I don’t think the premise that all British citizens are equal is as obvious as suggested. As a dual national, I’m clearly not on equal footing to those who are only British nationals, and even more so those who have no eligibility for any other nationalities but British. For example, were a draft to be introduced in Britain, dual nationals could evade it quite easily, whereas British-only nationals couldn’t, so clearly there’s an entrenched inequality there. Then there’s the fact that dual nationals (or those eligible for such) have a different nation they could easily move to and be accepted in as if it were their own, an option unavailable to British-only nationals. That strikes me as a clear qualitative inequality.
But all citizens aren’t considered equal by the state if one category of citizen can be rendered stateless if their passports are removed, as has happened to at least two people.
The problem is that Ben's applause line 'all citizens are equal' - is essentially meaningless. Equal how? There are different types of equality, pick one and go from there - as it is, it doesn't even rise to the level of an arguable assertion, it just sounds vaguely noble. In fact much of the piece has this carbs-and-no-protein quality. Listing Brits of minority descent who were famous when you grew up doesn't mean there wasn't a majority white culture. And all this conspiratorial wink-wink stuff about pundits and voters who, we're invited to agree, have lower morals and character than Ben Ansell. Whole thing reads like a post written by someone who spends too long on Bluesky!
I think that's a bit harsh Ian. I always felt growing up that while yes, obviously if you were to statistically analyse it, our culture was majority white, it was open and welcoming to all the wonderful influences from around the world (even Arsenal players). And generally it still is. As one of these lucky dual-nationals (by marriage), I can say that this is in stark contrast to my experience of modern Italian culture.
There seems to be little influence on Italian culture (aside from in fashion) from their immigrant population, which may be because to learn Italian you've got to indoctrinate yourself in the culture (and why not, it is wonderful too!) There’s plenty of influence from foreign music of course - my mother-in-law was so in love with the Beatles that she learned English and my wife would go on to spend hours every week listening and transcribing British and American pop music as she sought to master it. But there are very few of those “Italian-others” that I notice on TV or writing.
Every time a UK politician says that "immigrants must learn English" however, my wife laughs herself silly and says something like "Why do you think they've come here? It's the easiest language in the world to learn!" Which reminds me about taking my Italian language test. I was one of two Anglo-Italian wannabes, outnumbered 100 to 1 by the South American population that true to the cliche do all the jobs that Italians don't want to do themselves. They all spoke much better Italian than me.
Anyway, I think the equality Ben is referring to is simply equality of treatment from the state. I was free to buy a house in Italy (although with a different rate of VAT as I didn’t move my residency there), I can get free healthcare when in the country and vote (from London even despite not being a resident), amongst other things. But of course I am not equal in many other regards, mainly outside of the state’s control - for one thing I’m not going to steal anyone’s job because my Italian doesn’t enable me to compete on the job market like I can in London, but I could become a cleaner I suppose and there’s plenty of demand for them too.
In this household, I am the only member who is not a dual (or more) national. Husband is the Australian-born son of someone who was made stateless by Germany in the 1940s - whose citizenship was returned to her children and grandchildren in 2020 - and is a naturalised Brit. As such he is a foreign-born triple national, but white in the UK government's view, if not that of the likes of @pAtRiOtIcBrIt1488. The advantages probably outweigh the opprobrium.
As a fellow dual citizen, the fact that one can use the alternative citizenship as an “out” is indeed a bonus, but the act of *being a migrant* also incurs significant costs. It’s silly to tot them up as if we expect these benefits and costs somehow balance (otherwise nobody would move!) but reading this kind of facile hypothetical benefit (one could draft dodge or might someday go “back” to the second citizenship country, if such a thing is possible) while having been denied the ability to rent a flat before I was naturalized because I was “not from around here” is both galling and strange.
Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious, and to keep restating it. However, I think there’s a bigger problem than the campaign - it feels like a concerted campaign - to render phrases like ‘white British’ and ‘white working class’ the norm for inclusion in the category of citizen. It is that in law we already have two classes of British-born citizen; those born to two British-born, British citizen parents, and those who through at least one parent may theoretically qualify for the passport of another country.
As a fairly-old “White Brit” racism doesn’t really impact me directly, but this stuff feels personal. Looking at my family, neighbours and friends, we are almost all white, but the children of those people have frequently married non-white and/or non-British. This means that there are a large number of lovely *British* kids in my life that they are attacking as not belonging. This makes me angry.
