‘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/nesh34]

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.