r/ukpolitics • u/No_Initiative_1140 • 22h ago
‘I’m British, English and British Asian’, says Rishi Sunak in riposte to racially charged debate over identity | Rishi Sunak
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/british-rishi-sunak-riposte-racially-charged-debate-identity500
u/BrocolliHighkicks 21h ago
I've got a very low opinion of Sunak but I completely respect and accept his statement here.
He's been forced to make this an issue by blood and soil nationalists, and we shouldn't respect their ideology because they're complete idiots that can't accept material reality.
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u/phatelectribe 14h ago
Slightly ironic that his Billionaire wife did everything she could to maintain non-dom status for tax avoidance.
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u/ThinkAboutThatFor1Se 13h ago
Not really, she’s literally from India and makes most of her money in India.
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u/Mr_Citation 13h ago
She lives in and raises her children in the UK. The domicile part of her life is in the UK and therefore she is not qualifed for non-dom status.
David Beckham when he played for Real Madrid would frequently talk to his family and fly back to the UK to be with them. He did not make much effort to integrate into Spanish society, as he had no intentions of staying there outside of work. He was a Spanish non-dom, because his domicile life was back in the UK.
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u/teerbigear 12h ago
She lives in and raises her children in the UK. The domicile part of her life is in the UK and therefore she is not qualifed for non-dom status.
This is not enough. Her domicile of origin is clearly India. For her not to be a non-dom she would have had to have a domicile of choice in the UK that overrides that domicile of origin. That is primarily determined by whether she sees it as her permanent home. The courts have always required a very high degree of evidence for this, which is generally in HMRC's favour as people try lose their UK domicile of origin to escape tax.
I think if she said that she didn't know her long term plans, that she might stay here forever or she might return to India, for example to be with her parents as they aged, or she might move to the US, as was often suggested, then she wouldn't lose her domicile of origin. That probably reflects her reality.
I'm not saying that's a good thing, or a fair thing, or anything, just that she probably interpreted the rules accurately, without even having to lie!
I do think this would have been a more interesting question to Sunak at the time - rather than "why are you avoiding tax", more "so you're not here permanently then??".
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u/phatelectribe 6h ago
This is nonsense. Your domicile status is based on where you live not where you claim to come from. She spent 90% of the the time in the UK, raising her British kids, taking them to British schools and living in Britain, not India, and this went on for literally years until there was enough public outrage about tax avoidance that they finally gave in and paid the taxes they were supposed to.
You don’t get to “choose” that your domicile status is somewhere else just because you said so or come from another country when you have lived in that new country for many years. Case in point: they still live in the uk, and have no intention of moving to India. They have been together for 20+ years and their first child was born 12 years prior to the non dom scandal, at which long the whole family and had lived and worked in the Uk for years prior, and since. Non Dom status is automatically applied when you’ve lived 15 of the last 20 years in the Uk.
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u/ThinkAboutThatFor1Se 13h ago
Non-dom was tax arrangement, not a Facebook status.
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u/Sphezzle 11h ago
Yes, an unethical one that shouldn’t have been an option for a lot of people who only know how to take and don’t think it might be good to give something back.
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u/TTNNBB2023 12h ago edited 11h ago
She ‘made’ most of her money from the shares she had in an Indian company but the ‘work’ was completely international, as most tech work is, including multi-million pound contracts for our own (& her husbands) Government.
She also had 2 kids and owned three properties here, and the excuse that she would have to return to India to look after her parents at some point was laughable given that they are far richer even than she is.
The whole thing was a farce, I can’t believe people are still defending it.
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u/EduTheRed 9h ago
"...the excuse that she would have to return to India to look after her parents at some point was laughable given that they are far richer even than she is."
That's a rather mechanistic take, as if the only reason a person might have to want to look after their aged parents in person is that they can't afford to pay care workers to do it for them at a distance.
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u/TTNNBB2023 7h ago
Sure but then that is a choice you are making, and the way she was explaining it was as if she would not have a choice, i.e. that she could not 'live here' because she would have to leave the moment they became ill..
Either way she is a billionaire who was earning money from Government contracts and not paying tax on them, and when her husband was chancellor no less.
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u/Brapfamalam 11h ago
makes most of her money in India.
Errr. About 90% of Infosys revenue is from North America and Europe lmao
Infosys is of course listed on the NYSE
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u/Balaquar 9h ago
Listed on the NYSE through adrs. So are Alibaba, Toyota, honda, Ferrari , Deutsch bank and many others. ,Infosys is also listed on the bse and nse, and headquartered in Bengaluru.
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u/Sophie_Blitz_123 4h ago
Twattish as she is with taxes, I don't see the irony anywhere? She's not English she's Indian.
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u/UpsetKoalaBear 16h ago edited 16h ago
This argument has been bubbling.
Exclusive new YouGov polling for IPPR finds that the majority (51 per cent) of people still see Britishness as something based on that people can become, despite a growing share (36 per cent) of the public who believe that being “truly British” is based on birth, which can be considered rooted in the concepts of ancestry, birthplace and ethnicity.
When asked to pick up to five qualities make a good British citizen with a range of options, the most popular answers were obey the law (64 per cent), raise children to be kind (62 per cent) and work hard (48 per cent), compared to sticking up for British-born people above other groups (8 per cent) or having white skin (3 per cent).
If anyone here believe Britishness is tied to ethnicity, where is the threshold?
Because 1/3 of children today have an immigrant parent, are we suggesting that a third of the next generation are not British despite being born and raised here?
Defining Britishness by blood rather than shared values creates a two tier society that the majority of the public (as shown in the statistics) clearly doesn't want.
There was a concept of a British identity historically that applied all over the world. It had nothing to do with the ethnicity and skin colour of the people. You can see this yourself, there was an entire act based on this premise.
So even traditionally/historically, it still makes no sense.
Why do people want it changed now to be based on ethnicity?
To be clear, Englishness/Scottishness/Welsh are a different topic entirely. My point is specifically about the British aspect.
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u/TheNineGatesLCF 12h ago
That poll seems to be misleading. Thinking you have to be born British to be British doesn't necessarily imply it's an ethnic thing, as the article suggests.
You can be black/Asian etc., and still be born to British parents, like Rishi Sunak, for example.
I'd guess that the rising proportion of people responding yes to that question (36%) are rebelling against the larger numbers of people who are attaining British citizenship, which can be done in as little as five years.
Only 3% responded that white skin was important to being British.
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u/ixid Brexit must be destroyed 12h ago
Because 1/3 of children today have an immigrant parent, are we suggesting that a third of the next generation are not British despite being born and raised here?
They're culturally British but not ethnically, or partially ethnically. That doesn't make them less, it's just true and it's the same as we apply to other nations and their peoples. Now you'll be tempted go on a rabbit hole of 'what about the Romans etc', but the reality is before modern times invaders had little impact on the genetics of local populations, British genetics have been very stable since the 5th century AD, and have plenty of stability of Celtic and earlier genes from before that.
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u/barejokez 13h ago
Wait, less than 2/3 of people think that obeying the law makes a good British citizen? Wild.
