I am English. My name means forest dweller, as you might deduce.
I can trace my maternal blood line back to Elizabethan England. I guess that makes me English to such extent as any of us are purely anything.
My friend is English in the sense he was born in Morley. His parents were Serbian. They came here to escape the nazis. His father, once here, joined the Royal Navy and fought in WW2. BUT, he is not ethnically English. He is Serbian and he looks Serbian. Nonetheless, he has every right to be here. For practical purposes he is English but he is in fact just British. We agree on this. He has a British passport which was earned by his father at the very least.
You can become British but you cannot become English, Welsh, Scots or Irish.
What I am suggesting is a civic sense of British nationalism, which isn't very satisfactory if you can just rock up and get one the next day, which is where we are at.
British passports need to be earned and that means behaving in a way commensurate with that status.
I found out today that we now have people coming here from Sth America to escape socialism and being granted asylum on that basis.
This has to stop and all aliens need to be deported.
Please forgive me just picking an aside from your detailed comment.
"coming here from Sth America to escape socialism"..... did not any kind person warn them that they might be jumping out of the socialist Latino country into the on course to be hyper-socialist England/UK/Britain (wait for the budget!!)
A lot of this is excellent but I think you miss the urgency of the matter. The ethnic English are a real people and the basic situation is that we are (for all that we may dislike fakse victimhood narratives) effectively an oppressed people in our own (and only) nation. We are being rapidly replaced, and our very existence is denied by both the imported and the indoctrinated. A hundred years ago everyone knew who the English were and schoolchildren were taught to be proud of their Englishness which was acknowledged as an ethnicity.
Today our existence is only framed as real when we are being demonised or blamed for all evils. This attitude and the fact that this attitude is the dominant, university taught marker of middle and upper class respectability explains much of why our children can be gang raped in their thousands and the system aided and abetted that while the exposure of it hasn’t changed their positions or policies at all. The betrayal is enormous both on replacement and rape, and the disparity between everyone else’s ability to recognise and defend themselves with State approval and our lack of representation is vast. There are 15,000 BAME advocacy groups in the UK, and zero English advocacy groups. The only poitical party that dares to state that it exists for the English are the English Democrats, and they are tiny. We might well be the least represented ethnic group on the planet.
I’m very glad that you mention Jews as the idea that English nationalism requires bullshit Jew hatred sickens me and I’ve always opposed those lunatics. But the overall truth remains that we either develop some unapologetic ethnic awareness and self loyalty or we disappear. For me given how we are now being treated and some shared enemies doing that treatment, the ethnic English and Jewish Zionists should actually make natural allies. We can reacquire self awareness AND select appropriate allies with shared values. We have to do both or just become another people who no longer exist, which is what much of the middle and ruling class want and claim is already the case.
Thank Heavens the Patriot Platform is actually doing something . As a peaceful group , we should all be joining them . If we don’t there will be no more England .
Sadly the more we think about these things, the more we emphasise our differences than what we have in common. We can celebrate our Jewish or Serbian or Polish or West Indian roots without pretending we are all the same, but not at the expense of the majority who have even deeper English roots. Respect goes both ways and observing differences makes us more appreciative of one another as much of ourselves. If today anyone can be a citizen without giving up anything in return, being a citizen already doesn’t count for very much.
It’s a shame we are having this conversation. We have quietly muddled along with newcomers and visitors for centuries, without thinking too hard about the issue. We all knew who we were and were polite to those who generally liked us and wanted to be here. If that casual live and let live ideal has gone, it’s partly our fault for letting it go and the fault of those who want to wreck it and play out their fantasy world of Imagine.
It’s somewhat amusing that this has come up at the same time as the Sheeran debacle.
Sheeran maybe 1/4 Irish and self identifies as ‘culturally Irish’ but he isn’t Irish anymore than I, as a Brit with an Irish mother. I’m Anglo Irish, and to my culturally sensitive cousins, a Brit.
I can’t choose otherwise: I can’t opt in. I might over time if I so was inclined live a long time in RoI and be accepted by locals as Irish, but slapping a label on me (O’im oirish so tharr) because I feel I am does not make me so.
