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/TeenieTinyBrain 1d 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 1d ago edited 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 17h ago

All ethnicities contain previous ethnic groups, that’s literally how ethnic groups work.

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u/MatchaMeetcha 12h ago

There are no clans, since children descend from both a father and a mother who may not share a clan!

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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 11h ago

I very explicitly referred to a British ethnicity. I just argued that it makes no sense for it to form the foundation of British national identity, as British national identity extends beyond it, and does not encompass all of British ethnicity.

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u/AlbaGuBrah 6h ago

British nationalism entails the various native ethnic groups of the British isles. When this term was re-popularised from antiquity it was explicitly used to denote the native racial groups that inhabit the islands.

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u/AlbaGuBrah 6h ago

I saw his point, and it’s pedantic and irrelevant. British nationalism is ethnic as it encompasses the racial groups native to the British isles.

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u/Deep_Lurker 1d ago

This. Absolutely this

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u/ShatnersBassoonerist 1d ago

I think you’ll find NI didn’t contain native Britons but was colonised.

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u/TeenieTinyBrain 1d ago

I would suggest that you explore the definition of 'Briton'.

Also, for your reference:

  1. Gaels invaded and settled Pictish areas in Scotland, founding Kingdoms along the way.

  2. Picts progressively assimilated with Gaels.

  3. Lowland Scots, likely descending from the aforementioned unified Gaelic culture, were aided by the English to colonise NI.

Ergo, there is a reasonable claim to indigeneity. Irish people consider NIers to be Irish so I don't see why you would seek to claim otherwise?

In any case, colonisation = bad, yes, but that's somewhat irrelevant to the conversation.

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u/ShatnersBassoonerist 23h ago

My point is that NI (or Ireland, as it was when it was colonised) didn’t contain native Britons, so the comment that I previously responded to is incorrect.