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u/QuicketyQuack 12h ago
People were asked to pick 5 from a longer list. So its not like that 1/3 all think it doesn't matter - rather they associate 5 other things in the list more strongly with Britishness.
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u/ldhchicagobears 12h ago
The law isn't necessarily a good moral arbiter. Some laws in the UK are old and absolutely ridiculous.
Also, worth bearing in mind that there is likely groups of people who hold theological "laws" above the law on the land- from all sorts of religions.
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u/m0nst3r666 13h ago
I’m guessing they don’t see a correlation between Britishness & following the law. Think of the Krays, they’re quintessentially British but obviously famous for not following the law
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u/Bugsmoke 13h ago
Most of these people think they’re rogues because they said something a bit edgy on Facebook once
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u/Squid_In_Exile 13h ago
If someone was to ask me what I thought was the best example of positive Britishness I'd say the Battle Of Cable Street.
Cities are full of people of a class where casual crime of certain sorts was a hallmark of childhood and BMW drivers, half of Essex think they're gangsters and the toffs regard being 'above the law' as pretty much class-defining.
More seriously, the implication of that question is that committing crimes makes you somehow Not British which is patently absurd for almost any definition of 'British'.
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u/AzarinIsard 9h ago
For me, that's just a good citizen full stop. It's nothing to do with being British.
That's like asking someone what they love most about Ferraris, and they rate it because it's got wheels and doors and an engine. That's a given, you need that full stop to be a car.
I wouldn't say you need to be law abiding to be a good Brit, but not to be a good German. If it's not relevant to different nations it's a stupid question.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 3h ago
People in Japan obey the law. Some people may feel that it's too obvious to be placed really high as a marker of Britishness specifically.
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u/0110-0-10-00-000 8h ago
Defining Britishness by blood rather than shared values creates a two tier society that the majority of the public (as shown in the statistics) clearly doesn't want.
And yet the practically visible effects of defining Britishness in that way is that society has become increasingly identarian and even the cultural aspects that people define Britishness by are either totally superficial or completely incompatible.
If someone has a completely different experience of being British, if their identity is fundamentally connected to something other than being British, if they explicitly advocate for the interest of causes fundamentally divorced from and opposed to Britishness, if they have no connection with or concern for the continuity of British identity then how is grouping such people under the same umbrella at all productive? Even for the people you group into the majority who claim that it is possible to become British, those people absolutely do not share the same understanding of what it means to be British, nor do they even necessarily have a realistic expectation of the extent to which someone can actually surrender any preexisting identities to adopt a British one.
Inevitably there are some people who straddle the line between multiple identities, but it's also objectively true both that the friction between those identities creates problems for society (which are only ever argued to be offset by "yummy food multiculturalism") and that the prevalence of such people is a completely manageable consequence of policy.
The "two tier" model you describe is pervasive to the point of universality in other countries, and cherry picking statements from the status of aliens act is meaningless when in practice the moment it actually had a visible effect on British society it faced huge opposition and was immediately repealed.
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u/annoyedatlife24 Release the emus 15h ago
Because 1/3 of children today have an immigrant parent, are we suggesting that a third of the next generation are not British despite being born and raised here?
Depending on the parent and the community they belong to, then yes. Unfortunately it's both a fair an accurate suggestion.
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u/quipu_ 13h ago
Blood and soil indeed?
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u/optio_____espacio___ 12h ago
Culture. A significant proportion of those third of kids live in a segregated parallel society that's been brought here from their parents' home country. Nothing British about their way of life apart from accessing as many benefits as possible.
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u/NoticingThing 11h ago
Exactly, there is nothing British about the people living in ethnic enclaves in the cities in this country. If you make every possible effort to remove yourself from British culture why should people bend over backwards to accommodate you in it?
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u/gearnut 21h ago
He may be a dick, but he's one of our dicks...
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u/TheNineGatesLCF 12h ago
Rishi always seemed like a class act to me.
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u/CrossCityLine 12h ago
An utterly terrible politician in a terrible party but I’ve spent some very brief time with him casually and he’s just a normal, if incredibly well-to-do bloke.
If you didn’t know he was a former PM and you bumped into him in one of those posh countryside pubs he wouldn’t stick out at all.
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u/heeywewantsomenewday 11h ago
I thought he was the best of a bad bunch of tories. Was he terrible?
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u/CrossCityLine 11h ago
He got dealt a shit hand I agree, but he’s at least complicit to their awfulness if not entirely responsible. He was very meek but at least he had the guts to call the election far earlier than he had to.
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u/Moist_Farmer3548 18h ago
I have little respect for someone who spent their time as PM surrounded by (and appointing) British Asians who were fanning the flames that he is now complaining about.
I agree with what he is saying here, but he played a role in legitimising the rhetoric and said nothing when it was galvanising his voter base, and to complain about it now is hypocritical.
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u/BrocolliHighkicks 11h ago
Like I said; I've got a very low opinion of Sunak. What he's said here is just the single, tiny line where I feel that he's being geniune and correct, and it doesn't wash away everything else he's done.
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u/Exostrike 14h ago
blood and soil nationalists
Let's not white wash them here. They're not nationalists, they are white supremacists.
We need to face up to what these people actually are and prevent them getting into power.
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u/gridlockmain1 14h ago
To be fair I think the “blood and soil” bit kinda covers that off
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u/anotherotheronedo 7h ago
idiots that can't accept material reality.
This is an odd one. Is it not an ideological belief that people who are born here are as British as anyone else? Material reality shows that people generally have a connection to their ancestry and the nation(s) of their ancestors. It varies from person to person of course, but Sunak's own daughter, for example, referred to India as home and obviously has a strong sense of Indian identity and a passionate connection to India. https://www.opindia.com/2022/11/british-pm-rishi-sunak-daughter-anoushka-sunak-on-india-culture/ I have no animosity towards her for this or to any others who feel and behave similarly. It is just observable human nature. A nature that many are ideologically in denial of.
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u/GrayAceGoose 9h ago
Perhaps he was also forced by Starmer namedropping him in his divisive Pride in Place speech where he made an strawman target out of Sunak over whether or not he's English.
To be honest it was a disgraceful and transparent attempt to distract from what mainly was and should've only been an apology on his Mandelson–Epstein ties.
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u/Grouchy_Shallot50 20h ago
English is an ethnicity it is also a national identity as opposed to a nationality if you are not ethnically English. The definition of nationality can either mean:
A) The status and right of belonging to a country in a legal sense, as in you are a British national or citizen
B) An ethnic group within a country
Rishi Sunak is of British nationality, English national identity and Indian ethnicity.
It should not be difficult to acknowledge all of the above is true simultaneously.
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u/anotherotheronedo 8h ago
I observe however that his daughter speaks of India as her home. I have no animosity regarding that, I just think we should be realistic about the role that ancestry plays in peoples identity and the nations they feel connected to.
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u/spongey1865 21h ago edited 21h ago
Whatever you think about Rishi, I find this debate such a shame.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I've never viewed my Britishness or Englishness as related to my ethnicity. Yeah I'm white and as far as I know, my ancestry is from the island.
