Race-based attempts to define full English are a dog’s breakfast – nobody should swallow them
4 min read
In the last few months, my social media feed has become increasingly full of people who sound a lot like the Death Eaters from Harry Potter, insisting that only ‘pure-bloods’ like themselves can be English.
This is no doubt partly my fault for periodically arguing with some of these hatemongers. But it’s not just X’s algorithm exposing me to more of this stuff. Something has changed in our national debate about immigration. Attitudes and language that I associate with my childhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s are rearing their heads again. Rishi Sunak has noticed it. It’s what prompted him to write a recent op-ed in the Times, observing that when he was prime minister he wasn’t conscious of anyone questioning his Englishness, but now people are openly doing so. He said he didn’t “enjoy engaging with these kinds of arguments – my natural inclination is to ignore them – but the volume and frequency of these claims mean they need to be addressed”.
He is right and I admire him and others like Ben Obese-Jecty for doing so because the price for arguing with the hatemongers is a mountain of online abuse. But we must not leave it to our non-white fellow countrymen and women to defend their identity from these attacks: all of us who believe that what matters is a shared cultural identity, not the colour of your skin, need to join in this fight.
So how do we win it?
First, by being clear about what we are saying. GB News’ Adam Brooks sought to defend his view that black people can’t be English, posting on X: “the black guys I trained with in my gym tonight all said they’re British not English and that I was right”.
There is an important point here: some people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds do think of themselves as British, but not English. No one is arguing they are wrong. Identity is complex and most of it’s personal. But others, like Rishi, think of themselves as British and English, and it is completely unacceptable for anyone else to deny that identity.
All of us who believe that what matters is a shared cultural identity, not the colour of your skin, need to join in this fight
Secondly, we need to expose the gaping holes in what passes for the hatemongers’ argument.
They say Englishness is an ethnicity, not a nationality, ergo non-white people can’t be English. But if you look it up in the dictionary, ethnicity is much more than ancestry – it’s about shared cultural traditions, language etc.
They talk a lot about “English DNA” but any geneticist will tell you there is no such thing. While there are markers that allow scientists to identify whether we had an ancestor from a particular part of these islands, there is more diversity within groups than between them.
And when you start to ask the hatemongers questions, their argument really falls apart.
If they believe that only people who can trace their ancestors back for generations can call themselves English, then presumably only Native Americans can call themselves “American” and only Aborigines can call themselves “Australian”?
How many generations are we talking about? Can Rishi Sunak’s kids be English? What about his grandkids or great-grandkids? How far back do I have to be able to trace my descent in order to get admitted to the club?
And what about people of mixed ancestry? The Barwells originally came from a village in Northamptonshire of the same name, but my paternal grandmother was Swiss Italian, my maternal grandmother was Welsh and my maternal grandfather’s ancestors may have been Dutch. So is my Englishness also going to be questioned?
Finally, we need to address why these arguments have resurfaced. Is foreign money funding the groups that are making them? What can we do to prevent social media platforms being used to spread this filth?
This battle ranks alongside the economic and security challenges facing this country – it is a fight for our very soul. Indeed, it is linked to the security challenge because our enemies want to divide us. We mustn’t let them win.
Lord Barwell is a non-affiliated peer