It also makes me wonder if this line might backfire on them? More and more of us “White British” are getting non-white, but British relatives. Or is this too hopeful.
Lots of ways that I can disagree, plus a few I can agree with, but main issue is that you should replace “we” with “I” to say, “what I think of as socially and culturally British”. I am sure what I think of as socially and culturally British is much different (wider?) than yours. And it includes the possibility of having identities that are not singularly British. I completely accept that people are allowed to have concerns about immigration, but what is currently being written about “White British” is a step too far; the point is that it feels like that they are going after my friends’ and family’s children.
Of course people of different origins can become British and belong, and i can't think of anyone one on the right who would dispute that. However becoming British at the belonging level obviously involves some sort of commitment and I would suggest it is from a British perspective the sort of commitment that a British person would expect to have to make to become recognised as say Japanese or Algerian. And most of us would think it wrong if becoming/being Japanese or Algerian were reduced to merely a paper exercise with no commitment to their history, culture, traditions, language and mores. However, mass immigration is inevitably antithetical to this process of "becoming" as people from other cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, very understandably, wish to hold onto those backgrounds. And so overtime the people within Britain are not just less and less what we think of as socially and culturally British but they have other group identities, often from their places of origin, to which they cleave. That the indigenous population and others who have assimilated into that are concerned about this process is entirely understandable.
It’s really tough to make and maintain these classifications. In the US, every statement about Hispanics mentions that they can be of any race, but that’s not how the term is used in casual discussion. In Canada, we used to refer to people as visible minorities. Recently, the term has changed to racialized Canadians. I agree with you that the British terms are not quite right either.
The weird thing about this is that it is such a right wing Westminster bubble obsession. As you note Ben, most Brits don't care much about ethnicity, particularly our young people (my two children are in wonderfully diverse friendship groups where ethnicity only becomes in any way noteworthy if there's an invite to a Diwali celebration or similar).
Plus, the country is over 80% white, and the great majority of the non-white population is in a few big cities, so most people's experience will be of living in overwhelmingly white communities.
If you genuinely believe the indigenous population of England and the nations of Britain are not a strongly, self identifying group based on history, culture and ethnicity then the next few elections will confound you entirely. Immigration, other than in small numbers where integration remains possible, has always been hugely unpopular in UK based entirely on in group/identitarian lines. This is what Brexit was about, it is what Reform are about (see also similar rightward responses across Europe) and it is why McSweeny is driving Labour rightward towards an event horizon they cannot reach. You would I suspect call all of it "racism" (and yet you would likely see the same blood and soil response as wholly understandable were it mass immigration into the Sudan by white British) but it is happening anyway.
Fair in that identity matters for most people unless they are enlightened saints but that is precisely why mass immigration and cultural “diversity” are sub optimal, they inevitably lead to “likes” and “dislikes” forming along subgroup lines which is not optimal to a coherent whole. Funnily enough multi culturalism works better amongst the middles classes (of all ethnic groups) because there is a middle class consensus which is ultimately white British coded - or maybe it’s just middle class coded but either way it is not really multi cultural at all
You can dress this up as things that only concern the bourgeois in their debating parlours if that makes you feel better about yourself.
But I would posit that any political debate, which at its root seeks to take away the political voice of any group and deny them citizenship of their own country will provide plenty of people that dislike it.
I don’t think it addresses my point. But quite interested in why people come to views that I don’t hold. With reference to quote think it’s weird to “dislike” other people’s beliefs and views, as opposed to just disagreeing with them.
It seems perfectly fine to dislike political views, especially, as Ben points out here, they directly attack you and your status as a citizen of the country you live in.
Unless I have misunderstood you, he very explicitly addresses your point in the article:
“I’m a political scientist. I know that such people exist and matter politically, even if I fundamentally disagree with them. People hold all kinds of beliefs I don’t like. And they vote. When I analyse survey data I have to take their views seriously if I want to explain the shape of public opinion.
But what I don’t have to do is give them succour.”