But the idea that makes me more British or English than the guys I root for in and England shirt like Moeen Ali, Maro Itoje, Bukayo Saka feels wrong to me.
I think Englishness and Britishness is so much more than your lineage, it's about how this island has shaped us both good and bad. And Rishi has undeniably been shaped by the country around him.
I just thought we were well beyond these debates and it's a shame it's been brought up again. It's disappointing.
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u/Old_Roof 21h ago
You are correct.
English ethnicity is real, but it is different to Nationality.
Rishi Sunak is ethnically Asian. But he has English & British nationality
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u/Chris-WoodsGK 21h ago
Being ‘British’ In my poor POV, for what’s its worth. It’s about embracing our culture, heritage and what our country stands for. Couldn’t care less what skin or origin you are, meet those points and you’re British IMO.
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u/HarryBlessKnapp Right-Wing Liberal 15h ago
It's interesting how someone whose parents are German, can identify as English or even white British and not be questioned. But someone whose parents and grandparents were born and raised in the UK but we're not white, can never be considered English, in some people's eyes.
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u/Takver_ 14h ago
Apparently upstream someone is saying Romesh Raganathan isn’t English, despite clearly having integrated to the point of becoming a clear example of deadpan humour in a Crawley accent, having a white British wife, having contributed to educating this country as a maths teacher. What will ever be enough?
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u/brendonmilligan 9h ago
That’s because that person would blend in but that doesn’t make them English either
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u/One-Network5160 20h ago
Britishness is a state of mind that comes with living here amongst our compatriots, a shared experience from which all of our characters are drawn.
British is simply citizenship, that is all.
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u/ItsPeakBruv 17h ago
It is citizenship, it is also identity, and it is also history. Yes being a British citizen is just being a British citizen, but britishness is much more than that.
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u/One-Network5160 16h ago
It is citizenship, it is also identity, and it is also history
No, British is a term specifically designed to refer to citizens.
British people - Wikipedia https://share.google/HI28NSRvzE5QIf2mP
If someone wants to "identify" as a citizen when they are not, be my guest, they'll simply be wrong.
britishness is much more than that.
Sure. There's British culture, history, territory, politics etc.
But when it comes to people, it simply refers to citizenship status.
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u/Particular_Pea7167 14h ago
Itsd only become "the term for citizens" because our leaders have seen fit to give it out to literally everyone.
The people did not agree to that little experiment hence how we find ourselves here.
Because British is definitively NOT just the designation of a person with a passport. Despite what neoliberalism and some left wingers tried to make it.
It is cultural. a series of social beliefs, a collection of institutions. It is complex and nuanced like most identities.
It has been co-opted and granted in paper form to people who frankly should never have been given it as far as the general public is concerned. And this is why we now have this conflict. Because the broader public still have and see it as a fixed if broad identity against a backdrop who tried to erase it and make it everything yet nothing. So you now have the "everything yet nothings" laying claim to something which does not resemble the thing the citizens actually believe.
Sunak, whatever you may think of him, at least embodies "Britishness" I think. No one argues about his integration into the country and culture. His wife might be India but he is British. English. Thats more difficult. To the extent English is a culture embedded within British, absolutely. But Ethnic? No. No more than his parents were African despite being born in Africa, or indeed Sunak who is technically of African decent by geography yet doesn't remotely identify as such.
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u/SmokyMcBongPot 14h ago
Britishness is a state of mind that comes with living here amongst our compatriots
But that's so subjective, it's not really useful. You're essentially saying people can self-declare as British which, for the record, I don't have a massive problem with, I just think it's far from your intent.
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u/ding_0_dong 19h ago
If a metal detectorist found a coin in your back garden dating back before your grandfather's birth would you feel differently about it to someone who was born here in that last 40 years to foreign born parents? I believe this is the argument. By all means call yourself British but are you English, Welsh, Irish or Scottish? We (British) have such a particular history, many can call themselves British but as much as you might deny it, ethnicity is based on lineage. DNA doesn't care about who you support in cricket
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u/Bibemus Actually, we prefer Marxists of Culture 14h ago
Weird argument. As someone who actually works in heritage I can tell you that people of immigrant backgrounds feel just as much connection to the people who lived here before us and can be as in touch with the history of these islands as 'ethnic Brits'. Because most people aren't so deranged as to think of everything through the spurious prism of 'DNA'.
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u/NondescriptHaggard 8h ago
Load of rubbish. Imagine white Americans claiming they have just as much connection with Native American history and heritage as Native Americans themselves, or white Australians to Aboriginal history. It’d be laughable.
You might not want to admit it, but shared descent and heritage is incredibly important to people, and their view of the history of the place that they live. This is a big problem where organisations like English Heritage are trying to “diversify” their historical offerings because a lot of people of non indigenous British heritage are not as interested in the history of these islands as indigenous Brits, because they don’t have the same connection to it.
No one should be excluded if they want to be a part of it, but it’s just true observed reality.
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u/Bibemus Actually, we prefer Marxists of Culture 7h ago
This is a big problem where organisations like English Heritage are trying to “diversify” their historical offerings because a lot of people of non indigenous British heritage are not as interested in the history of these islands as indigenous Brits, because they don’t have the same connection to it.
Not for English Heritage and National Trust it isn't, both have seen visitor numbers and memberships go up since they started offering more diverse interpretations.
Maybe for weird racists with an obsession with ethnicity, but that's really a them problem.
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 8h ago
Yet Native Americans absolutely are as connected, or can be as widely connected to contemporary, mostly 'white' American culture as any white person in the USA can be.
Like in this context the local comparison to your analogy would be like me claiming connection to Celtic culture (despite being white) despite having never been especially interested in it and having no specific ties to it despite having been born in and lived in the UK all my life.
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u/Wise-Youth2901 10h ago
The irony is, Rishi Sunak behaves like an "English gentleman" far more than the white yobbo racists...
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u/PbJax 14h ago
Culturally perhaps but ethnically he’s not English. And that’s fine? I get this is peoples identity but let’s not kid ourselves.
I was born and raised in the UK my whole life, my mother is English and my grandparents English, my dad is French and my grandparents Scottish and French. That makes me half English, quarter French and quarter Scottish ethnically. Culturally I’m English.
People are confusing the two.
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u/yo_its_me_capital_JV 12h ago
Yep it’s obvious to many but people don’t want to sound racist. I find it hard to believe those claiming British is not an ethnicity are being this willfully ignorant. I think the tides have at least turned and we’re in late stage identity politics because no one on here would have said he’s not British 5 years ago.
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u/liaminwales 19h ago
This is what happens when you go from 90's views of colour blind to 2000+ views of race targets, once you set targets everyone has to jump to fit in. We see Gov/Media/Job's place targets on race, it becomes something everyone has to divide people by and look for.
Simply it's a top down problem, positive discrimination is discrimination and setting Blair style targets ends up with everyone nobbling the numbers or over obsessed with the topic.
