About a year ago Konstantin Kisin of Triggernometry stirred up controversy by suggesting that Rishi Sunak, former British Prime Minister, was “not English”. At the time, I tried to write something and failed miserably. The other week the controversy flared up again as Sunak, himself, belatedly commented on the affair. Once again, I tried to write something and once again I failed. I kept tying myself up in knots before coming to the conclusion that it was all a bit futile. The real question – the important question – is whether someone is pro-British or anti-British. Having said that there has to be something to be pro or anti, which implies the existence of Britishness. So what is this Britishness? It is largely ethnic but not entirely. People can join and they can leave.
So, going back to the original question, where does Rishi Sunak fit on this British/pro-British/anti-British spectrum? Well, he’s not British and given his actions in office it is difficult to tell whether he is pro or anti. Next question: what about Keir Starmer?
P.S. I wrote this before watching Kisin’s most recent monologue. Which was a mistake because he does a much better job of explaining the situation before suggesting the obvious solution: re-establish the British Empire.
This post is a good example of one of the difficulties in the example. It starts out talking about Englishness and ends with Britishness. The two are not the same, but it’s easy to slip back and forth between them.
Britishness is easy. It has a legal definition; if one is a British citizen one is British. It’s Englishness that’s difficult. And a large part of that difficulty comes down to whether one is willing, as Kisin is, to include race in the description. That’s the real sticking place: is being white part of being English or not?
You could reasonably argue that the British Empire was a collective idea that had a greater meaning beyond geography and commerce. Apart from some legal consequences the original idea has faded.
And sadly you might also argue that the idea of Englishness has also faded. Still strong in the countryside (and hated by some) but almost completely vanished in the towns.
I don’t think it serves any purpose to try and resurrect those ideas, although I hope a new collective idea will emerge – and it’s not the sycophantic submission to the EU.
Try Carl Benjamin for a different view. Englishness is tied up with ethnicity. British is merely political. Not even an identifiable culture, all are welcome, apparently (though I for one was not consulted).
English is an ethnicity. Most of the people of England are of that ethnicity and some of us reject the notion that someone, anyone, from somewhere else can assert that they are English without any ethnic justification. They are visitors, guests either wanted or unwanted. They can’t have what we have. We can’t escape our ethnicity and adopt another because this is DNA, not politics or culture, although a culture goes with it. And this is our country. It is our home and we have nowhere else to go.
Philip Scott Thomas has beat me to the punch.
Mr Sunak is indeed British – as that is political, legal, idenity. He is not ethnically English – and neither am I, a fact of which I am remined whenever I go to the toilet. One can be “white” (pinkish-gray – as I am) and still not be English. It is true that one of my grandmothers was English “Ethel Draper” is a rather English name, but I think one grandparent out of four is not really enough to call myself “English” – certainly the other boys at Kettering Boys School (closed down long ago now) did not regard me as English, and neither did the teachers.
As for Carl Benjamin – he was born and raised in Germany (although on a British army base) and one of his grandparents came from St Helena (and “looked it”) so things are a bit complicated.
A more important question than “is Mr Sunak English?” (well no – and he is not a Vulcan either, so what?) is “was he a good Chancellor – and a good Prime Minister?”
And the answer to that more important question is….. no Mr Sunak was not a good Chancellor and he was not a good Prime Minister – he was a terrible Chancellor and a terrible Prime Minister. Even given the limits to the power of elected politicians (most power is in the hands of officials and “experts”) he was awful – it was NOT that he tried and failed to do good things (that was Liz Truss) – Mr Sunak did not even try, the officials and “experts” did not have to destroy him – because he was, basically, one of them.
I do not care about the “Englishness” of Mr Sunak (how could I care – as I am not Alfred the Great myself) – but I care very much indeed about his wild spending as Chancellor and Prime Minister.
I also care about his bad behaviour – for example walking out in the middle of the services marking the 70th Anniversary of D. Day. I was out canvassing that day – and when people (“on the doorstep” – litterally) told me what he had done, I did-not-believe-them – it was only when I came home and turned on the television set that the dreadful truth became undeniable. I was not canvassing for Mr Sunak – I was campaigning for my local Member of Parliament.
Then there was the response of Prime Minister Sunak in 2024 (2024) in the House of Commons, to a question about whether the Covid injections were safe – yes they are safe Prime Minister Sunak LIED (lied about a matter of life and death), totally safe.