Thank you. John obviously has his views. Many share them. But not as many as he believes and he might wish to read the BSA piece I link to by John Curtice to get a sense of how large the minority of Brits he belongs to is. Around 19%. Not nothing. Politically important. Not a majority.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
A very timely article, we have been discussing this new right-wing focus on "not UK born" and "White British" in my family, as we do cover all the bases - there's the non-UK born, Asian, first generation immigrant, then naturalised through marriage, 40 years full employment and tax paying, also endless volunteering - apparently not really British? We're not impressed with that. Then two children, born in London to a White Brit and the Asian, are they perhaps also not really British? Household headed by the "non-UK born", and they have an "ethnic" surname, so probably in that "not native" category in school data, according to these charmers. Oh but the White Brit had a non-Uk born parent, so on shaky ground there but, what a relief, they were White and from New Zealand, probably get a pass! So maybe one of us is actually British, too bad about the rest of the family......
Basically it's the same old "indigenous" bollocks that the dear old National Front went for, isn't it?
And I agree, no two White or any other variety of Londoners has ever started a bus stop conversation with a joke about current affairs, we talk about the (delayed) buses, the weather, and our neighbourhood, like people do. Definition of being British that is!
We have a similarly disgusting shower in Ireland at the moment. The hypocrisy is breathtaking given there isn’t a spot on the globe without Irish immigrants or their descendants (Tory MP Neil O’Brien?)
What I find extraordinary is the absence in the UK census categories of the word ‘European’. During the UK’s EU membership, many took advantage of freedom of movement with the result that there must be quite a number of white, black or brown UK-EU children and adults living as citizens in the UK - my own children among them. Their French grandfather was black, born on Martinique. Which box should they tick?
Not being familiar with British laws, can women be drafted? If not, how does the belief that those eligible for the draft are more fully citizens than others square with female citizenship? In my country, the USA, I can tell you that the American colonies used one’s eligibility to participate in defense, along with being a taxpayer, to distinguish citizens, and in particular those eligible for the franchise from everyone else. The American right, in their desire to return to a mythical past hint at this obliquely. However, only non-politicians, eg. Peter Thiel, openly state that the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote should be rescinded.
When neighbours move in, repeatedly break rules and regulations, repeatedly build beyond planning permission, repeatedly engage in antisocial social behaviour, refuse to even talk with me, vandalise and trespass,
I can promise you I am not considered equal.
Hertsmere Council are evil bastards who operate with bias.
I agree wholehartedly. It's ironic though, that the use of this 'white british' categorisation (still demanded at every interaction with the state) was the result of identity politics and its divisive attempt to target disadvantage!
As someone who could probably win the identity game, I find identity such a moronic political talking point.
Not sure why anyone has got so worked up over it (on left or right).
Immigration - essentially it is resource management (as is the whole of the British state). If you need nurses, you are going to have to get them from another county. Shock they might not be culturally British!
Same when trying to make policy - thinking about the recent high court identifying sex as biological sex. Big backlash - but the courts are following procedure and were v transparent. Its the population that needs to change - so politics, not demographics or identity.
My two pence is there is a reasonable cohort of 50+ year olds quasi-post war who grate at an erosion of Anglo-British culture - but the same issue is happening to cultures in every country!
Ultimately, the older generation of people with these weird WHITE BRITISH will decrease with time, and some of the younger middle agers will change their minds when forced with reality (ie their children/grandchildren mix with "non natives").
All this nonsense, IMO, is the Conservative party trying to gain votes via dog whistling and should be called out as such. Thanks Ben
If there was hope, it lay in the youth. More and more of Gen Z are getting hitched with people from different ethnicities to their own which means the ‘mixed’ category is ever growing. The antediluvian parents of Gen Z are learning to cope so even if Telegraph readers cannot that doesn’t matter - they’re increasingly irrelevant and literally dying off.
I don’t think the premise that all British citizens are equal is as obvious as suggested. As a dual national, I’m clearly not on equal footing to those who are only British nationals, and even more so those who have no eligibility for any other nationalities but British. For example, were a draft to be introduced in Britain, dual nationals could evade it quite easily, whereas British-only nationals couldn’t, so clearly there’s an entrenched inequality there. Then there’s the fact that dual nationals (or those eligible for such) have a different nation they could easily move to and be accepted in as if it were their own, an option unavailable to British-only nationals. That strikes me as a clear qualitative inequality.
Fair point Luca and one I toyed with. But in the eyes of the state you should be equal.
But all citizens aren’t considered equal by the state if one category of citizen can be rendered stateless if their passports are removed, as has happened to at least two people.