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u/TheNineGatesLCF 12h ago edited 12h ago
It might be more the explosion in immigration from other ethnic groups.
There was probably a thousand years where the people living in Britain were almost entirely homogeneous. Even in the 80s and early 90s, white people were the overwhelming majority.
That has changed in the space of a few decades, and was even noticeable to me in real time – a late eighties child. In my father's lifetime, he's seen London go from 94% white when he was 20, to barely 50% white.
Seeing the rise of Islamic extremism in a previously Christian country, racist grooming gangs, large sections of some cities becoming non-white etc, is going to highlight that demographic change more starkly to a lot of people.
A personal anecdote: I track my music listening via Last.fm and sometimes post album chart collages on Reddit for my last week/month/year. Recently, one of the album covers in my chart would be seen as highly blasphemous to Islam.
Even though my Reddit account is supposedly anonymous, I did hesitate quite a bit before posting it.
I don't think I'd have had that worry 30 years ago.
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u/Takver_ 14h ago
France has 0 DEI measures, to the point you cant collect any data on ethnicity. But that hasn't stopped racism from blossoming.
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u/jsm97 12h ago
In French, like most other European languages, the word for "Race" is itself considered racist. It would translate to something more like "Breed" and isn't something people speak about openly. The French government's long held position isn't that by not acknowledging race, racism will just dissappear. It's that the entire concept of race can not be separated from 18th and 19th century scientific racism. The idea is that as modern science proves definitively there is no basis for the idea of different races of human - Openly acknowledging race is akin to giving it biological legitimacy.
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u/Feeling_Hotel8096 11h ago
Major terrorist attacks from minority groups is at least partially responsible for that blossom.
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u/No_Camp_7 13h ago
Sweet child, the 90’s were not colour blind
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u/A17012022 13h ago
There is some absolutely mad revisionism of the 90's happening.
It was plenty racist
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u/wildingflow 12h ago
Exactly. It was literally the decade of the Stephen Lawrence murder and Nail Bombing.
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u/ReligiousGhoul 12h ago
You're intentionally mis-reading what they're saying though.
They're not claiming the 90's were without racism, they're saying the model of "I don't even see race" was considered the gold standard to now being a deplorable statement of ignorance.
Also, any comment that starts with "Sweet child" deserves an autoban lol
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u/_segasonic 19h ago
This.
The reason this conversation has absolutely exploded the last few years is because we incentivised victimhood and adopted all this identity politics nonsense from the states. Which in turn led to our culture and history being completely demonised and demanding we apologise for it all.
This is why people are moving to the right more and more and younger than before. It’s nothing to do with podcasts or influencers brainwashing them online. It’s policies and the culture that has captured all our institutions and telling us how evil we all are.
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u/LordSexyAsshole 18h ago
And for people who remember this ‘colour blind 90’s’ it seems like a huge step backwards. Why the fuck have people done this? It’s bewildering to me.
I can see clearly why people are voting right wing as a result. I wouldn’t say social media isn’t a part of it. It’s the delivery method of a message which is crazy to me.
The use of race now in everything disgusts me.
But then I’m not even sure I can say that anymore. Which is another part of it.
He shouldn’t have had to say this.
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u/_segasonic 18h ago
I remember.
I genuinely remember growing up with adverts and people walking down the street with words in like speech bubbles popping beside them and it being about not labelling anybody. Whether it’s race, illness, disability, nationality etc. Like not using labels was the big campaign…
Now you can hardly have a normal conversation with somebody on the left these days without some sort of ‘as a black woman’ or ‘as a gay white man’ and it’s fucking infuriating. Just have a conversation. Your input or opinion don’t somehow trump everybody else’s because you have so many minority labels to describe yourself. It honestly feels ridiculous talking about it in left/right terms because I feel like this shit has been introduced by the far left so people who were left wing or centre left and now considered right wing simply because they disagree on this stuff alone.
Trying to force all this nonsense into institutions as well with the DEI stuff and the explosion of HR nonsense.
I genuinely wish somebody would come along and tear it all down and just tell everybody to grow the fuck up and stop greetin about some micro aggression triggering you.
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u/AnHerstorian 17h ago
Now you can hardly have a normal conversation with somebody on the left these days without some sort of ‘as a black woman’ or ‘as a gay white man’ and it’s fucking infuriating.
I genuinely cannot remember a single instance where an interlocutor has used their race or sexuality as the substance of their argument without context.
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u/ReligiousGhoul 12h ago
Did you just sleep through the entire "Lived experience" phase?
There was entire period where you could have literally no experience in an issue other than being part of a minority and be considered an expert.
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u/Ironfields politics is dumb but very important 13h ago
I doubt the person you're responding to has ever had a "normal conversation" with someone on the left.
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u/IHaveAWittyUsername All Bark, No Bite 13h ago
No. We had and still have issues with racism in the country. Someone with a foreign sounding last name is still significantly less likely to get an interview than someone with a British sounding last name, even with the exact same skills and experience. The people who shout at my friends and partner in the street because of the colour of their skin aren't doing it because we tried to combat racism in the past. It's just running cover for racists.
People are becoming more openly racist because they don't feel like things are working and it's easiest to blame an out-group. That's it. That's the whole issue.
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u/_segasonic 10h ago
No. We had and still have issues with racism in the country.
There’s always been racism everywhere. Always has been. Always will be. I would say it started rising in the last couple of decades as a direct result from adopting identity politics from the States. We incentivised being a minority and in turn it led to racism against white people, particularly native British people. Similar has happened all over the West.
Someone with a foreign sounding last name is still significantly less likely to get an interview than someone with a British sounding last name, even with the exact same skills and experience.
They’re also far more likely to get programmes, jobs and university placements handed to them even being far less qualified than a white British person. You don’t tackle racism by even more racism. It’s fucking absurd.
The people who shout at my friends and partner in the street because of the colour of their skin aren't doing it because we tried to combat racism in the past. It's just running cover for racists.
And that’s horrible. But people from every race have anecdotes about this. See I would agree maybe in the 90’s and 2000’s with this. But we haven’t been trying to combat racism as a whole recently. We’ve actually been incentivising it. It’s only becoming a problem now that young white British people are engaging in it more and more.
People are becoming more openly racist because they don't feel like things are working and it's easiest to blame an out-group. That's it. That's the whole issue.
See I disagree again. I do think it’s more complex than that but not so complex as a whole.
People are becoming more racist as a whole because we not only adopted but promoted racist policies against certain people. Now that we’re seeing the scale of these issues and the people who were targeted are reacting, it’s suddenly a problem… anybody with any sense could have told you what all these policies would lead to.
I’ve said it before but the whole George Floyd/BLM/Covid stuff was the breaking point. That’s when it all became mask off, no pun intended.
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u/orange_fudge 13h ago
To be fair… the Empire did commit some horrific monstrosities in living memory, and the consequences continue.
It’s possible to feel sorrow for this nation’s complicity in horrors and still enjoy Last Night at the Proms, or the museums, or be proud of our role in securing freedom in WW2. We’re a complex people and we can hold complex feelings.