I am however English according to my cousins. Or certainly British.
For me? I identify as British not least because I can cover all bases there: 2 Irish grandparents, 1 English, 1 Welsh. British is a coverall for multiple identities. Always has been always will. But opting into English without a birthright means effectively claiming something you aren’t. I don’t think that makes me an Ethno: I just accept that the British label works for me because I am a mix and comfortable with that. I speak with RP and my cousins identify me as English but I know I am a mix. And that’s fine.
A bit like the Sheeran situation: a man who knows little of Ireland has decided he knows how the post independence, post civil war mindset possibly works with regards to politics. Because he is ‘culturally Irish’.
No he isn’t. And no he doesn’t. Hanging out in Galway listening to folk bands does not entitle you to that label.
Had he done the ‘I’m no longer British, but Irish’ I suspect he might have got more leeway. But ‘culturally’? Dead in the water. And that’s the point of ‘Britishness’: it’s a coverall for multiple identities: it was designed for Welsh, English, Irish and Scottish identities. Or even those who apply for a passport.
It is expansive and can be made more so. English however is somewhat more prescriptive. And should be. As per RoI you don’t get to nominally opt yourself into that label because frankly you don’t ‘know’. I think Konstantin Kisin has the right of this. He is as British as I am. He is not ‘English’ and neither really am I. And that’s cool. Both of us *want* to be British. And there is no reason why that shouldn’t be so. Provided we cleave to British values.
It’s interesting as an American with deep ties to England (and other parts of the UK)—I have zero interest in other cultures there. I’m interested in my family and history—the Scots, Irish, English and Welsh—and were I interested in Pakistan I’d go there. Pakistani heritage has no value to me in the UK or anywhere else—and that’s my right—rather like I imagine diaspora Pakistanis would not be at all interested in Scots residents in Peshawar, should such a thing exist. The fact that westerners cannot be interested in their own European families and history is…bananas. I want to connect with my history—not someone else’s. It’s bizarre that we have to state this.
On the whole question of immigration, identity and belonging, we’re forced to swallow some very mixed messages. On the one hand, we’re told that people are the same everywhere, and that race, religion and cultural background can have no impact on people’s behaviour or their ability to function well in an historically white and Christian country.
But at the same time, we’re expected to believe that one of the chief benefits of immigration is the contribution the new arrivals make to “diversity”. Which is another way of saying that people are not the same everywhere, that cultural background really does have an impact on the way people think and act at least some of the time.
So, how do the proponents of mass immigration square the circle? Do they just assume that non-native people will keep only the good or neutral things about their ancestral culture and discard the bad or problematic stuff? Or do they just not care?
"not least because of what it leads to when you follow it to its logical conclusion. "
What does it logically lead to? Recognising that people aren't part of your nation doesn't require you to want them expelled just because of that or to deny them equal treatment under the law or even to be unpleasant to them. You just don't want too many, or that they demand you change to suit them.
"I could have a pretty decent stab at defining them"
I seriously doubt that you could: there's the problem of units of measurement.
Exactly. That conclusion is accepting another leftist lie. We are told that acknowledging our existence leads to Nazism, even by generally very sensible people on the Right like Pete. Accepting that framing is self-defeating. I totally reject Nazism and at the same time consider it vital for the English to wake up and start defending their existence.
No I knew of one of my ancestors was born in Douglas (another was born in Dublin).
My English heritage is from my grandmother whose parentage was Cumbrian whilst my grandfather was born in Dover of two Welsh parents.
He went back to Wales as a baby and when he ‘grew up’ worked in mines until being invalided out at 14 after two roof cave ins that smashed up his legs.
Pete, if we continue to be nice to all the immigrants, one day our children and grandchildren will stand and spit on our graves, because their ancestral lands will have been taken by the immigrants that you were nice to.
"Certainly, it means nothing if a nation does not have borders."
I read that: "The Home Office recorded 781 arrivals in small boats across the Channel on Wednesday, the highest number on a single day so far in 2026." (ITVx News).
There were protests and arrests in Gosport and Portsmouth even though the boat landings were further East.