The problem is that Ben's applause line 'all citizens are equal' - is essentially meaningless. Equal how? There are different types of equality, pick one and go from there - as it is, it doesn't even rise to the level of an arguable assertion, it just sounds vaguely noble. In fact much of the piece has this carbs-and-no-protein quality. Listing Brits of minority descent who were famous when you grew up doesn't mean there wasn't a majority white culture. And all this conspiratorial wink-wink stuff about pundits and voters who, we're invited to agree, have lower morals and character than Ben Ansell. Whole thing reads like a post written by someone who spends too long on Bluesky!
I think that's a bit harsh Ian. I always felt growing up that while yes, obviously if you were to statistically analyse it, our culture was majority white, it was open and welcoming to all the wonderful influences from around the world (even Arsenal players). And generally it still is. As one of these lucky dual-nationals (by marriage), I can say that this is in stark contrast to my experience of modern Italian culture.
There seems to be little influence on Italian culture (aside from in fashion) from their immigrant population, which may be because to learn Italian you've got to indoctrinate yourself in the culture (and why not, it is wonderful too!) There’s plenty of influence from foreign music of course - my mother-in-law was so in love with the Beatles that she learned English and my wife would go on to spend hours every week listening and transcribing British and American pop music as she sought to master it. But there are very few of those “Italian-others” that I notice on TV or writing.
Every time a UK politician says that "immigrants must learn English" however, my wife laughs herself silly and says something like "Why do you think they've come here? It's the easiest language in the world to learn!" Which reminds me about taking my Italian language test. I was one of two Anglo-Italian wannabes, outnumbered 100 to 1 by the South American population that true to the cliche do all the jobs that Italians don't want to do themselves. They all spoke much better Italian than me.
Anyway, I think the equality Ben is referring to is simply equality of treatment from the state. I was free to buy a house in Italy (although with a different rate of VAT as I didn’t move my residency there), I can get free healthcare when in the country and vote (from London even despite not being a resident), amongst other things. But of course I am not equal in many other regards, mainly outside of the state’s control - for one thing I’m not going to steal anyone’s job because my Italian doesn’t enable me to compete on the job market like I can in London, but I could become a cleaner I suppose and there’s plenty of demand for them too.
Well try this one Ian. Is my mixed race but Black looking great niece as equal and as unproblematic as my mixed race but White looking great niece?
Yes. Stupid question but yes.
Would it be a ‘stupid question’ if asked of Goodwin or Goodhart?
Yes because it’s so vague.
It obviously isn’t vague. But never mind, what would be a good framing and a good question in your view?
To be clear, I don’t agree with the Goodhart etc position. I’m just asking for a better quality of refutation.
In this household, I am the only member who is not a dual (or more) national. Husband is the Australian-born son of someone who was made stateless by Germany in the 1940s - whose citizenship was returned to her children and grandchildren in 2020 - and is a naturalised Brit. As such he is a foreign-born triple national, but white in the UK government's view, if not that of the likes of @pAtRiOtIcBrIt1488. The advantages probably outweigh the opprobrium.
As a fellow dual citizen, the fact that one can use the alternative citizenship as an “out” is indeed a bonus, but the act of *being a migrant* also incurs significant costs. It’s silly to tot them up as if we expect these benefits and costs somehow balance (otherwise nobody would move!) but reading this kind of facile hypothetical benefit (one could draft dodge or might someday go “back” to the second citizenship country, if such a thing is possible) while having been denied the ability to rent a flat before I was naturalized because I was “not from around here” is both galling and strange.
Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious, and to keep restating it. However, I think there’s a bigger problem than the campaign - it feels like a concerted campaign - to render phrases like ‘white British’ and ‘white working class’ the norm for inclusion in the category of citizen. It is that in law we already have two classes of British-born citizen; those born to two British-born, British citizen parents, and those who through at least one parent may theoretically qualify for the passport of another country.
As a fairly-old “White Brit” racism doesn’t really impact me directly, but this stuff feels personal. Looking at my family, neighbours and friends, we are almost all white, but the children of those people have frequently married non-white and/or non-British. This means that there are a large number of lovely *British* kids in my life that they are attacking as not belonging. This makes me angry.
It also makes me wonder if this line might backfire on them? More and more of us “White British” are getting non-white, but British relatives. Or is this too hopeful.
Lots of ways that I can disagree, plus a few I can agree with, but main issue is that you should replace “we” with “I” to say, “what I think of as socially and culturally British”. I am sure what I think of as socially and culturally British is much different (wider?) than yours. And it includes the possibility of having identities that are not singularly British. I completely accept that people are allowed to have concerns about immigration, but what is currently being written about “White British” is a step too far; the point is that it feels like that they are going after my friends’ and family’s children.