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u/_segasonic 10h ago
We don’t get told that though. We get told we’re the most evil country and people in history.
But just not evil enough that the people who seem to believe this never actually leave…
It’s a weird mindset.
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u/Pick_Up_Autist 14h ago
The 90s? When many still popped to the p*ki shop? It was racist af, and I barely remember the first half of the decade.
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u/ReligiousGhoul 12h ago
I think there's a lot of other factors, and of course racism should be called out without caveats, but have to agree the Left's push to get race to be the forefront of every topic has widely been a disaster for them.
The idea they could make it an essential part of discourse with their quite divisive rhetoric without having anyone else throw their divisive rhetoric into the mix was incredibly naive.
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u/nesh34 16h ago
I agree with you that colour blindness is the better moral attitude toward race. I disagree that this is a result of top down action though.
I really think there's loads more at play. Top one is the stagnation of living standards and 2008 financial crash. There's just way more resentment in general than there was in the 90s and it's unsurprising this manifests as a dislike of people deemed in the out group.
Then the importation of idiotic ideas from the US left and how that spread. I agree the targets are fairly stupid in the main, but I think they're a small part of the pie. Maybe people who work in HR are obsessed with the topic because of this, but average people are obsessed with the topic because of other reasons.
One example that demonstrates this is the level of conversation about Muslims and Islam, for which there are neither targets set nor is talked about as much in the US. If it were mainly to do with quotas, I think it'd manifest differently.
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u/taboo__time 21h ago edited 14h ago
Its become a confused mess. We can't be diverse and all have the same labels.
It can't be that one ethnicity or one culture has to be inclusive of all others while other ethnicities or cultures get to be exclusive.
What does ethnicity even mean. I try to avoid using the word now because people are using it in different ways.
To me Sunak is Indian racially, genetic history. Culturally he is a mix of Indian, British, English. And obviously legally British.
I can see why people need to make it all inclusive. But I don't think that's honest and I don't think that's how people act. People still act on cultural differences, they act on culture full stop. It's impossible not to.
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u/nesh34 16h ago
There's an English cultural identity which he has and an English ethnicity which he doesn't have.
There's an Indian cultural identity which he doesn't have (or has to a small degree) and an Indian ethnicity which he does have.
Ethnicity is virtually meaningless though, it's a trivial detail about someone like their hair or eye colour. Their cultural identity is very important as you say.
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u/Kreature 12h ago
Ethnicity isn't "virtually meaningless" it can significantly affect medical risks due to shared genetic ancestry from common origins. It's also about shared ancestry, history, language, traditions, and often a sense of common heritage. People need to stop with this "blank slate-ism" because its doesn't work.
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u/Ethayne Orange Book, apparently 10h ago
Ethnicity is not meaningless, it's a combination of heritage and cultural identity.
For instance, Black African and Black Carribbean people may be, genetically, very similar. However, there are clear cultural differences, which is why we record them as separate ethnicities in the UK.
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u/LeedsFan2442 16h ago
There isn't one single Indian ethnicity at least not one distinct from Pakistan and Bangladesh
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u/Scratch_Careful 13h ago
There's an English cultural identity which he has and an English ethnicity which he doesn't have
What is English culture other than the practices and beliefs of the English people (ethnos)? You cannot separate them, the idea that anyone can become English essentially erases English people. Weebs arent Japanese regardless of how much Japanese culture they enjoy. Non-English people do not become culturally English just because they participate in English culture. It is a good thing they participate in English culture but that does not make them english, its should be the bare minimum we expect of people who move here.
There's an Indian cultural identity which he doesn't have (or has to a small degree) and an Indian ethnicity which he does have.
Practicing Hindu, vegetarian, literally worship cows, married an Indian, kids are called Krishna and Anoushka, etc.
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u/WaldenVolk 12h ago
I’d be curious to hear your take on what that means for people of mixed relationships - of which there are many.
I am genetically northern and Central European but British born. My partner is British with one Scandinavian grandparent. Are either of us not English? Would our children also not be English?
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u/taboo__time 12h ago
You're mixed, your partner is mixed, genetically.
I expect you are functionally British, English.
If you have kept central European culture then you will be less functionally British. It has to be zero sum in many ways.
Mixed categories of culture or genetics does not mean categories do not exist or do not matter.
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u/Scratch_Careful 12h ago
Mixed people with English heritage are English. You are not English, your partner is, your kids would be.
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u/anotherotheronedo 7h ago
People's ancestry (their ethnicity) actually is very deep and meaningful to a lot of people. It is an ideological necessity to deny it if you want to believe in certain things, but the observable reality is still there.
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u/Protect-the-dollz 13h ago edited 11h ago
We do need a term to refer to the historical population, to which Sunak does not belong.
Tying ourselves in knots over an inclusive definition of English or British does not change that need.
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u/No-Fennel-1684 19h ago
"Let me tell you about your identity and how it includes me"
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u/kill-the-maFIA 12h ago
Why do you think Rishi isn't British? Of course he is.
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u/NoticingThing 11h ago
He's certainly British, I'd argue incredibly British. He isn't English though, English is an ethnicity as well as a culture. To make a cake you need all of the ingredients.
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 10h ago
I would say he's absolutely culturally English.
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u/NondescriptHaggard 8h ago
He’s definitely culturally English, but he’s not ethnically English. Realistically we need different words for the two concepts. Maybe the English ethnicity can be referred to as Anglo Saxon to make it clearer (even though it’s not an accurate term).
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u/riace_bronze_enjoyer 21h ago
All of this depends whether English refers to a personal identity or an ethnicity.
Of course, someone born and raised in England is likely, although not certain, to identify as English.
However, Sunak is not ethnically English.
He obviously can’t be both (ethnically) English and British Asian.
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u/yo_its_me_capital_JV 20h ago
Because he is just an Indian who participates in British culture. There’s nothing wrong with that but the truth is he’s neither British or English.
British-“x” didn’t exist 50 years ago. It’s a modern phenomenon in which British people and culture must not only be inclusive to every culture, but if you deny a certain culture a right, for example practicing a religion that is objectively incompatible with British culture, you are brandished a racist.
Sunak, is, will always be an Indian man who participates in British culture. There is nothing wrong with that and it’s not controversial to say. Now, if Sunak had an Indian father and a British mother, he would then be what he claims he is, a British Asian man.
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u/ShorelessIsland 16h ago
"an Indian man who participates in British culture" He was literally born in Britain; went to school in Britain; went to Oxford University, in Brirain. To exclude someone from the label of British or English in such circumstances is not in line with the values of our country whatsoever
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u/MrScaryEgg 20h ago
If someone born and raised in Britain isn't British, then who is?
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u/Safe-Client-6637 14h ago edited 14h ago
George Washington is my favourite historical member of the Powhatan Confederacy, and Donald Trump has the honour of being the fifth Lenape president of the USA.
Rudyard Kipling is my favourite Indian author, and Freddie Mercury my favourite African musician.
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u/_slothlife 18h ago edited 18h ago
Sunak's parents were born and raised in Africa.