After all this – had I lived in Richmond Yorkshire (the constituency of Mr Sunak) I would not have voted for him.
Enough said about Mr Sunak.
Sunak’s parents were born in Kenya and Tanzania yet identified as Indian rather than Kenyan or Tanzanian.
Sunak married into the family of a very wealthy Indian oligarch family, and his wife has never taken British citizenship.
Sunak resided in the USA for a number of years from 2004 and retained a US green card until 2021.
Sunak brags about the achievements of the Indian diaspora.
Sunak complaining that people don’t view him as English in the same way as someone with centuries if not thousands of years of ancestral roots in England just exposes him as the overprivileged prick he always has been, who thinks reality and people should bend to fit what suits him.
Remember the arguments used by Henry the First against his older brothers.
It was NOT just “I was born in England and they were not” or “I was too young to take part in the atrocities against the English committed by my father William the Bastard – but my brothers were covered in the blood of the English” – NO that was NOT the full argument.
Henry also married a direct descendant of Alfred the Great – so he could say that his children were English and had a good claim to the throne. As far as I know, Edgar the Aetheling (the person who first Harold and then William usurped) did not have children – so his claim to the thone died with him (but I could be mistaken about that).
Henry also issued a formal, and sworn-to-God, document, to uphold the laws – denying the doctrine that the will of the King (or now – the will of Parliament) is the law.
So much for Sir William Blackstone.
The link that Martin gives does not lead to the information – but I know what he is refering to.
When he does not think he is being observed – Mr Sunak’s use of the words “us” and “we” does not refer to the English.
But, again, had he been a good Chancellor or a good Prime Minsiter his ethnic origin would NOT have mattered – but he was awful in both positions. On government spending he was the worst Chancellor in British history – and he was a tax-and-spend person as Prime Minister.
On his Britishness, as opposed to his Englishness, the leaving of the D. Day memorial events was just awful – there was no medical emergency or anything like that, Mr Sunak just went off to do an interview – the D. Day memorial event did not matter to him.
No one is asking Mr Sunak to be like the late “Teddy” Roosevelt – who finished a speech after-he-had-been-shot (rather than go, at once, for medical treatment) – because he, Theordore Roosevelt, thought it would be rude not to finish the speech (that is a bit mad) – but just wandering off to do an interview (leaving David Cameron to deputize for him with Mr Biden and President Macron) was just awful – it really was.
And the lying in the House of Commons, direct lying about a matter of life-and-death (the Covid injections), was terrible – unacceptable.
“Reestablish the British Empire”?
As Stanley Baldwin warned it would – a second global war destroyed the British Empire, and it may PERHAPS have doomed Western civilization in general.
Winston Churchill had two major principles – the British Empire (he lived to see it collapse – showing the unfortunate hollowness of his hope that it might last for “a thousand years” – the 1940 Battle of Britain speech) and what he called “the British race” (I do not think he meant “race” in a totally biological sense – but the matter is contested) – and he lived to see the start (just the start) of its decline – in 1965 (when Sir Winston Churchill died) the immigrant populations were still fairly small – although some people were already worried about the future (indeed Churchill himself had urged much tighter control of immigration) – especially in terms of natural increase (births), however, in 1965 the native population still had a positive fertility rate – the cultural decline (which has led to the biological crises) was only just starting.
It must be remembered that this is not just a British (let alone just English) thing – it is a general crises among Western peoples.
Tragically Stanley Baldwin may, perhaps, be proved correct.
Being ‘ethnic English’ is surely a matter of degree. How far do your origins go back? What is the cut off criteria? This was fairly irrelevant when we had confidence in ourselves and there was little need for overt displays of nationalism. But now our identity is under threat the push back has started.
The decline of art – especially painting, can be dated to well before the 1st World War, but World War II does seem to have been a break in architecture – with the dominant style after the war being not-good – from either an aesthetic or practical point of view (the buildings look ugly – and they tend to fall down).
The decline of the family and the rise of the most vicious perversions (such as mass baby killing – first made “legal” in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, although even “Stalin” thought this was going too far – and reversed it in 1935, it came back again in the 1950s) come in later – the 1960s, as do the attacks on Freedom of Association and Freedom of Speech – as with the 1965 Act in the United Kingdom, the new establishment wanted to limit dissent in relation to their plans.