Of course people of different origins can become British and belong, and i can't think of anyone one on the right who would dispute that. However becoming British at the belonging level obviously involves some sort of commitment and I would suggest it is from a British perspective the sort of commitment that a British person would expect to have to make to become recognised as say Japanese or Algerian. And most of us would think it wrong if becoming/being Japanese or Algerian were reduced to merely a paper exercise with no commitment to their history, culture, traditions, language and mores. However, mass immigration is inevitably antithetical to this process of "becoming" as people from other cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds, very understandably, wish to hold onto those backgrounds. And so overtime the people within Britain are not just less and less what we think of as socially and culturally British but they have other group identities, often from their places of origin, to which they cleave. That the indigenous population and others who have assimilated into that are concerned about this process is entirely understandable.
Thank you. That's us.
It’s really tough to make and maintain these classifications. In the US, every statement about Hispanics mentions that they can be of any race, but that’s not how the term is used in casual discussion. In Canada, we used to refer to people as visible minorities. Recently, the term has changed to racialized Canadians. I agree with you that the British terms are not quite right either.
The weird thing about this is that it is such a right wing Westminster bubble obsession. As you note Ben, most Brits don't care much about ethnicity, particularly our young people (my two children are in wonderfully diverse friendship groups where ethnicity only becomes in any way noteworthy if there's an invite to a Diwali celebration or similar).
Plus, the country is over 80% white, and the great majority of the non-white population is in a few big cities, so most people's experience will be of living in overwhelmingly white communities.
Ben,
If you genuinely believe the indigenous population of England and the nations of Britain are not a strongly, self identifying group based on history, culture and ethnicity then the next few elections will confound you entirely. Immigration, other than in small numbers where integration remains possible, has always been hugely unpopular in UK based entirely on in group/identitarian lines. This is what Brexit was about, it is what Reform are about (see also similar rightward responses across Europe) and it is why McSweeny is driving Labour rightward towards an event horizon they cannot reach. You would I suspect call all of it "racism" (and yet you would likely see the same blood and soil response as wholly understandable were it mass immigration into the Sudan by white British) but it is happening anyway.
Not that accurate, but all the best anyway
Fair in that identity matters for most people unless they are enlightened saints but that is precisely why mass immigration and cultural “diversity” are sub optimal, they inevitably lead to “likes” and “dislikes” forming along subgroup lines which is not optimal to a coherent whole. Funnily enough multi culturalism works better amongst the middles classes (of all ethnic groups) because there is a middle class consensus which is ultimately white British coded - or maybe it’s just middle class coded but either way it is not really multi cultural at all
You can dress this up as things that only concern the bourgeois in their debating parlours if that makes you feel better about yourself.
But I would posit that any political debate, which at its root seeks to take away the political voice of any group and deny them citizenship of their own country will provide plenty of people that dislike it.
I don’t think it addresses my point. But quite interested in why people come to views that I don’t hold. With reference to quote think it’s weird to “dislike” other people’s beliefs and views, as opposed to just disagreeing with them.
It seems perfectly fine to dislike political views, especially, as Ben points out here, they directly attack you and your status as a citizen of the country you live in.
Unless I have misunderstood you, he very explicitly addresses your point in the article:
“I’m a political scientist. I know that such people exist and matter politically, even if I fundamentally disagree with them. People hold all kinds of beliefs I don’t like. And they vote. When I analyse survey data I have to take their views seriously if I want to explain the shape of public opinion.
But what I don’t have to do is give them succour.”
Thank you. John obviously has his views. Many share them. But not as many as he believes and he might wish to read the BSA piece I link to by John Curtice to get a sense of how large the minority of Brits he belongs to is. Around 19%. Not nothing. Politically important. Not a majority.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
Thanks, Ben. The base civic/ethnic question in Curtice’s survey was as follows.
A: It is possible to become truly British if a person makes an effort.
B: A person has to be born British to be truly British.
I would answer A to this question. I think most would and I’d suggest only the meanest person would object to a foreign anglophile being accorded equal status if they truly wanted that. I think 2 points are worth noting:
(1) Both A and B assume a concept of being “truly” British that is self-evidently coded for being indigenously so. And indigenous belonging is a concept that people on the right tend to understand very well. The left do too, but usually only when it is relates to non-white countries.
