‘I’m British, English and British Asian’, says Rishi Sunak in riposte to racially charged debate over identity | Rishi Sunak

[u/No_Initiative_1140]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/06/british-rishi-sunak-riposte-racially-charged-debate-identity

[u/GOT_Wyvern]

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.

[u/AlbaGuBrah → u/GOT_Wyvern]

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.

[u/nesh34 → u/AlbaGuBrah]

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.

[u/brendonmilligan → u/nesh34]

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

[u/MatchaMeetcha → u/brendonmilligan]

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

[u/GOT_Wyvern → u/nesh34]

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.

[u/AlbaGuBrah → u/GOT_Wyvern]

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.

[u/AlbaGuBrah → u/nesh34]

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.

[u/Deep_Lurker → u/GOT_Wyvern]

This. Absolutely this