These protests are gathering momentum and show the anger felt at a Government that doesn't enforce our borders and return illegals.
I believe in the simple concept of Cultural Nationalism - it isn’t for me to define someone’s nationality, that is a matter for themselves. Do they identify with me, an Englishman? Do they see us going forward into a shared future? Fine, if they do. But if they stand apart and define themselves as different? Well, that’s their choice, their decision and their responsibility, not mine. And the consequences likewise.
I think this ethnicity argument is irrelevant. The problem we have is two fold.
We have a lot of people who have come here who feel nothing for this country, won’t work, claim benefits, break our laws and even worse want to change this country into the third world shithole they left. This is particularly true of South Asians from Pakistan.
We also have a load of low IQ Africans washing up from France and claiming asylum. They will never proceed past the non mentally taxing role of delivery driver or worse being in the black economy or worse again crime.
This is what we should be focusing on not ethnicity.
I agree with this sentence Pete writes and as I see it this is a large part of the problem.
"I do not believe any culture of faith is above criticism. It is, however, not in my nature to be abusive without proper cause."
For a white person to 'call out' a black, brown, or yellow person for anti social behaviour, by mentioning their colour, is not racist it is simply a statement of fact. As would be the case if a black,brown or yellow person 'called out' a white person and mentioned their white skin.
Expressions such as white trash, white chav, black or Paki bastard are simply derogatory terms usually used with just cause and even if not it should not be an offence into which the law should enter as being rude and offensive, as the late Ann Widdecombe stated in a debate at the Oxford Union, is part of life and if you don't want to be offended then become a hermit.
By the way Niall, the Irish spelling, comes from my Irish grandmother making me a little bit Irish while Warry is definitely English and can be traced back to the medieval period, with early recorded forms appearing as early as the 11th and 12th centuries.
It’s an interesting debate. I’m not English, I’m Flemish. I’ve never met a migrant in the 5 countries where I lived who define themselves as being the one where they live in. Privately, they all point, myself included, to the country we came from.
A Turk who grew up in NL will always say he’s a Turk and that Dutch don’t exist. But in England we define Dutch as separate and the Turk will still claim he’s a Turk.
It’s an American debate really. Still vividly remember an American VP telling an Irish off he doesn’t know what discrimination is because he’s white.
All in all, I strongly believe only ethnic people should have the right to vote and ethnicity can be defined by 1 of the parents. Eg my grandchildren will only have the right to vote in England if my children marry an ethnic English. In other words, the Signaporean solution. And most of the world thinks like this. It’s inconceivable in China or Russia that migrants not only would be able to vote but to be politicians.
There are a huge number of “ barriers to obtaining a British passport”. Where did you get the idea that there weren’t?There are borders - I guess this reflects an obsession with the “ boat invaders”. The figures show the numbers are significantly down and I expect a 3rd country option to be presented by this govt soon. The ethno/ extreme/ thicko Right hate solutions - their job is to keep saying things are getting worse.
Without immigration we wouldn’t have nhs and other services. Without immigration, the ratio of tax payers to pensioners becomes unsustainable - even if you now forced ( white) British women to have lots of babies ( this is the unsaid dream of the nativists but the problem is that women wont vote for a patriarchy…).WRT “ values” be specific - beyond tolerance, respect, equality and other generalities what are you talking about? There are some extremist nutters who believe for example that British values “ equate to a reverence for Churchill. Churchill did a good job during the war but his anti working class actions in the 20s and 30s are well known , as well as his previous military failures ( eg Dardanelles). He is disliked intensely by many.
I am English. My name means forest dweller, as you might deduce.
I can trace my maternal blood line back to Elizabethan England. I guess that makes me English to such extent as any of us are purely anything.
My friend is English in the sense he was born in Morley. His parents were Serbian. They came here to escape the nazis. His father, once here, joined the Royal Navy and fought in WW2. BUT, he is not ethnically English. He is Serbian and he looks Serbian. Nonetheless, he has every right to be here. For practical purposes he is English but he is in fact just British. We agree on this. He has a British passport which was earned by his father at the very least.