It was much the same in other Western nations – a twin track policy of undermining the fertilty of the native popuations, and undermining all cultural institutions that might put a check on the state, and encouraging (encouraging with benefits, public services, and special “laws”) mass immigration and the natural increase of the new populations.
I’m pretty sure you have to be able to project power militarily to establish (or re-establish) an empire.
Good luck with that.
Another perspective:
The Quickest Way to Fuel an English Ethnonationalist Movement is to Deny that English Ethnicity Exists
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/09/27/the-quickest-way-to-fuel-an-english-ethnonationalist-movement-is-to-deny-that-english-ethnicity-exists/
I should start off by disclosing that I am, via marriage, part-Maltese (I have a passport to that country, and will probably retire there.) The majority of my time is spent in the UK, but I do spend a fairly long set of weeks in the Mediterranean island, which is a former UK colony and military base. (I strongly recommend it to people – just avoid August as it is bloody hot.)
So that makes me for part of the year a sort of “digital nomad”. I am a UK taxpayer, was born in Suffolk, in East Anglia (the name of that region comes from the Angles who settled there in the 5th, 6th and 7th centuries. I have Viking French DNA (the Normans who arrived after the 1066 invasion – the “Norman yoke”). The Pearces and their various branches have lived in England for about 1,300 years plus. I have some Scottish ancestry via my mother’s family. I was raised in the Anglican Church; my missus is a Roman Catholic. I am not really a believer. I suppose I have some if not all the cultural and social habits, preferences and enthusiasms of an Englishman and a Brit: I watch and have played team sports such as cricket, rugby and football, I enjoy watching motor racing, and some of the cultural “markers” – knowledge of English literature and history – are part of my makeup. Probably the weirdest thing about me these days is my classical liberalism and dislike of government, which makes me think I am in a minority, even “un-English”, these days. These are all impressions that I have, and I cannot attach any sort of scientific exactitude to all this.
What to make of the Kisin/Frazer Nelson/Sunak argument/conversation? I think is a multi-layered thing. There is the “ethnic” side (skin, eye, hair colours, ancestry), and cultural side of it (tastes, preferences, habits, beliefs, ways of living) that is much more varied. Saying that a brown-skinned man of Indian descent and a Hindu by faith cannot be English, and neither can his descendants, strikes me as odd as saying that a French-Norman squire in 1400 AD was not at all “English”. The adventurer and explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes is Norman by descent, but it would be downright weird for someone to say that he is not English. So what does it take to become English, by such a measure: 100 years, 200 years? What’s the threshold?
” So what does it take to become English, by such a measure: 100 years, 200 years? What’s the threshold?”
There is always going to be a qualifying period. A generation or more with English genetic input. Other than that, it’s flexible and there is no committee you can apply to. Some things cannot be codified and remain…fuzzy.
This is a classic arguing past each other/deliberately misunderstanding your opponent/motte and bailey/definitional nonsense.
“English” – like any other nationality before the great melting pot experiment started – can be used to mean 3 distinct, but distinctly overlapping, things. To be “English” you could referring to any combination of:
– ethnicity
– culture
– national allegiance. (I wanted to put “political” here, but that’s too fine grain)
These things hugely overlap, to the extent that – with the exception of Scots and Welsh getting cross about the conflation of “England” and “Britain” – there never used to be any issue about this.
Generally, ethnicity and culture hugely overlap but critically culture is upstream of national allegiance.
The problem we have now is that we have a big chunk of the population whose culture is decidely NOT traditionally English on the one hand, and our political and other elites trying to squash both discussion of that and the very idea that there should be any mention of an English ethnicity is pure racism.
That’s causing strain on the national allegiance bit. But it’s the culture that matters. We’re only noticing this because ethnicity is to a first order approximation a moderately good and crucially visible proxy for that. We all have to rely on heuristics.
FWIW, Sunak is:
– obviously not ethnicly English
– culturally, I would say he is British – can’t answer to English explicitly
– politically definitely British.
But Sunak’s definition of what it is to be English is – and as KK so rightly skewers him for it – bollocks
If you are English, can you be Indian too. Or Irish or Belgian either Walloon or Flemish? Surely all the components of your identity can’t come to more than 100% so if you claim one you can’t claim another without qualification.
