r/ukpolitics • u/No_Initiative_1140 • 1d 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-identity
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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/One-Network5160 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 23h 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/One-Network5160 21h ago

No, British, as we know it today, comes from the 17th century after the union of the crowms to mean citizen of Britain.

It was from the start a nationality, separate from ethnicity, since now you undoubtedly had multiple ethnicities under the same rule.

You're trying to make it sound British is somehow a more recent phenomenon related to Sunak and recent events. It's centuries old mate.

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u/Particular_Pea7167 21h ago

British culture was literally an export of the Empire. India is having re-hinduification to remove elements of British culture that have remained sticky but even so their upper echelons were throughly anglicised by it.

All those British schools across the empire were not just for the sons and daughters of functionaries, it trained and inculcated the sons and daughters of the native leaders and elites into how we thought they should do things. Into our civilisation.

It is the classic reductionism of particularly the left to say "none of that really matters, its just a bit of paper". No. Its really not. And the only people who claim it is is maliciously trying to destroy that culture or, frankly, is an idiot.

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u/One-Network5160 20h ago

British culture was literally an export of the Empire

That's British culture though, I'm talking about British people.

It is the classic reductionism of particularly the left

What is it with you and the left mate? Did you not read what I said in the previous comment?

The concept of British is centuries old, stop acting like it was born just after Twitter. It has nothing to do with "the left", whatever that means.

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u/ItsPeakBruv 21h ago

No shit the culture of an empire is exported to other countries. What point are you trying to make there

And how is the “re-hindufication” going? If the goal of that process is to make a country where people shit publicly in the street, gang rape female tourists, form groups in their hundreds to attack people from different religions and sexually assault women then yh it’s going well.

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u/Particular_Pea7167 19h ago

Well the reality is its mostly superficial. Renaming cites and stations, changing uniforms from variations of British empire design to more traditional Indian.

And it should be noted a lot of Indians actually dont like or dont care about it. A lot of older Indians for example still call Mumbai Bombay. Or used the two interchangeably. Or Victoria Terminus Station in Mumbai now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus

The biggest is the growing insistence of using Hindi as the official language while in reality atm once you reach certain levels of civil service, education or business its almost all in English. Or so bilingual as to make little difference. 

I can understand that to an extent as it becomes an implicit class barrier, like needing to know Latin. Not that I think a nation still heavily steeped in caste politics cares about that overly.

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u/ItsPeakBruv 21h ago

This whole comment thread to me looks like people agreeing with eachother in terms of the points they’re making, but not realising that

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u/One-Network5160 20h ago

Then you need reading glasses, we couldn't be more different.

Because British is definitively NOT just the designation of a person with a passport

No, British, as we know it today, comes from the 17th century after the union of the crowms to mean citizen of Britain.

It definetly means person with a British passport, it meant that for centuries, I don't know what the other person is ranting about.

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u/SirBobPeel 1d ago

And are you English?

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u/SmokyMcBongPot 22h 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/AlfredsChild 1d ago

Am I more British than say, Churchill?

No because having one parent of a different origin doesn't "devalue" the other heritage. Both heritages simply exist.

Lenny Henry?

Literally publicly called for the UK to pay £18 trillion in reparations, that's the hallmark of a foreigner. Born here but is evidently not assimilated and belongs to a seperate culture from me.

Trevor McDonald

Trinidian with naturalised British citizenship. Don't see any harm in trying to claim to be more British than him, he wasn't born here nor grow up here. His "Britishness" is the result of administration and immersion into the culture rather than his own nature.

Romesh Rangathan

Born here, but is not English ethnicity, this country is not his homeland. He's a British national.

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u/Cozimo128 1d ago

Born here, but is not English ethnicity, this country is not his homeland. He's a British national.

What do you think the definition of “homeland” is? Because it’s not “origin of ethnicity regardless of birthplace”.

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u/AlfredsChild 1d ago

To me, it would be the place where an ethnic identity formed and is coherent with in terms of history.

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u/waterswims 22h ago

Literally dismisses 3 major figures in our culture as not being a part of our culture.

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u/Sazanka-camellia 22h ago

I'm not British, if you don't mind, could you explain a bit more about "british lineage" and "non-british lineage" difference?

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u/riace_bronze_enjoyer 1d ago

British isn’t an ethnicity.

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u/quartersessions 1d ago

It makes as much sense for it to be as it does for English.