British or English

[Dellspoem]

Currently having a conversation/ debate with a friend. Are you British or English? Do you consider one a nationality and one an ethnicity?

My Asian family members describe themselves as British Asian. Saying 'I'm English' is synonymous with something else, mainly because of the connotations with the English flag and nationalism.

They are both geographic locations, so technically this shouldnt be that different. And you don't get the same with Scottish or Welsh.

What are your thoughts?

Welsh then British

I'm English! Have never and would never describe myself as British.

My point was exactly that culture is vital. Heritage... well, that's open to definition, right? Is it a shared inheritance of John Major's Englishness? If it's about lineage, isn't my centuries long ancestry (interrupted by a century and a half, for most of which time they counted themselves as English) worth more than a couple of generations in situ?

How long does a foreign-born person of English ancestry have to live in England to be considered English? Is it ever? Is it different if their parents were English? Grandparents?

Or does this all underline the daftness of trying to define what is ultimately a national identity of what has always been a nation of immigrants, rather than an ethnic one?

You can't complain if people done integrate and/or assimilate when they're being constantly told they'll never belong.

One day late for you!

Only slightly on topic but if someone tells you:

• What they called games of "chase" when they were children
• What word they used when they needed to freeze the game or call a truce
• The word for a small individually baked piece of bread that one might use for a sandwich

Its possible to tell not only what country they are from (English, Welsh, Scottish NI) but usually quite precisely the region/town.

My DNA is Eng/Welsh/Scottish.
I was born in Wales and lived here all my life. I always say I'm Welsh.

Born in England. Have lived in Wales since I was 2. I was considered "first language Welsh" in school, now have a bilingual household, Welsh DH, Welsh DD, zero ties to England.

I'm Welsh. British at a push.

If you live in England with no affiliation to the rest of the British Isles then probably English, if you are a mixture of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish, probably British unless you have a particular affinity to one or the other region, similarly if you live in one of the other regions. I would go with British myself although I've always lived in England my parents and grandparents were from various parts of the British Isles.

I’m Welsh. My parents and grandparents are all Welsh. My husband is English. Of course, my passport says ‘British’ but I do not identify with that as my nationality whatsoever.

I am not English, but I am British. Ethnically I am Welsh, Celtic not Anglo Saxon.

I'm British. I have English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. Born and brought up in England.

Scottish. Don’t use British

English and proud to be so. Next would be British.

I can trace my family back hundreds of years to the county we live in.

But we haven't always been a nation of immigrants. America has (and Australia too), so people imbibe the idea as a cultural norm, but actually it doesn't apply to England in the same way. There were the Normans 1000 years ago, after that there were tiny amounts of immigration up until the 1950s and then it really ramped up about 20 years ago. Mass migration is a new thing here.

Yes, there are not hard and fast criteria for what 'English' is, am I just describing that for me it is not just a passport. The same complexity is probably true for Japanese people or Nigerians or Swedes.

It's very possible to assimilate without having to pretend everyone is exactly the same and indeed that was the whole point of the multiculturalism project. I am an example of someone fully assimilated as British, who is nevertheless not completely English.

I am both.

British - Scottish Father/English Mother.

You are only English if you were born in England

This is so interesting! How can you work it out?

It perplexes me when people complain about the failure of people to integrate….

…..while constantly telling them they can never truly be “from” the place the are meant to fully integrate into.

I remember having debates about this when I lived in France. People refusing to refer to French people of North African heritage as French…yet also getting mad when those same people did not see themselves as French!

I regard myself as English with a British passport.

I know a man born and raised in France who only considers himself English.

English

I live in England, and within the UK, I say I'm Welsh. If I go abroad, I say I'm British (and clarify to Welsh if people go 'oh, English!')

English and then British

I'm British, although my father would be disgusted and say "No!!! You are Cornish!!!". Nope, I'm British.