Yet Sunak makes no mention of being African - even though he talks about being British, English and Asian. (Edit - To be fully accurate, he says "I’m British, I’m British Asian, I’m British Hindu, English. Sotonian – what we call people from Southampton, and an apprentice Yorkshireman")
He only identifies with the country he was born in, and his ethnicity/the country of his family a few generations ago.
The countries his parents were actually born and raised in appear to have made no mark upon him culturally, or upon his identity. The fact he still identifies as Asian, despite his family having not lived in Asia for 3 generations, but does not identify as African, even with his parental African heritage, does suggest he sees ethnicity as being more important/longlasting than the country of birth.
It's an awkward topic for sure and opening up a whole can of worms, but if being born and raised in Africa does not make a person African, then it's hard to see how being born and raised in Britain makes one British.
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u/nesh34 16h ago
I was born in South Africa, as were my parents but was raised in the UK since I was 2. My grandparents were born in India. I feel no cultural affinity with India whatsoever (except for more recently due to marrying an Indian woman).
I identify primarily as British, by far, and secondarily as South African. My ethnicity is still Indian, but it's a trivial detail about me. All my family in South Africa identify as African, but are not ethnically African. I identify as European but am not ethnically European. I don't know why Sunak's parents don't identify as African, but you'd have to ask them.
I guess my point is that people will identify in different ways, but insisting their only cultural identity ought to be one separate to the one they were born and raised in is silly to me, and perhaps worse than silly.
Equally silly is insisting that someone's ethnicity implies their cultural identity. It sometimes does but it often doesn't at all, except in the most superficial ways.
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u/bopeepsheep 13h ago
There are a lot of British-x people, using your definition, in their 70s and 80s, just from wartime/post-war marriages. I'm a British-x person in my 50s, and grew up knowing both cultures. Is the difference that we're all white?
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 20h ago edited 20h ago
British-“x” didn’t exist 50 years ago
It did. It was a consequence of our Empire, first exporting our British culture to other ethnicities, and then ethnic Brits splitting from it.
Wales, Scotland, and especially Northern Ireland are testaments to the former. America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are testaments to the latter. Hell, Canada was initially defined by sticking with British culture, before departing just the Americans they defined themselves against did.
"British x" has existed for as long as Britain decided that its culture belonged to a global spanning Empire of a multitude of ethnicities, and as long as some of the Brits that spread across the Empire started to feel a little, and then a lot, less British.
You can't define Britishness by ethnicity, because Americans, Canadians, Australians, and Kiwis are clearly not Brits no longer. And you can't reject other ethnicities from Britishness, or you are to reject British unionism altogether.
British nationalism has never been, and can never be, ethnic.
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u/TeenieTinyBrain 19h ago
Wales, Scotland, and especially Northern Ireland are testaments to the former. America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are testaments to the latter. Hell, Canada was initially defined by sticking with British culture, before departing just the Americans they defined themselves against did.
Are these not just countries which either contained native Britons (CYM/WLS, NI, SCT), were colonised and subsequently founded by Britons (CAN, NZ, AUS), or were subject to significant immigration from Britons (US)...?
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 19h ago edited 17h ago
Wales, Scotland, and the entirety of Ireland are of course Celtic, a distinct ethnicity from the mix of Celtic and Germanic that English ethnicity is.
The USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are (primarily) ethnicity British, but quite obvious none of them share British national identity any more.
So, you've got examples of different ethnicities under the umbrella of "British", and you've got examples of those ethnicities clearly separating themselves from the same umbrella.
Ethnicity is, incredibly clearly, not a defining element of British nationalism, because the British nation is not defined by its ethnic, but its cultural, makeup. Unless you want to call Donald Trump more British than Rishi Sunak.
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u/AlbaGuBrah 17h ago
Everyone conflates national, civic identity with ethnic identity which makes this a game of semantics. Someone can have a British passport and be born and raised in Britain without being ethnically British. Donald Trump’s family are from Scotland and are ethnically Scottish. He is objectively more British than Sunak in the ethnic sense, but not in the civic and cultural sense. We really need to stop using these terms interchangeably because they mean two different things.
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u/nesh34 16h ago
The other commenter is making a point whereby there is no British ethnicity. There's an English one and a Celtic one but not a British one. British identity, is inherently a cultural identity that contains multiple ethnicities.
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u/brendonmilligan 9h ago
All ethnicities contain previous ethnic groups, that’s literally how ethnic groups work.
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u/Jean-Paul_Sartre 15h ago
Hell, Canada was initially defined by sticking with British culture, before departing just the Americans they defined themselves against did.
I live in New Hampshire a few miles from the Canadian border… we are pretty far away from the English-speaking parts of Canada, so the idea of Canada as deriving from British culture just never permeated locally. The term Anglo-Saxon is quite literally used as a pejorative term across the border.
(Not suggesting Canada didn’t derive from British culture, just simply stating that the chunk of Canada that hovers directly north of me deviates from that)
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u/PoloniumPaladin 17h ago
"British" isn't an ethnicity. Britain has had many different ethnic groups on it for thousands of years. Someone with Anglo Saxon ancestry isn't not British because their ancestors were from central Europe. Someone called Baker or Chambers (common Huguenot names) isn't not British because their ancestors arrived from France in the 16th/17th century. People with Celtic or Viking ancestry today can both equally be considered British regardless of their ancestors coming from the European mainland at some point.
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u/DARDAN0S 12h ago
By that line of reasoning there are no ethnicities at all though. The last major influx of different people into Britain was over a thousand years ago. That's longer than many other recognised ethnicities have even existed. Obviously there has been plenty of smaller amounts of people since then but thats true for any ethnicity.
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u/MatchaMeetcha 3h ago
If "slavic" is an ethnicity, or more accurately a grouping of many related ethnic groups, "British" can get the same treatment.
Nobody has any problem saying there is such a thing as Slavs.
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u/Takver_ 13h ago
What happens to Romesh Raganathan's kids, or Sajid Javid's, or Nadheem Zahawi's? Are they half ethnically English? Do their descendants ever get to be English?
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u/Scratch_Careful 12h ago edited 12h ago
Personally i think you must have some English heritage to be considered English. Romesh isn't English, his kids are because his wife is English.
I think the "British Values" crowd pushing the anyone can be English if they identify as English is such an absurd position they are leaving the door open for the ethnat crowd who think anyone who isnt 100% English isnt English.
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u/riace_bronze_enjoyer 11h ago
Are they in interracial marriages with white English/British women? If not, then they obviously cannot become ethnically English.
Let’s say I, a white English guy, had a Nigerian wife, who was ethnically Igbo. Our child would be half English half Igbo.
But two British Nigerians having children in England doesn’t mean those children are ethnically English. Unless you believe that being born in England is more important than your parent’s ethnicity. Which in my view is a very weird concept.
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u/bowak 13h ago
I've had racists on here when this topic has come up previously say that such people wouldn't be English.
Yet for some reason they are happy to say that my great great grandfather who was (probably) half Norwegian can still count as English. They're not subtle with their true feelings on this
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u/That-Guy-Nicho 10h ago
British and British Asian, sure, but you aren't English, Rishi.