Johnathan Peace – I refer you to my comment about Henry the First – marrying a direct descendant of Alfred the Great. This is what the relatively small group of Normans (although the Norse Vikings were very similar to the English anyway – genetically they can not really be told apart) did over time, marry into the English. Although the language of the court and the law courts, remained Norman French for a long time.
But Mr Sunak has made no such effort – quite the contrary, as his own statements (when the Gentleman thinks he is only speaking to a specific audiance) show. It is true that he is NOT like the various people who claim to be English one minute, but the next minute demand “Reparations” from the English (thus showing they do not really believe themselves to be English) – but he is not English ethnically, as for culturally – Headboy at Wichester, but walked out of the D. Day anniversary events.
Mr Sunak is British politically (as I am) – that is not the same thing as being English, everyone used to know this – it was not contraversial, but now everyone is attacking Suella Braverman for stating the obvious – as if it was a crime to state that 1+1=2.
Some people make odd cultural mistakes – for example an important person seems to think that “Hamish” is an English name, it is (of course) a Scottish name – there is nothing (nothing at all) wrong with it being Scottish, but it is a factual mistake to think it is English.
As for Association Football players who wave the flags of their countries of family origin – well they have answered the question about their idenity themselves, by their actions.
HOWEVER, as I have stated before – what really matters is NOT his ethnicty, but the record of Mr Sunak – as Chancellor and his Prime Minister.
And his record is dreadful – but as Chancellor and as Prime Minister.
Sadly if he had opposed the officials and experts they would have destroyed him – and they would not have thought twice about using his ethnicity against him.
I would not care if the person was a Vulcan or a Klingon – if he had a good record, but he does not have a good record – he has a terrible record. And, horribly, that is why he is being treated as an elder stateman (even though he is a young man) – he is being treated as a wise person – because he did what he was told, because he went along with the script.
Only two Prime Ministers in my lifetime have resisted the officials and “experts” – Margaret Thatcher and Liz Truss, all the other Prime Ministers over the last 60 years have been a waste of space.
Interesting that the only two recent Prime Ministers with a spine were women.
Paul writes:
“It is true that he is NOT like the various people who claim to be English one minute, but the next minute demand “Reparations” from the English (thus showing they do not really believe themselves to be English) – but he is not English ethnically, as for culturally – Headboy at Wichester, but walked out of the D. Day anniversary events.”
Paul, there are plenty of people whose ancestry goes back centuries in this country who have, for reasons of crappy ideology, walked away earlier than was appropriate from a ceremony, or whatever. So I don’t think that is a strike against Mr Sunak’s Englishness (or are you implying that Mr S is, well, still a bit of a foreigner?).
Also don’t see where the “reparations” thing applies: demands for reparations (to the former Caribbean colonies, etc) for things such as slavery should be weighed up on their logic (or the total lack thereof) and a view in favour or against does not make one more or less English. (I am against reparations for all kinds of reasons, mostly because those receiving and giving them have very little connection to the long-dead people centuries ago who held slaves and who were enslaved. The whole thing is a massive con job, promoted by the modern grievance industry of the Left.
I agree that it is important to assess Mr Sunak as a politician for what he did. The Martin Luther King approach of focusing on moral character and not skin colour is a good one to adopt. I wish it was adopted more often these days.
This seems a bit rum, when you refer to intermarriage by the Normans and the A-Saxons:
But Mr Sunak has made no such effort [to intermarry] – quite the contrary, as his own statements (when the Gentleman thinks he is only speaking to a specific audience) show.
Well he married an Indian lady and not a white Caucasian ethnic English woman, and clearly all very suspicious (sarcasm alert), but that does not make him less “English” if the test is not purely about skin colour but a host of other qualities.
Anyway, for those who worry about such matters, he is certainly British, and seems rather solidly so.
On this topic, the title of a piece by Brendan O’Neill over at Spiked says everything:
The globalist war on Englishness – Why the technocratic elites hate the English identity above all others.
So, technocrats, if I buy fast-track citizenship from Sao Tome & Principe for USD 90K, will I, as a result, instantly become unquestionably as African as Nelson Mandela or Robert Mugabe, and be entitled to reparations for slavery, and get to yell ‘racism!’ at anyone who questions my African-ness?
The problem is that “English” is really an adjective being used here as a noun. Which is to say Sunak is not English what? Not English born? Not English in his cultural preferences? Not English in his support for sports teams? not English in residence?
