Reform person says I'm not necessarily British although born in UK. How can I tell?

[PaperBlueCornflower]

How can I tell if I and my children are British according to their definition?

If I might turn out not to be, and DS might turn out not to be could I be thrown out? Where to?

AIBU to be puzzled and a bit worried?

After all a lot of people seem to think Reform will be the next government.

What?

I don’t even know why this is news. Of course Reform thinks this way. Would be weird if they did not considering what they stand for.

I think people just need to understand other people will try to place identity labels on you and you can either get into a tizzy over it or ignore them.

He's also said in previous posts on X that Manchester is a shit-hole and he's now standing for election as a Manchester MP. I think he's tried to delete those posts.

He's polite and smartly dressed but is still a racist IMO.

A complaint has been lodged to the police that his words were doctored and reposted taking his words out of context

So I'm not British because I wasn't born here? My passport states I was born in another country, so were my sister and brother. So that makes me German in my case? Regardless of the fact my parents are both British citizens.

I am British though, I was born in a military hospital which was classed as British territory. I am not entitled to a German passport, I don't have dual nationality. I am more Scottish via my grandmother (I can represent Scotland if I so wish) than I am German.

You cannot class people as x just because of where they were born.

Legally that isn't correct for the UK.. We don't have birthright nationality. A person born in the UK has to have 1 parent who is a UK citizen to be able to claim British nationality. Or the parent has to be settled in the UK with indefinite leave to remain or have some other status that makes the parents settled. This has been the case since 1983. It's not a case of born here, you are British. And military personnel who reside in the UK from another country don't give birth to British children. It's not simple.

One of the first things Reform wants to do is to remove the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights which will almost certainly mean that the Human Rights Act and all related legislation will be repealed. That will impact EVERYONE in the UK not just the 'undesirable' ones people think don't deserve rights. The UK's human rights framework is not robust and easily subject to being removed. That is terrifying.

Essentially we are talking about two different issues.

There’s legal status - that’s dependent on the rules of the day and everyone can determine where they stand with that.

Then there’s feeling a belonging or sense of nationality connected to your citizenship status.

So you could hold American, British and Irish citizenships and because of where you grew up etc only really feel Irish or American etc.

The thing about the UK unlike the example a previous poster gave of China is that Britishness is not tied solely to one ethnicity. And that’s what Reform racists would like to change.

As someone pointed out a child born to two white British people doesn’t become Chinese if they are born in China because being Chinese is about ethnicity as well as legal status.

British isn’t an ethnicity - although some people would like it to be.

Okay, so I wanted to work this out for myself and check definitions. All of these are reductive and could be disputed but...

Citizenship is legally/politically defined and legislated for and applied or granted by soveriegn states. Rules vary accross time and place.

Nationality is tricky and I am struggling to define it - it has some legal definitions, but is also about birth place and allegiance to that birth place? I don't know how Reform or the far right define it, or if they bother to. Something about allegiance to the place you are born? This keeps coming up "While all citizens are nationals, not all nationals are citizens—only citizens typically have the unconditional right of abode". Which is interesting and if legally true means Nationalists are thinking about Nationalism all wrong! But I digress...

Ethnicity is a combination of culture, geography, heritage/ancestry and religion, often self defined, but recognisable? Sikh, Romany, Jewish, Irish, Welsh, Ughurs, Suni, Kurdish, Persian (all combinations of place, religions, relatives and culture to a greater or lesser degree, many subsets and groups within the broader terms).

Race is some made-up hierachical shit mainly based on the colour of skin (ie not white) but pretends not to be about that. White, Black, Asian, Aryan makes no logical or scientifc sense and only serves to reinforcing perceived difference for the purpose of power. Imposed on people by others

So,
You can be a British citizen with English ethnicity and racially white. And Nationally .....British.

You can also be a Chinese Citizen (i don't really know the Chinese rules) with English Ethnicity and white racially. And Nationally British?

You can be a British National, a Spanish citizen, ethnically Sikh and racially Asian

And then it changes by country, law, date, the commonwelath and politics. So much of it is just the luck of the draw too. Argh - I thought I was getting clearer but am back in the mud!

I think there isn't a British ethnicity, but if there is definitiely Irish and Welsh, then English and Scottish count. A combination of culture, religion, heritage and place. They are not as homogenous or tightly defined as once they might have been, or possibly never were or have infinite variations within them.

Almost all of these words and ideas are used interchangably and pretty randomly, and are often misued and misunderstood, but they do have meaning and significance. Stuart Hall called race, ethnicity and nationality the "Fateful Triangle".

Sorry that was long. No one will read that, but useful to me.

Who gives a shit what reform people think ?!
they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.

Well I do.

because we need to keep informed about this stuff so we can take steps to address it.

if they do get in we will all be affected by what they think, not giving a shit doesn’t exempt you from whatever crazy policy they implement.