Thoughts on the riots and debates about English ethnicity
England’s riots have sparked new debates about national identity and what it means to be “British” or “English” in our modern multiracial, multicultural society. If national identity has played a part, it was English ideas of Britishness as much as of Englishness itself. A central claim which many of the rioters chanted, and which has often been articulated by Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, was “I want my country back”. But this slogan depends on constructing a national “us” that can be distinguished from “others”.
Professor Matt Goodwin gave his insight on the BBC’s Moral Maze. He conceded that Ash Sarkar, contributing editor of the Left-wing Novara Media who is of Bengali heritage, could have British and English nationality but insisted she could not be “ethnically English”.
In the wake of Goodwin’s claim, I invited X users to define ethnic Englishness. For some, whiteness was the defining issue. Others emphasised 1000 years of unbroken genetic heritage. Some linked ethnicity to birth and language while others emphasised culture, history and heritage. The unscientific sample illustrates something important: in these debates the concept of “ethnicity” is called to serve too many purposes, bundling together race, genetics, heritage, culture, history, values and identity in a confused mess. This mess was a feature of the 2021 census, which made ‘English’ a “white” ethnicity, causing the current Foreign Secretary David Lammy to complain that he could not be “Black English” while the Welsh census allowed for “Black Welsh”.
But what does a racially defined Englishness represent? The genetic footprint of England’s ancestors has lingered and there may be a cohort with a millennium’s heritage of “Celtic” and northern European genes. But even in the South and East, the Anglo-Saxon genes were well under half the population (10% to 40%) even before the internal and external migrations of the 20th and 21st centuries. Of the Normans, however, with their massive cultural and linguistic influence on England, there is barely a genetic trace.
Fascinating though it may be, genetics and the study of DNA tell us nothing about what England’s people might be like today, what values they share and what histories they tell. What purpose does asserting such an identity serve other than to exclude those like Lammy and Sarkar who are not white?
In any case, England’s people have moved on from regarding whiteness as a sole marker of identity. Only 10% believe you must be white to be English, a figure that fell dramatically in the last decade. Even among those who emphasise their English over British identity, it is only one in five. Yet surveys don’t offer an unqualified pass to Englishness: in a 2018 BBC survey, 80% said that to be English it is important to be born here. While two-thirds of ethnic minorities say that Englishness is open to them, only a third identify strongly as English. National identities may not be genetically defined but they do reflect shared histories, shared stories, and shared values that only gradually expand to accommodate a changing population.
The evolution of a broader English identity is inevitable and will be fuelled by the rapid rise of “mixed race” families, but the pace of change is not clear. Multiculturalism never embraced Englishness and sometimes scorned it. In any case, multiculturalism was abandoned as a state policy first by Tony Blair and then by David Cameron meaning that for the past 15 years of rapid migration there has been no clear public policy on how a diverse society is meant to work. Left to find its own way, the surprise is how much popular ideas of English identity have changed, not how little.
The claims of the intellectual Right to a white Englishness as something to venerate and “return to” has little broad resonance, but it — with ideas of white Britishness — has an appeal to some people who feel marginalised. A race-based English/British identity allows them to make a distinct claim to belong in a rapidly changing and increasingly diverse world. For some it becomes a justification for racist violence. As a society we are more at ease with migration and diversity than ever, but liberal satisfaction at the direction of travel should not lead to complacency. The direction of travel is set but there may be a lot more bumps in the road.
John Denham is a former Labour MP and director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Southampton.
