An interesting piece but it overcomplicates and also omits a key concept. "English" refers to three different concepts. 1) People who are ethnically English. 2) People who are culturally English. 3) The in-group.
Often these concepts are conflated - sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully for political ends. But nonetheless, these are the three concepts. And it is the third one that makes the debate politically contentious. That's because unlike the first two, which are descriptive concepts referring to objective reality, the third concept is entirely socially negotiated. An ethnically English person is ethnically English (and Rishi Sunak is not) regardless of what anyone believes. If race communists brainwashed everyone in the country, some people would still be ethnically English while others were not. Similarly a culturally English non white person - e.g. a black man adopted into a white family in the 1950s - would still be culturally English regardless of what Steve Laws or anyone else believed.
But the third concept does not refer to objective reality. In other words it is entirely determined by what people believe. It's a function of who the majority of English people believe constitute the in-group. If tomorrow the majority of English people believed that it referred only to the ethnic English then that is what the "we" would become. But by the same token, if the majority believed that it applies to everyone with a passport, including culturally unassimilated immigrants, then that is what the "we" would become. The tribe decides who is part of the tribe. And that is why this debate is so emotionally fraught and politically salient. Because it's ultimately a normative debate over the boundaries of group identity, loyalty and belonging.
IMO in a multi-racial country with a multi-racial elite, the only viable way forwards that doesn't result in bloodshed or hostility, is for the in-group to be those who are culturally assimilated (understood loosely). Anything more restrictive will just create more balkanisation, lower social trust, and eventually a race communist backlash. Anything more lax, and we further dull the incentives to assimilate and pave the way for baser tribal loyalties to eventually supersede it.
Isn't this just cultural nationalism? Like France or Japan. The ideology that simultaneously imposes more restrictions on the existing citizens while enabling others who are willing to assimilate to join in.
The citizenship test is more signalling than anything else (like most education). If you're willing to put in the effort to remember these retarded facts means that you're willing to put in the effort to assimilate.
The Japanese citizenship criteria works better. Mostly because of you're willing to learn Japanese, a language you'll probably never need outside of Japan, you're willing to put in the effort. This is doesn't work as well for Anglophone nations. Even Islamists have pretty good English these days.
Perhaps you get everyone read some Tolkien bullshit. Although Tolkien is the worst thing that ever happened to English civilisation, so probably not.
An interesting article but...I am puzzled. Why does it exclude any reference to religion? Until recently many would have argued that being a Christian is a key feature of English and British identity. It certainly was so historically. Even Jews, after being readmitted to England by Cromwell were for years not considered English enough to sit in Parliament - Disraeli had to be baptised to become PM...
For better or for worse, Christianity is no longer *the* religion of the British people. Just under half identify as non-religious, and many more are Christians in name only.
Yep but historically it was. And you could argue that it still slumbers in the national subconscious. Similarly, soon perhaps the majority of Brits will no longer be 'white'. (I am thinking of the growing numbers of mixed race offspring. A British Brazil looms.) It would be hard, I think, to conclude that being white is not part of a historical British identity. But I am happy to be contradicted...😉
You say there are no necessary conditions to be British, but I think it’s reasonable to suggest that having some ‘native British ancestry’ is absolutely necessary, where ‘native British’ consists of the English, Scottish, and Welsh.
I was recently having this discussion elsewhere, where a civic nationalist challenged my (ethno-leaning) view:
"People think Rishi Sunak isn’t English. Everyone thought Disraeli was English. Unless the post-97 consensus you’re referring to is the 1797 consensus then you seem pretty nuts"
This was a reasonable point to make. On the fact of it both seemed reasonably similar cases, and yet Disraeli (in a more exclusive period) had fewer people deride his Englishness. My reflections were below:
"Disraeli's father converted to Anglicanism whilst Disraeli was a child, and Disraeli, whilst avowedly proud of his Sephardi heritage in his later life, maintained this Christianity.
Both Disraeli's parents were born in England, so he was a 3rd generation rather than 2nd generation immigrant.
England was an extremely homogenous country in the 1800s. There were no hyphenated "Anglo/British-X" identities and groups as you get today. You were either foreign, or not.
Both Sunak and Disraeli were largely assimilated *to the norms of their time* (Public school educated, Tories, London social scene. However, current national identity is much much weaker, and so the assimilation required is much looser. This also partly explains the conversion element, there was no pressure at all for an MP (let alone a PM!) to convert to Anglicanism as there would have been previously.
Disraeli married not only an English-born woman, but a woman of English heritage. Sunak married a woman who was not only born abroad but also a (sole) citizen of India.
And frankly, skin colour and appearance comes into this as well. Indian heritage people just look more different to traditionally English people than Disraeli did.