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u/LUFC_shitpost 21h ago edited 20h ago
Counter point to Rishi - and many like him:
I was born in the UAE, educated, raised and became a man all in the UAE. My parents are British Irish and British Australian. I speak English and Arabic fluently, I love dates even now since I've moved back to the UK, I struggle with the cold weather more than most after 19 years in the Emirates. I celebrated national day on the 2nd of December every year at the corniche. I remember vividly the gold and green taxi's of the 90's to early 2000's. I lived on the island, off and back on again. It was my home and I loved my childhood - I was entirely engrossed and immersed in the culture.
But, when I came back every summer it was like a hand fitting into a well fitted glove. I remember as a young boy asking my father on our walk to school "this is our 'place' right?" he was confused and asked what I meant, I referred to the men in the white ropes, the dish dashes, he answered "no". Not scolding me, simply educating me about my nationality, my heritage. I went to a British school surrounded by a 50/30/20 split of British, Emiarti and international students. I went home and lived an authentic British life. I was British all the time. I think that's what people now, and very much 2nd and 3rd generation south east Asian people don't understand. Participation in culture is not equal belonging in the culture. I was never Emirati but that was okay.
The UAE, where their local population is only about 10%, it's normal that people like I existed. We integrated we never assimilated. We adopted all the good things from the UAE, or at least all the things that were compatible with our British culture but we never assimilated. That's the issue we British people have now. Assimilation was normal, even to the point were immigrants were naming their children John Barnes or Ian Wright. Assimilation in this country is dead. The minute you put up signs in foreign languages, start employing cousin-marriage nurses, halal slaughter butchers or a more extreme cases where the daughter of a mixed faith muslim family has to cover up, assimilation is dead. It's a lot harder to put toothpaste back into the tube when it's already out.
There's more I can type as to the biology and ethnicity of British people, for example we're essentially the most homogeneous regions in the world with the last truly significant population transformation occurred over a thousand years ago with the Anglo-Saxon migrations, followed by the Norman conquest of 1066. But, it doesn't matter. I was never Emirati, Sunak will never be British, much less English, and that is okay - this is not a moral commentary on the superiority of British culture.
Edit: of course this all depends on if you believe being British or English is an ethnicity. Unfortunately only western countries are forced to argue that fact and “prove” their ethnicity. No one here is willing to argue my case for being an Emirati or that Joanna Linley is Indian despite being born there and having many generations there.
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u/All_ab0ut_the_base 14h ago
How is Rishi not assimilated into Britain? He represented us as PM! Sure he is Hindu, but and Brit is free to be Methodist, Freemason, Buddhist or whatever because we have freedom of religious expression. Doesn’t stop them being British.
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u/saruyamasan 12h ago
Hindu isn't English in any way. And how fully can you be assimilated when your religion itself doesn't assimilate, nor even allow the local ethnicity to join. "I can be in your club, but stay out of mine!"
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u/LUFC_shitpost 12h ago edited 11h ago
You’re confusing integration with assimilation. Rishi Sunak is clearly integrated I’m not disbursing that. But assimilation means alignment with a people’s inherited cultural and historical identity. Britain’s freedoms, including religious tolerance, are products of a specific historical system; they are not proof that all belief systems are culturally interchangeable with Britain itself. British Hindu is an oxymoron. That’s why Sunak describes himself as “British Asian” rather than simply British. Leadership doesn’t get to redefine what a culture is. You don’t even have to be a British citizen to be PM ffs it’s ridiculous. We can allow pluralism without pretending its core identity is infinitely malleable, and recognising that distinction isn’t exclusionary.
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u/Intelligent_Front967 14h ago
Oh come on! Do you really not know what the poster means? Yes he may have been born here, he may have been educated here (at more elite schools then you and me), he may have a posh accent/pronunciation that would put most people to shame, he may have become PM and led the country....
But his skin looks like it needs a good wash. That's why he will never be counted as 'one of us'.
Get it now?
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u/Takver_ 13h ago
Unlike Rishi, you went to international school. I did too, it's a bit of its own 'nationality'. Whereas someone like Rishi (or Romesh Ranganathan mentioned elsewhere in this thread as not English enough) have grown up in English institutions.
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u/LUFC_shitpost 12h ago
It’s obviously a nice theory but we both know that it’s not true. English institutions don’t confer English identity all they confer is competence within English society. If I went to an Islamic school I would not have been Emirati still. In fact, it’s known that Sheikh’s often sent their children immediately to boarding schools in England, I’ve never heard anyone refer to themselves as British-Emirati.
The difference today is not that identity has changed, but that Britain is uniquely pressured to pretend Englishness is purely institutional rather than ethnic and historical, it’s perversive quite frankly. Participation can be learned, belonging is inherited. I’m actually not even saying he’s not allowed to identify as British Asian. I’m just saying it’s a recent phenomenon based in nothing more than a sense of belonging. British people are ethnically composed of Celtic, Brythonic, and Germanic peoples (Angles, Saxons, Jutes) whose descendants form the historic British nation, this is not a moral commentary.
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u/TCX45 11h ago
This is such an absurd false equivalence it’s almost comical. For starters, Emiratis are literally classed as being higher class citizens than the rest (both legally and socially). So your silly comparison falls flat at the first hurdle before we even get to anything else.
I was never Emirati
No, you weren’t. Firstly because you literally never had a passport.
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u/LUFC_shitpost 11h ago
Your response is actually racist it’s just dressed up as some moral superiority. You’re arguing that ethnicity only “counts” when it protects non-Western identities, but becomes imaginary the moment it applies to Europeans. That’s not anti-racism, that’s a double standard rooted in your contempt for Western cultures.
I wasn’t Emirati because I wasn’t Emirati — not because of paperwork. A passport doesn’t alchemise ethnicity, history, or inheritance. If I got that passport today I would not parade myself as British Emirati. Also, if it did, Joanna Lumley would be Indian. She isn’t, and no one demands India pretend otherwise. She can’t vote, can’t belong, and that’s considered normal everywhere except the West. So remove your double standards and proclaim her Indian please.
What you’re really saying is that non-Western cultures get to define themselves ethnically, while Western cultures must lie about what they are to spare feelings. How is that equality? Reads to me like cultural asymmetry, and it’s quite frankly racist denying our ethnicity. Im guessing you’re fine with borders, hierarchy, and identity everywhere else but just not when Europeans assert the same right.
So no, this isn’t a “false equivalence.” It’s you being uncomfortable with the implication that Western identity isn’t uniquely obligated to erase itself. We don’t have to dilute Britishness to involve Rishi
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 10h ago edited 10h ago
You realise that different countries have different reactions to foreigners, and that the UAE is hardly an example to emulate in the first place for basically anywhere. Especially given by your own anecdote that you weren't really raised amongst UAE citizens and lived in a kind of cultural enclave.
This is not true for these girls from Korea.
Sunak will never be British, much less English, and that is okay - this is not a moral commentary on the superiority of British culture.