As with SO much stuff and controversy it is all about the meaning of words, and so often founded on the completely incorrect assumption that people have a shared understanding of words or their boundaries. All words in every language have fuzzy, overlapping semantics, and so these arguments are all generally pointless and meaningless unless you do the work to tighten and agree on the semantic scope of the words used. But it isn’t about agreement, it is about scoring points and ginning up clicks, and often it is about enforcing a particular meaning on to words that were never there before to move the overton window (both “woman” and “marriage” jump out at me as powerful examples of this.) And so, I suppose from that point of view it is a success, after all, we are all talking about it.
As for the Normans in Ireland: Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis. Or, in Gaelic: Níos Gaelaí ná na Gaeil féin.
My people on both sides — Burkes and Luttrells — were either Norman-Irish, or Celts with Norman names (adopting the name of their Norman seigneurs, perhaps).
When great-grandfather Burke enlisted in the Union Army, he spoke Gaelic as a first language, and English with a thick Irish accent — which earned him the disdain of officers and anyone else of rank.
He soon put that all behind him, however, becoming a proud American to the core, wounded in the course of his military service and invalided out of the army.
“the obvious solution: re-establish the British Empire”.
I would suggest that this is batshit, howl at the moon crazy.
When the British Empire was established and finally disintegrated, morphing into “The Commonwealth”, international travel was both expensive, difficult and not available except to wealthy people and those sent to various lands on Government business.
One of the BIG problems was, from what I understand, all Commonwealth citizens had the right to come to Britain. In 1950, costs and difficulties ensured that this was limited to small numbers. The Windrush migrants were Government sponsored, likewise the textile towns in NW England, being highly taxed to pay for WW2 and could not modernise their factories to compete with other countries, imported many Pakistani and Indian labourers as cheap labour. With the fall in cost of international air travel, virtually anyone can scrape together the fare to come to the UK.
But my objection is that countries that were NEVER part of the British Empire are now part of the Commonwealth. For example, Namibia (formerly known as German South West Africa) Cameroon (ex-German), Mozambique (Portuguese and after independence, a dysfunctional Communist country), Papua New Guinea (partly British but half German) etc. and so forth.
https://dlab.epfl.ch/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/l/List_of_members_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations_by_date_joined.htm
If the residency rights of “Commonwealth counties” still exist, then I would say that opening up the right of residency to these countries which have no ties or cultural attachment to the UK and allowing their citizens to relocate is madness.
The UK Government may as well declare that the whole world is part of the British Commonwealth and formalise what is an existing de facto situation.
As for Sunak, then he is a Brahman and as Brahmans are the very top of the Indian hierarchy, looks down on everyone NOT a Brahman then his attitude is not a surprise. Besides, by having multiple citizenships and residencies of other countries, his loyalty and sentiments cannot remotely be described as “English” except when it benefits him.
Surely the only people who have a right to determine who is English are the English? Rather like a gentlemen’s club, the other members have to agree. If you are black balled, tough luck chum and spreadsheets showing your ancestors’ ties to the country count for nothing. A good start is being a stout patriot with no sympathies for any other country.
Johnathan Pearce – you do not seem to understand that the Mr Sunak’s claim to be English, stiring up an artificial debate (artificial – because, to other audiances, he states a very different idenity) is to distract-attention from his terrible record as Chancellor and Prime Minister. I do not care that he is not English (I am hardly Alfred the Great myself) – I care about his terrible record as Chancellor and Prime Minister – and his lying (vicious lying) in the House of Commons about the Covid injections – a matter of life and death.
Why not claim that a cat is a dog, or a dog is a cat? It is just silly. Of course he is not English (an ethnic idenity – unlike British which is a political and legal idenity), he is not Japanese either – so what? His not being English is NOT what is bad about him – being English is NOT some moral achievement, it is just an accident of ancestry (morally not relevent).
A few years ago what Suella Braverman, and others, have said, would not have been contraversial – no one pretended that anyone could “identify as” English, anymore than a man could “identity as” a woman, or a child could “identify as” a cat.
IrishOtter49 – a proud family history Sir.
Astonishingly the last son of a American Civil War Veteran died only this year – in June (having been fathered in the 1920s – when the veteran, who lost a leg in the Civil War, was in his 80s).