Identity is a complex issue, and I will admit that most advocates of "Sunak isn't English" did not stop and go through the above considerations. They were probably just making gut calls (call it racist if you like). It's not a hill I'm willing to die on either, nor something I'd get particularly wound up about, but I don't think it's *insane* to consider someone who:
-has English born parents
-Is a member of the Church of England
-Has an English wife
to be "more English" than someone who:
-has migrant parents
-is a practicing Hindu
-has an Indian wife
Even if you have a pretty inclusive and civic nationalist view of ethnicity and identity, it seems to me that the former has done a more complete job of integrating into English identity and norms."
Very disappointing. I was recommended the Pimlico Journal and expected honest intellectual reasoning, not this cowardly, labyrinthine pandering to the liberal or civic ideology (that has already lost the fight by the way). This is a disingenuous donation to the on-going discussion of such matters that only serves to muddy and confuse. This kind of subversive intellectualism belongs in the dying Tory party or shall we say even in Reform.
The wars have already been fought. The mothers have already had to lose their sons in painful fighting; the fathers have already had to suffer the defiling of their daughters. The blood that had to be shed to settle this matter once and for all has already been shed. We want peace now, and it is our birth-right to have it.
Please repeat after me: The matter of who is British is a settled matter.
There is no more room in Britain, and there is no more room in Britishness.
If we want to establish any truly right wing government in the future, or replace/transform the existing institutions, these questions need to be answered because they will be inevitably asked. Though calls to outrage at the current situation are both virtuous and justified, they don't win the long-term intellectual battle. As for "pandering to the liberal or civic ideology" is concerned, I personally don't think the author's argument that the vast majority of migrants in this country cannot be considered British in any way is either civic or liberal. Britain is certainly full, but British is a property, and we need to find who this property applies to, or could apply to.
And the questions are already answered. We have two decades where the ethnic Anglo-Celts are the dominant voting bloc. We don’t need to do anything but appeal to them.
What Pimlico writes here about what is Britishness should be interpreted by readers as “what definition fits in Ashkenazi Jews, despite their different blood & religion, but not White chav cattle and Pro-Palestinian Muslims”
An interesting piece but it overcomplicates and also omits a key concept. "English" refers to three different concepts. 1) People who are ethnically English. 2) People who are culturally English. 3) The in-group.
Often these concepts are conflated - sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposefully for political ends. But nonetheless, these are the three concepts. And it is the third one that makes the debate politically contentious. That's because unlike the first two, which are descriptive concepts referring to objective reality, the third concept is entirely socially negotiated. An ethnically English person is ethnically English (and Rishi Sunak is not) regardless of what anyone believes. If race communists brainwashed everyone in the country, some people would still be ethnically English while others were not. Similarly a culturally English non white person - e.g. a black man adopted into a white family in the 1950s - would still be culturally English regardless of what Steve Laws or anyone else believed.
But the third concept does not refer to objective reality. In other words it is entirely determined by what people believe. It's a function of who the majority of English people believe constitute the in-group. If tomorrow the majority of English people believed that it referred only to the ethnic English then that is what the "we" would become. But by the same token, if the majority believed that it applies to everyone with a passport, including culturally unassimilated immigrants, then that is what the "we" would become. The tribe decides who is part of the tribe. And that is why this debate is so emotionally fraught and politically salient. Because it's ultimately a normative debate over the boundaries of group identity, loyalty and belonging.
IMO in a multi-racial country with a multi-racial elite, the only viable way forwards that doesn't result in bloodshed or hostility, is for the in-group to be those who are culturally assimilated (understood loosely). Anything more restrictive will just create more balkanisation, lower social trust, and eventually a race communist backlash. Anything more lax, and we further dull the incentives to assimilate and pave the way for baser tribal loyalties to eventually supersede it.
Multi-racial? So 20th century. You can’t see the woods from the trees.
There’s no such thing as “culturally English” either, such a thing suggests one can be English by blood & not culture, which is not true.
I have reasons to suspect you do not expect the racially Jewish coalition to concede elite power within Israel like you do the English in England.
“We”, that being us English, is not something subjective; it is to you to the extent you’re not full-blooded.
Isn't this just cultural nationalism? Like France or Japan. The ideology that simultaneously imposes more restrictions on the existing citizens while enabling others who are willing to assimilate to join in.
The citizenship test is more signalling than anything else (like most education). If you're willing to put in the effort to remember these retarded facts means that you're willing to put in the effort to assimilate.
The Japanese citizenship criteria works better. Mostly because of you're willing to learn Japanese, a language you'll probably never need outside of Japan, you're willing to put in the effort. This is doesn't work as well for Anglophone nations. Even Islamists have pretty good English these days.
Perhaps you get everyone read some Tolkien bullshit. Although Tolkien is the worst thing that ever happened to English civilisation, so probably not.