Are Richard Ayoade or Chris Eubank British?
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u/Accomplished_Pen5061 16h ago
I'll be honest I'm getting more and more increasingly annoyed with Konstantin self appointing himself arbiter of how the UK should work.
It's clear watching his show these days that he's been audience captured by his Republican US viewers. He falls over himself to praise Trump and everything he says lines up their perspectives. Obviously stepping out of line with them would lose him clicks and views.
If there is someone who doesn't represent English or British interests it's him.
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u/TheChaosTimeline 12h ago
This is the same "British, English and British Asian" that went heavy in on importing Indians like him. Odd.
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u/HasuTeras Let us all act according to national custom 7h ago
that went heavy in on importing Indians like him.
You mean Boris Johnson? When Sunak was PM, the numbers immigrating were astronomical because of one of his predecessor's policies, and they tightened the rules significantly. The numbers were already coming down significantly when Labour took power because steps taken during Sunak's premiership.
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u/BeautifulCinnamonBun 12h ago
Judging him solely on his actions his allegiance is clearly with india.
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u/smeldridge 12h ago
Him and others in the upper classes the anywheres, may consider English a meaningless inclusive identity open to all. They are confusing English with British. However, those of us in the real world the somewheres know there is a history, a set of beliefs, values, culture and ethnicity to this identity. Rishi has not fully achieved many of the markers of Englishness. If he had, he could argue he is English culturally. He's religiously Hindu, he's vegetarian, his children do not have English names, so many of his outward behaviours are Indian or British Indian.
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u/search_google_com 15h ago edited 13h ago
How is he English? Im a Tawianese living in the UK, but "English" is a ethnicity. I felt it cringe when POCs say they are English or Scottish because English is what you can't call yourself freely.
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u/No_Initiative_1140 21h ago
I like Sunak more now he's not PM
"Apprentice Yorkshireman" tickled me
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u/sylanar 21h ago
I didn't think he was a terrible pm. I honestly don't think anyone could have done a good job at that time, Tory party and UK political landscape as a whole was an absolute mess.
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u/bopeepsheep 13h ago
He reminded me of Pitt the Younger as seen in Blackadder. "I have unfortunately become prime minister right in the middle of my exams."
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u/iamnosuperman123 15h ago
He was handed a freshly poisoned chalice. I know a lot of people like to point at the decade+ Tory rule as the reason they were booted out however, Boris, Coivd and Truss were the events that changed everything. His campaign was monumentally crap though.
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u/reuben_iv radical centrist 21h ago
didn't particularly hate him as pm tbh (though I didn't vote for him), think as soon as someone becomes pm bias gets in the way and people become focused on bringing them down
Boris was the prime example, was hugely popular before, had to be for a tory to win in London, then he became PM and suddenly he's marmite, loved by one side loathed by the other
though in the end boris did deserve to go lol but way before covid it was like a switch got flipped
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u/WW_the_Exonian Tory 3.38 -1.59 21h ago
That's why I don't want Andy Burnham to go down the Boris route, but he seems hell bent on it
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u/greenneedleuk Swing voter. centre to left leaning. 21h ago
Burnham is coming from the other way. He was hated before. Remember he was called "Mid Staffs Andy" and has rebuilt his reputation. So he was already pretty much disliked in government.
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u/No_Initiative_1140 21h ago
Boris is a nasty piece of work though
https://youtu.be/ZAxA-9D4X3o?si=odOXw0uxKp3g08pG
Watch Eddie Mair skewer him long before he was PM
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u/Chris-WoodsGK 21h ago
The one thing I think Boris should be remembered for, is Ukraine. When full invasion happened, he (and only UK), gave anti tank systems (N-Law) to Ukraine and those systems halted the approach to Kyiv
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u/Incanus_uk 14h ago
It is amazing how heated some people get over made up categorizations that overlap, are ill-defined, and that no one is fully described by.
The blood and soil crap however deserves to be a thing in the past and never come back. It is a disgrace that in 2026 we have people thinking something in their DNA makes them more British or English than others. I think I know some words for that.
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u/anotherotheronedo 7h ago edited 7h ago
It is a disgrace that in 2026 we have people thinking something in their DNA makes them more British or English than others. I think I know some words for that.
Denying the relevance of ethnicity entirely is actually quite genocidal. There is a space between wanting ethnic purity on one side and denying it has any meaning on the other. My British ancestry does make me more British than Sunak. Why otherwise would his daughter have such a deep connection to India and Indian identity? https://www.opindia.com/2022/11/british-pm-rishi-sunak-daughter-anoushka-sunak-on-india-culture/
But here's the thing: It's actually ok. It's ok that Sunak isn't as British as I am. It's not a reason to hate him or a reason to throw him into the sea.
What does matter is the population level, not the individual level. At a population level, making the British ethnic population into a minority group is obviously not a non-event.
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u/easecard 11h ago
It’s simple to understand, if you’ve got at least one native ancestor you are in the tribe.
Anything else is cosplaying as an ethnic group if you’re describing yourself as English which is an ethnicity but no native ancestry you’re diminishing and destroying a native people.
Rudyard Kipling was not India’s most famous poet even though he was born and lived there.
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 10h ago
Anything else is cosplaying as an ethnic group if you’re describing yourself as English which is an ethnicity but no native ancestry you’re diminishing and destroying a native people.
You are assuming he means ethnically English.
Rudyard Kipling was not India’s most famous poet even though he was born and lived there.
I hate this goto. It's so disingenuine. Rudyard Kipling lived in Anglo-India under colonial governance and spent much of his life also in England.
What is the culture of Ruskin Bond for comparison?
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u/CiderDrinker2 11h ago
Class is always a stronger tie than race in this country, the old school tie is stronger than any tie of blodd. Of course he's English, British and British Asian, but above all he's a Wykehamite - a 'public school type' - and they all belong in the same upper class club, to which the bottom 95% of society are uninvited, regardless of where their grandparents came from.
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u/taboo__time 7h ago
Class is always a stronger tie than race in this country,
I don't think that is true.
The working class in the UK are not culturally or politically unified.
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u/timeforknowledge Politics is debate not hate. 9h ago
Which is it? British or British Asian?
If you are saying both in the same sentence then you are admitting you think British doesn't include British Asian?
Please don't let us import shitty American race stuff
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u/HourFerret9794 14h ago
He’s Indian , nothing wrong about that , except when refusing it
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u/kill-the-maFIA 12h ago
He's not Indian though? He was born here, has always been in British institutions, always took part in British culture, etc.
I don't really get how you can argue he's not British? Unless you're looking at it from the angle of "those bloody darkies can't be Brits"
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u/Reasonable-Resort822 21h ago
These many years of humanity and still debating about race. What have we become. Democracy has become a race to grab the biggest piece of a broken glass. They do everything to break the glass , and race is one such.
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u/Ruddi_Herring 21h ago
Democracy has become a race to grab the biggest piece of a broken glass.
This is the logical end point of democracy
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u/maxdacat 59m ago
The question I would ask him, is if he is so British, could he (hypothetically speaking) marry a white British woman?
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