There is another agenda here – if anyone (even people who, when talking to a different auidence, state a different idenity) can “identify as” English then the historic ethnic identity of “English” becomes without real meaning, in effect “English” ceases to exist, ditto other historic ethnic identities – such as Irish, French, Japanese (yes the International Establishment even tried this in Japan – with foreigners there claiming to be Japanese and the government, the education system, media, and so on, running a campaign to try and convince people that these non-Japanese people were Japanese – the Japanese people rejected this campaign and got themselves a new Prime Minister) – and so on. Very Agenda 2030 – destroy ethnic identities and world “governance” becomes more credible, that is the idea.
The American idenity is an interesting case – as many people, for example the late Margaret Thatcher, insist that being American is an idea – a belief in certain basic principles, sumed up in the Bill of Rights, NOT an ethnic idenity.
That may be true – but it has radical implications.
It means that Democrats (modern Democrats – NOT Democrats in the past), who reject the 1st Amendment as “Hate Speech” (“Thought Crime” – and wish to punish “Thought Criminals” – which-they-do) and reject the 2nd Amendment (the Right to Keep and Bear Arms) as wicked and criminal – are NOT Americans.
One can not have it both ways – if being American is “an idea – not an ethnic group” then Democrats (again MODERN Democrats – not Democrats in the past) are NOT Americans – even if their family came over on the Mayflower.
As an historical point – the idea of America as a land of freedom, Freedom of Speech and so on, goes back a lot further than the Bill of Rights – it appears to have been invented by Roger Williams, the founder of the Colony of Rhode Island, back in the 1600s – who rejected slavery, and believed in Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion (not freedom FROM religion as the modern Democrats would have it) and so on.
William Penn, the founder of the colony (later Commonwealth) of Pennslyvania, had similar ideas.
The International Community (international establishment – both government and corporate, not that there is a real distinction anymore) hate this sort of idenity even more than they hate ethnic idenity – the old idea of “nation” (that goes back at least to the Middle Ages – indeed long before).
The principles of the Bill of Rights are what the International Community would consider “Crime Think” – and wish to utterly exterminate, in order to build their controlled world-governance.
Some media gobshites seem to have used Sunak’s attendance at a prestigious private school to support the idea that makes him ‘English’.
25pc of Winchester’s students are foreigners so I don’t see how attending it makes anyone English by virtue of attendance. The Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un of DPRK was educated at a prestigious Swiss private school, but I’ve never heard anyone claim that made him Swiss.
It is quite a thing to say that someone who identifies as English is not because he or she has different skin colour or subscribes to a particular religious faith (or, for that matter, regards religion as bunk. Should lapsed Anglicans be deemed “non-English?)
I am curious about how much intermarriage/generational endurance is needed before the “English” designation is justified, and who exactly gets to decide this? Further, does it actually matter? It presumably only does so if you are obsessed about the political implications, things such as identity records, demands for special languages to be given their due in public discourse, etc. I go with the idea that the English language is and should be the default for these islands (albeit with their Welsh and Scottish and N Ireland versions), and that arrivals to the UK should learn to speak it fluently as a condition of work and so forth.
After all the cultural changes that have taken place, it is useful to try and work out what “Englishness” in this context means without making it so exclusionary that it seems to be the topic for obsessives and bigots.
There is also the phenomenon that is sometimes seen of the immigrant/son/daughter-of-immigrants who is more “English than English”, such as in dress and interests, and put the locals in the shade.
Paul Marks, you are the person who has a comprehension problem.
Johnathan Pearce – you do not seem to understand that the Mr Sunak’s claim to be English, stiring up an artificial debate (artificial – because, to other audiances, he states a very different idenity) is to distract-attention from his terrible record as Chancellor and Prime Minister. I do not care that he is not English (I am hardly Alfred the Great myself) – I care about his terrible record as Chancellor and Prime Minister – and his lying (vicious lying) in the House of Commons about the Covid injections – a matter of life and death.
Mr Sunak was responding to comments made by Konstantin Kisin, a few months ago, in a discussion with the journalist (Scottish) Fraser Nelson. Kisin denied Nelson’s statement that he regarded Mr Sunak as English, and seemed to focus entirely on Mr S’s race and religion as barriers to such a designation, and Nelson said that Englishness is far more than that.