You can become British but you cannot become English, Welsh, Scots or Irish.
What I am suggesting is a civic sense of British nationalism, which isn't very satisfactory if you can just rock up and get one the next day, which is where we are at.
British passports need to be earned and that means behaving in a way commensurate with that status.
I found out today that we now have people coming here from Sth America to escape socialism and being granted asylum on that basis.
This has to stop and all aliens need to be deported.
Please forgive me just picking an aside from your detailed comment.
"coming here from Sth America to escape socialism"..... did not any kind person warn them that they might be jumping out of the socialist Latino country into the on course to be hyper-socialist England/UK/Britain (wait for the budget!!)
Yes, I thought that myself. But the government here haven't got around to turning up at your house and shooting at you just yet. 😂
Point taken
A lot of this is excellent but I think you miss the urgency of the matter. The ethnic English are a real people and the basic situation is that we are (for all that we may dislike fakse victimhood narratives) effectively an oppressed people in our own (and only) nation. We are being rapidly replaced, and our very existence is denied by both the imported and the indoctrinated. A hundred years ago everyone knew who the English were and schoolchildren were taught to be proud of their Englishness which was acknowledged as an ethnicity.
Today our existence is only framed as real when we are being demonised or blamed for all evils. This attitude and the fact that this attitude is the dominant, university taught marker of middle and upper class respectability explains much of why our children can be gang raped in their thousands and the system aided and abetted that while the exposure of it hasn’t changed their positions or policies at all. The betrayal is enormous both on replacement and rape, and the disparity between everyone else’s ability to recognise and defend themselves with State approval and our lack of representation is vast. There are 15,000 BAME advocacy groups in the UK, and zero English advocacy groups. The only poitical party that dares to state that it exists for the English are the English Democrats, and they are tiny. We might well be the least represented ethnic group on the planet.
I’m very glad that you mention Jews as the idea that English nationalism requires bullshit Jew hatred sickens me and I’ve always opposed those lunatics. But the overall truth remains that we either develop some unapologetic ethnic awareness and self loyalty or we disappear. For me given how we are now being treated and some shared enemies doing that treatment, the ethnic English and Jewish Zionists should actually make natural allies. We can reacquire self awareness AND select appropriate allies with shared values. We have to do both or just become another people who no longer exist, which is what much of the middle and ruling class want and claim is already the case.
Thank Heavens the Patriot Platform is actually doing something . As a peaceful group , we should all be joining them . If we don’t there will be no more England .
Sadly the more we think about these things, the more we emphasise our differences than what we have in common. We can celebrate our Jewish or Serbian or Polish or West Indian roots without pretending we are all the same, but not at the expense of the majority who have even deeper English roots. Respect goes both ways and observing differences makes us more appreciative of one another as much of ourselves. If today anyone can be a citizen without giving up anything in return, being a citizen already doesn’t count for very much.
It’s a shame we are having this conversation. We have quietly muddled along with newcomers and visitors for centuries, without thinking too hard about the issue. We all knew who we were and were polite to those who generally liked us and wanted to be here. If that casual live and let live ideal has gone, it’s partly our fault for letting it go and the fault of those who want to wreck it and play out their fantasy world of Imagine.
💯
It’s somewhat amusing that this has come up at the same time as the Sheeran debacle.
Sheeran maybe 1/4 Irish and self identifies as ‘culturally Irish’ but he isn’t Irish anymore than I, as a Brit with an Irish mother. I’m Anglo Irish, and to my culturally sensitive cousins, a Brit.
I can’t choose otherwise: I can’t opt in. I might over time if I so was inclined live a long time in RoI and be accepted by locals as Irish, but slapping a label on me (O’im oirish so tharr) because I feel I am does not make me so.
I am however English according to my cousins. Or certainly British.
For me? I identify as British not least because I can cover all bases there: 2 Irish grandparents, 1 English, 1 Welsh. British is a coverall for multiple identities. Always has been always will. But opting into English without a birthright means effectively claiming something you aren’t. I don’t think that makes me an Ethno: I just accept that the British label works for me because I am a mix and comfortable with that. I speak with RP and my cousins identify me as English but I know I am a mix. And that’s fine.
