thing of being proud of any other country than England.

I think that is in people’s heads. Nobody has an issue with us being proud of our country. Indeed, I’d say most people are proud of our country. But we do feel ashamed of the racists, and now we’re scared to publicly admit we love England because we don’t want to be associated with men who hurl missiles outside hotels.

We are English. We are generally a humble people. We understate our strengths, and boasting and bragging is just not English! We don’t feel the need to tell everyone how wonderful we are like other nations do. It’s part of what makes us English. I love that about us. But just because we don’t force it down people’s throats doesn’t mean we don’t feel it.

Yes agree. Very offensive.

I have Irish ancestry but wouldn’t call myself Irish because I’m not and have never even been there until last year. So I can say I’m English not Irish (and would be called a plastic paddy if I didn’t) whereas a person with Indian ancestry to the same level seems to still have to identify themselves as Indian. Or am I actually ‘ethnically’ Irish, but this is quite meaningless to me in reality so I don’t really know what it means. So it’s really a social construct.

Had this conversation multiple times this week with my expat sibling, my migrant employee and multiple other people.

my sibling says that whilst her children are citizens of NZ, and born and raised there - they aren’t Kiwis. They have adopted the culture, and Māori, and are culturally going to be Kiwi but in her opinion, it will be her great grand children that are Kiwi.

My employee, with indefinite leave to remain, says that if she married and had children with an English man, her children would be half English. And then if those children also had children with English people , her grandchildren would be English with Portuguese heritage.

in fact they all said similar, it’s a couple of generations of being citizens and then procreating with “naturals” before you take on the identity.

You can't call yourself english just because you've been born here. And yes. I've recently seen an application form to include English as an option for ethnicity. Rare but does happen. Too outing to say what the application was for.

'English' isn't a legal definition, like being a British Citizen, it's more a question of your cultural identity. I think you can be English if -

• You are permanently living in England
• You were born in England (whether or not you still live in England)
• One or both of your parents is English

One or more of those might apply to people who are not English, e.g. you might live in England but consider yourself Welsh due to your Welsh family or heritage.

People can have more than one cultural identity - which might reflect a blend of cultures in the way they live their daily life, or having parents of two different nationalities, or living somewhere different from where they grew up.

I don't think skin colour has any bearing on your national identity.

I consider myself English - born here, always lived here, parents and grandparents same. I'd define myself as English to people within the UK to distinguish myself from Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish, but as 'British' if talking to someone outside the UK.

I'm british, but not English enough after living in Wales for 25 years

“To my mind anyone who is born in the country is English..”

Really? My sister’s DC were born abroad, but they are English without a doubt!

To me, English is something that combines ethnicity, nationality and culture , so Rishi Sunak, for example, while undoubtedly British is not English.

Im genuinely not being goady please can you tell me what “cultural identity” means? I have absolutely no idea.
I was brought up to believe that when in Rome…..

If you don’t mind me asking. You call yourself a 3rd generation immigrant. Did you emigrate to here from somewhere else yourself?

Or were you born here?

Just curious as one of my parents emigrated here and the other, like me, was born here.

So does that make me a 2nd generation immigrant?

I think of myself as English but my immigrant parent gets angry if I say that - as according to him I am not English.

My parent that was born here just does this: 🙄