(2) Option A involves “effort” i.e. that the foreign person wants and tries to assimilate (to become "truly British") and is not merely here for say benefits or to renact/insist on the cultures from which they have often fled.
I’d add a third point to this. Immigrant groups in the UK have in group preferences too. In group ethnic and racial preference (kinship) is not merely a person of European origin phenomenon - and there is actually decent evidence that white people tend to display much less in group preference at that level than non westerners.
A very timely article, we have been discussing this new right-wing focus on "not UK born" and "White British" in my family, as we do cover all the bases - there's the non-UK born, Asian, first generation immigrant, then naturalised through marriage, 40 years full employment and tax paying, also endless volunteering - apparently not really British? We're not impressed with that. Then two children, born in London to a White Brit and the Asian, are they perhaps also not really British? Household headed by the "non-UK born", and they have an "ethnic" surname, so probably in that "not native" category in school data, according to these charmers. Oh but the White Brit had a non-Uk born parent, so on shaky ground there but, what a relief, they were White and from New Zealand, probably get a pass! So maybe one of us is actually British, too bad about the rest of the family......
Basically it's the same old "indigenous" bollocks that the dear old National Front went for, isn't it?
And I agree, no two White or any other variety of Londoners has ever started a bus stop conversation with a joke about current affairs, we talk about the (delayed) buses, the weather, and our neighbourhood, like people do. Definition of being British that is!
We have a similarly disgusting shower in Ireland at the moment. The hypocrisy is breathtaking given there isn’t a spot on the globe without Irish immigrants or their descendants (Tory MP Neil O’Brien?)
What I find extraordinary is the absence in the UK census categories of the word ‘European’. During the UK’s EU membership, many took advantage of freedom of movement with the result that there must be quite a number of white, black or brown UK-EU children and adults living as citizens in the UK - my own children among them. Their French grandfather was black, born on Martinique. Which box should they tick?
Probably a lot of people would tick that box as a protest against Brexit. Not going to help the statisticians! 🤣
Not being familiar with British laws, can women be drafted? If not, how does the belief that those eligible for the draft are more fully citizens than others square with female citizenship? In my country, the USA, I can tell you that the American colonies used one’s eligibility to participate in defense, along with being a taxpayer, to distinguish citizens, and in particular those eligible for the franchise from everyone else. The American right, in their desire to return to a mythical past hint at this obliquely. However, only non-politicians, eg. Peter Thiel, openly state that the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote should be rescinded.
Sed contra https://davidgoodhart.substack.com/p/polarising-liberals
A belated critique of this post (and a related one by Sam Freedman) - would be interested in your response https://davidgoodhart.substack.com/p/polarising-liberals
When neighbours move in, repeatedly break rules and regulations, repeatedly build beyond planning permission, repeatedly engage in antisocial social behaviour, refuse to even talk with me, vandalise and trespass,
I can promise you I am not considered equal.
Hertsmere Council are evil bastards who operate with bias.
Hertsmere police operate with bias and malice.
The fuck I count.
I agree wholehartedly. It's ironic though, that the use of this 'white british' categorisation (still demanded at every interaction with the state) was the result of identity politics and its divisive attempt to target disadvantage!
As someone who could probably win the identity game, I find identity such a moronic political talking point.
Not sure why anyone has got so worked up over it (on left or right).
Immigration - essentially it is resource management (as is the whole of the British state). If you need nurses, you are going to have to get them from another county. Shock they might not be culturally British!
Same when trying to make policy - thinking about the recent high court identifying sex as biological sex. Big backlash - but the courts are following procedure and were v transparent. Its the population that needs to change - so politics, not demographics or identity.
My two pence is there is a reasonable cohort of 50+ year olds quasi-post war who grate at an erosion of Anglo-British culture - but the same issue is happening to cultures in every country!
Ultimately, the older generation of people with these weird WHITE BRITISH will decrease with time, and some of the younger middle agers will change their minds when forced with reality (ie their children/grandchildren mix with "non natives").
All this nonsense, IMO, is the Conservative party trying to gain votes via dog whistling and should be called out as such. Thanks Ben
If there was hope, it lay in the youth. More and more of Gen Z are getting hitched with people from different ethnicities to their own which means the ‘mixed’ category is ever growing. The antediluvian parents of Gen Z are learning to cope so even if Telegraph readers cannot that doesn’t matter - they’re increasingly irrelevant and literally dying off.