Whatever one thinks of the former PM and Chancellor is irrelevant to this topic, and to the extent it is brought up, is an insinuation that someone such as Mr Sunak cannot be expected to be as focused on the self-interest of the country as someone from a more “English” ethnic stock would be. But that is plainly untrue: we have had more than our fair share of deluded political figures who are neglectful of this country’s interests who can trace their ancestry centuries back.
There is an essay by George Orwell called “England Your England”, which forms Part I of his 1941 book The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius.
In that essay Orwell argued that despite enormous social and political changes, there was a recognisable continuity in English national character. He contrasted England of his own wartime era with earlier Victorian England and suggested that an English person of about 1840 would still recognise much of England in 1940, whereas comparable continuity was less evident in some continental countries. This discussion is central to Orwell’s idea of an enduring “Englishness.” (AI generated)
Dr David Betz, in this video (<16 minutes), makes the case that that continuity has been severed, and that by 2040, that "Englishness" will no longer endure. This comes in the context of his concern about the increasing breakdown in British society and the rising potential for civil disorder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVOqynI0qvY
Johnathan Peace – Konstantin Kisin is himself not English (and has said so – repeatedly), he was not “insuating” anything about Mr Sunak, he was just stating a fact. In reality it is Mr Sunak who is arguing about this (and making absurd claims) – because he, and the establishment generally, want to distract-attention from his terrible record as Chancellor and Prime Minister – when he obeyed every establishment instruction, no matter how insane it was.
“is irrelvant to this topic” – wake up and smell the coffee, it is what “this topic” is really about. Mr Sunak can not defend his record, because his record is awful, so he is trying to play the victim card – “these mean people are saying I am not Norwegian” or whatever.
As for English Chancellors and Prime Ministers often being useless tosspots – I agree. And I have said so, in several comments, before you wrote anything.
More rubbish in the media today – the Economist is claiming that Kemi B. is trying to “unite the right” – which is exactly what the lady is, sadly, NOT trying to do. Sadly the lady is attacking other people on the right, and, before anyone points it out, Nigel Farage and co are just as bad in this respect – because they attack Kemi B. and co. The right is not “uniting” – it is acting like a circular firing squad.
The Telegraph (the leading conservative newspaper in Britain) was even worse – the front page was devoted to the lying propaganda of Governor Bailey of the Bank of England – blaming the “Liz Truss mini budget” for XYZ – not a word about the 400 Billion Pounds of counter productive (yes – counter productive) Covid spending – on lockdowns and other insanity (but not a penny for Early Treatment that could have saved lives) – financed by the antics of the Bank of England itself, antics that inevitably went wrong – and which Liz Truss was used as a handy scapegoat to cover for.
For people who really do not know – the tax cuts never went into effect, there was no loss of revenue.
The only part of the minibudget that did stick was the energy subsidy (government spending increase – NOT tax cut) – and that was the only part of the minibudget that was clearly wrong.
David Bishop – yes indeed Sir.
And thank you for the comment and the link.
Paul Marks said: “IrishOtter49 – a proud family history Sir.”
There’s lots more. E.g., re the Luttrells (from Dublin and Kildare) sent three brothers to the Union Army … all enlisted on the same day, along with most of the young men of their town (Decatur, IL) … One was KIA in the Battle of Chickamauga, one died of diptheria at Chicamauga, a third was WIA and invalided out of the army . . . my great-grandmother Burke (nee Luttrell), who died in 1949 at age 101 (just one year before I was born, we’re a long-lived family!) collected great-grandfather Burke’s pension (ten dollars per month).
I have a photograph of the youngest brother, KIA, taken on the day he enlisted . . . standing proudly in his brand new uniform, his rifle at his side. Very poignant.
I had just finished writing this when I saw this post.
What is British Identity
The Question of British Identity has become and issue, what is it, does it exist?
I want to use two methods to define Britishness an analogy and ideal types.
Think of Britishness as a tent held up by four poles. Those who fit under the tent are British. The poles are the ideal types of the four nations that make up the United Kingdom. Not all British people have all the characteristics of one of these ideal types, but the fewer one has the closer one is to the edge of the tent. Let’s start by defining the ideal types.