A bit like the Sheeran situation: a man who knows little of Ireland has decided he knows how the post independence, post civil war mindset possibly works with regards to politics. Because he is ‘culturally Irish’.
No he isn’t. And no he doesn’t. Hanging out in Galway listening to folk bands does not entitle you to that label.
Had he done the ‘I’m no longer British, but Irish’ I suspect he might have got more leeway. But ‘culturally’? Dead in the water. And that’s the point of ‘Britishness’: it’s a coverall for multiple identities: it was designed for Welsh, English, Irish and Scottish identities. Or even those who apply for a passport.
It is expansive and can be made more so. English however is somewhat more prescriptive. And should be. As per RoI you don’t get to nominally opt yourself into that label because frankly you don’t ‘know’. I think Konstantin Kisin has the right of this. He is as British as I am. He is not ‘English’ and neither really am I. And that’s cool. Both of us *want* to be British. And there is no reason why that shouldn’t be so. Provided we cleave to British values.
Precisely.
It’s interesting as an American with deep ties to England (and other parts of the UK)—I have zero interest in other cultures there. I’m interested in my family and history—the Scots, Irish, English and Welsh—and were I interested in Pakistan I’d go there. Pakistani heritage has no value to me in the UK or anywhere else—and that’s my right—rather like I imagine diaspora Pakistanis would not be at all interested in Scots residents in Peshawar, should such a thing exist. The fact that westerners cannot be interested in their own European families and history is…bananas. I want to connect with my history—not someone else’s. It’s bizarre that we have to state this.
English is no longer a category used in medical records or gov forms etc….
When collecting data the categories are:
white British
Black British / Caribbean or African
British Asian / Pakistani/ Indian etc.
etc..
But never ‘English’ - so even though it is an ethnicity it is never captured
I write “Other” and then describe myself as “English”.
What a great idea. I might do that next time. Thank you.
Exactly.
On the whole question of immigration, identity and belonging, we’re forced to swallow some very mixed messages. On the one hand, we’re told that people are the same everywhere, and that race, religion and cultural background can have no impact on people’s behaviour or their ability to function well in an historically white and Christian country.
But at the same time, we’re expected to believe that one of the chief benefits of immigration is the contribution the new arrivals make to “diversity”. Which is another way of saying that people are not the same everywhere, that cultural background really does have an impact on the way people think and act at least some of the time.
So, how do the proponents of mass immigration square the circle? Do they just assume that non-native people will keep only the good or neutral things about their ancestral culture and discard the bad or problematic stuff? Or do they just not care?
"not least because of what it leads to when you follow it to its logical conclusion. "
What does it logically lead to? Recognising that people aren't part of your nation doesn't require you to want them expelled just because of that or to deny them equal treatment under the law or even to be unpleasant to them. You just don't want too many, or that they demand you change to suit them.
"I could have a pretty decent stab at defining them"
I seriously doubt that you could: there's the problem of units of measurement.
Exactly. That conclusion is accepting another leftist lie. We are told that acknowledging our existence leads to Nazism, even by generally very sensible people on the Right like Pete. Accepting that framing is self-defeating. I totally reject Nazism and at the same time consider it vital for the English to wake up and start defending their existence.
Getting your DNA checked is an education in your historical origins.
In descending order I have French, Celtic, English, Danish/Swedish, Isle of Man roots.
A menagerie, of West European origins traceable for generations, but no hint of other continents.
I am eligible for French or dual nationality, but I don’t feel French.
I’m British, so it would be a lie (although I do sometimes display a Gallic shrug) so a British passport only.
If a DNA check is capable of detecting Manx ancestry it's capable of saying which part of England your ancestors came from.
No I knew of one of my ancestors was born in Douglas (another was born in Dublin).
My English heritage is from my grandmother whose parentage was Cumbrian whilst my grandfather was born in Dover of two Welsh parents.
He went back to Wales as a baby and when he ‘grew up’ worked in mines until being invalided out at 14 after two roof cave ins that smashed up his legs.