An interesting article but...I am puzzled. Why does it exclude any reference to religion? Until recently many would have argued that being a Christian is a key feature of English and British identity. It certainly was so historically. Even Jews, after being readmitted to England by Cromwell were for years not considered English enough to sit in Parliament - Disraeli had to be baptised to become PM...
For better or for worse, Christianity is no longer *the* religion of the British people. Just under half identify as non-religious, and many more are Christians in name only.
Yep but historically it was. And you could argue that it still slumbers in the national subconscious. Similarly, soon perhaps the majority of Brits will no longer be 'white'. (I am thinking of the growing numbers of mixed race offspring. A British Brazil looms.) It would be hard, I think, to conclude that being white is not part of a historical British identity. But I am happy to be contradicted...😉
The English conquered England from Christians as Pagans. Christianity is irrelevant to Englishness.
Jews were (wisely) excluded for racial reasons; requiring Christianity was a convenient cover.
You say there are no necessary conditions to be British, but I think it’s reasonable to suggest that having some ‘native British ancestry’ is absolutely necessary, where ‘native British’ consists of the English, Scottish, and Welsh.
I was recently having this discussion elsewhere, where a civic nationalist challenged my (ethno-leaning) view:
"People think Rishi Sunak isn’t English. Everyone thought Disraeli was English. Unless the post-97 consensus you’re referring to is the 1797 consensus then you seem pretty nuts"
This was a reasonable point to make. On the fact of it both seemed reasonably similar cases, and yet Disraeli (in a more exclusive period) had fewer people deride his Englishness. My reflections were below:
"Disraeli's father converted to Anglicanism whilst Disraeli was a child, and Disraeli, whilst avowedly proud of his Sephardi heritage in his later life, maintained this Christianity.
Both Disraeli's parents were born in England, so he was a 3rd generation rather than 2nd generation immigrant.
England was an extremely homogenous country in the 1800s. There were no hyphenated "Anglo/British-X" identities and groups as you get today. You were either foreign, or not.
Both Sunak and Disraeli were largely assimilated *to the norms of their time* (Public school educated, Tories, London social scene. However, current national identity is much much weaker, and so the assimilation required is much looser. This also partly explains the conversion element, there was no pressure at all for an MP (let alone a PM!) to convert to Anglicanism as there would have been previously.
Disraeli married not only an English-born woman, but a woman of English heritage. Sunak married a woman who was not only born abroad but also a (sole) citizen of India.
And frankly, skin colour and appearance comes into this as well. Indian heritage people just look more different to traditionally English people than Disraeli did.
Identity is a complex issue, and I will admit that most advocates of "Sunak isn't English" did not stop and go through the above considerations. They were probably just making gut calls (call it racist if you like). It's not a hill I'm willing to die on either, nor something I'd get particularly wound up about, but I don't think it's *insane* to consider someone who:
-has English born parents
-Is a member of the Church of England
-Has an English wife
to be "more English" than someone who:
-has migrant parents
-is a practicing Hindu
-has an Indian wife
Even if you have a pretty inclusive and civic nationalist view of ethnicity and identity, it seems to me that the former has done a more complete job of integrating into English identity and norms."
No one thought Disraeli was English. Disraeli himself referred to himself as an Israelite and contrasted his heritage to English parliamentarians.
Very disappointing. I was recommended the Pimlico Journal and expected honest intellectual reasoning, not this cowardly, labyrinthine pandering to the liberal or civic ideology (that has already lost the fight by the way). This is a disingenuous donation to the on-going discussion of such matters that only serves to muddy and confuse. This kind of subversive intellectualism belongs in the dying Tory party or shall we say even in Reform.
The wars have already been fought. The mothers have already had to lose their sons in painful fighting; the fathers have already had to suffer the defiling of their daughters. The blood that had to be shed to settle this matter once and for all has already been shed. We want peace now, and it is our birth-right to have it.
Please repeat after me: The matter of who is British is a settled matter.
There is no more room in Britain, and there is no more room in Britishness.
If we want to establish any truly right wing government in the future, or replace/transform the existing institutions, these questions need to be answered because they will be inevitably asked. Though calls to outrage at the current situation are both virtuous and justified, they don't win the long-term intellectual battle. As for "pandering to the liberal or civic ideology" is concerned, I personally don't think the author's argument that the vast majority of migrants in this country cannot be considered British in any way is either civic or liberal. Britain is certainly full, but British is a property, and we need to find who this property applies to, or could apply to.
And the questions are already answered. We have two decades where the ethnic Anglo-Celts are the dominant voting bloc. We don’t need to do anything but appeal to them.
I think we’ve all had enough of fancy word play at this point. Multiculturalism is a failure.
Raise the English flag and see who lines up behind it , that’s all that matters.
What Pimlico writes here about what is Britishness should be interpreted by readers as “what definition fits in Ashkenazi Jews, despite their different blood & religion, but not White chav cattle and Pro-Palestinian Muslims”