White privilege in the British Empire
Pete, if we continue to be nice to all the immigrants, one day our children and grandchildren will stand and spit on our graves, because their ancestral lands will have been taken by the immigrants that you were nice to.
"Certainly, it means nothing if a nation does not have borders."
I read that: "The Home Office recorded 781 arrivals in small boats across the Channel on Wednesday, the highest number on a single day so far in 2026." (ITVx News).
There were protests and arrests in Gosport and Portsmouth even though the boat landings were further East.
These protests are gathering momentum and show the anger felt at a Government that doesn't enforce our borders and return illegals.
I believe in the simple concept of Cultural Nationalism - it isn’t for me to define someone’s nationality, that is a matter for themselves. Do they identify with me, an Englishman? Do they see us going forward into a shared future? Fine, if they do. But if they stand apart and define themselves as different? Well, that’s their choice, their decision and their responsibility, not mine. And the consequences likewise.
I think this ethnicity argument is irrelevant. The problem we have is two fold.
We have a lot of people who have come here who feel nothing for this country, won’t work, claim benefits, break our laws and even worse want to change this country into the third world shithole they left. This is particularly true of South Asians from Pakistan.
We also have a load of low IQ Africans washing up from France and claiming asylum. They will never proceed past the non mentally taxing role of delivery driver or worse being in the black economy or worse again crime.
This is what we should be focusing on not ethnicity.
I agree with this sentence Pete writes and as I see it this is a large part of the problem.
"I do not believe any culture of faith is above criticism. It is, however, not in my nature to be abusive without proper cause."
For a white person to 'call out' a black, brown, or yellow person for anti social behaviour, by mentioning their colour, is not racist it is simply a statement of fact. As would be the case if a black,brown or yellow person 'called out' a white person and mentioned their white skin.
Expressions such as white trash, white chav, black or Paki bastard are simply derogatory terms usually used with just cause and even if not it should not be an offence into which the law should enter as being rude and offensive, as the late Ann Widdecombe stated in a debate at the Oxford Union, is part of life and if you don't want to be offended then become a hermit.
By the way Niall, the Irish spelling, comes from my Irish grandmother making me a little bit Irish while Warry is definitely English and can be traced back to the medieval period, with early recorded forms appearing as early as the 11th and 12th centuries.
It’s an interesting debate. I’m not English, I’m Flemish. I’ve never met a migrant in the 5 countries where I lived who define themselves as being the one where they live in. Privately, they all point, myself included, to the country we came from.
A Turk who grew up in NL will always say he’s a Turk and that Dutch don’t exist. But in England we define Dutch as separate and the Turk will still claim he’s a Turk.
It’s an American debate really. Still vividly remember an American VP telling an Irish off he doesn’t know what discrimination is because he’s white.
All in all, I strongly believe only ethnic people should have the right to vote and ethnicity can be defined by 1 of the parents. Eg my grandchildren will only have the right to vote in England if my children marry an ethnic English. In other words, the Signaporean solution. And most of the world thinks like this. It’s inconceivable in China or Russia that migrants not only would be able to vote but to be politicians.
There are a huge number of “ barriers to obtaining a British passport”. Where did you get the idea that there weren’t?There are borders - I guess this reflects an obsession with the “ boat invaders”. The figures show the numbers are significantly down and I expect a 3rd country option to be presented by this govt soon. The ethno/ extreme/ thicko Right hate solutions - their job is to keep saying things are getting worse.
Without immigration we wouldn’t have nhs and other services. Without immigration, the ratio of tax payers to pensioners becomes unsustainable - even if you now forced ( white) British women to have lots of babies ( this is the unsaid dream of the nativists but the problem is that women wont vote for a patriarchy…).WRT “ values” be specific - beyond tolerance, respect, equality and other generalities what are you talking about? There are some extremist nutters who believe for example that British values “ equate to a reverence for Churchill. Churchill did a good job during the war but his anti working class actions in the 20s and 30s are well known , as well as his previous military failures ( eg Dardanelles). He is disliked intensely by many.
Doh! Do wot? Semi literate & innumerate are we?
"Without immigration we wouldn't have nhs".
What fucking planet are you on?