The ideal type of an Englishman is a human who: speaks English; were born in England; whose ancestors have all lived in England since before the disaster of 1066; who thus fit the description of Pope St. Gregory the Great, “Non Angli sed Angeli” that is not only “white” but fair skinned with blond hair and blue or green eyes; who is a member of the Church of England; who is a subject of the Crown but whose political ideals come from Magna Carts, the Model Parliament, the Petition of Right, the Glorious Revolution, etc. Now, obviously not all English people have all of these characteristics, a few Norman or Huguenot ancestors don’t make people not English. But if you don’t have any of these characteristics, you aren’t English.
The ideal type of a Soct is human who: speaks Scots or Gaelic; were born in Scotland; whose ancestors have all lived in Scotland since before the Norman invasion of 1072; they thus look Scottish and likely have fair eyes; who belong to the Church of Scotland; who is a subject of the Crown but whose political ideals come from the Declaration of Arbroath and the Act of Union of 1707. Now, not all Scots have all these characteristics and one could argue that there are different ideal types for highland and lowland Scots. The point is that if you have none of these characteristics you aren’t Scots.
The ideal type of Welshman is a human who: speaks Welsh; were born in Wales; whose ancestors have lived in Wales or England since before the Anglo-Saxon conquest; they thus look Welsh, are religiously nonconformist, who is a subject of the Crown but whose political ideals come from the resistance to Anglo-Saxo and Norman rule and from Magna Carts, the Model Parliament, the Petition of Right, the Glorious Revolution, etc.
To define what the ideal type of an Irishman is as fully as above, I would have to discuss religion and the troubles and this American is not that much of a fool. However, suffice it to say that the ideal type is: born in Ireland, to ancestors who have lived in Ireland for several hundred years and speaks Irish Galic or English.
Having discussed the poles let’s discuss the center and edge of the tent. The center are those who either have mixed ancestry from the four nations or have a mix of the characteristics of the four ideal types. i.e. a Scots Episcopalian or an Irishman born in England.
The edge of the tent is those who though not born in Britain have at least taken the oath of allegiance and feel loyalty to the rest of the tent.
“It is quite a thing to say that someone who identifies as English is not because he or she has different skin colour or subscribes to a particular religious faith”
Try replacing ‘English’ with ‘Indian’ and consider whether the statement is still ‘quite a thing’ or is in fact a statement of the bleeding obvious. If Rishi Sunak can be considered English, then I (white Englishman of many generations descent and Christian heritage) can move to India and any children I sire there ( while married to an equally white Christian Englishwoman) will obviously be Indians. Except they won’t and no one in their right mind would consider they were.
It all comes down to a shared sense of group membership and national identity. At some point, yes, race and religion are going to be a factor, because those are things that are central to group identity.
Is it AS racist to think that perhaps the races shouldn’t try to mix as it is to think that some races are inherently less than some others?
Jim, some of the people who live in India today may have mixed blood from the days of the Raj. They may think they’re Indian. A person whose grandparents emigrated to such a country and who was raised there is, in that case, Indian, or whatever. And thus isn’t just a subjective thing, like a taste in food. They become “nested” in a country. It becomes part of who they are.
And add things such as public services performed, such as the military, or other things, and the process intensifies.
Paul, I move not read anything in Sunak’s comments on this matter to suggest he’s played a victim card. He seems to have a string sense if agency and self confidence.
By the way, I re-read Patrick’s OP in which he states that Mr Sunak is not British. Erm, what? Did I miss something: the first non-British PM?
“some of the people who live in India today may have mixed blood from the days of the Raj. They may think they’re Indian. A person whose grandparents emigrated to such a country and who was raised there is, in that case, Indian, or whatever. And thus isn’t just a subjective thing, like a taste in food. They become “nested” in a country. It becomes part of who they are.”
They may consider themselves Indian, the real question is do the other Indians (the actual natives) consider the interlopers Indian, or not? If not then we in the UK are entitled to feel the same way about Sunak et al.
Thats before one considers the fact that a Caucasian person living in India will have zero consideration given to his ethnic and cultural background, he will have to pitch in with the Indians and live as they do. And thus will be forced to assimilate culturally fairly quickly. Whereas an Indian living in the UK will be able to live in a culture that is not that materially different from that of Mumbai. Very little ‘nesting’ going on at all. We after all find ourselves in the wonderful situation of having plenty of terrorists who are 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. If anything the longer they and their antecedents have been here, the less they appear to be ‘nested’.
“Interlopers”.
Well they might think a second or third gen immigrant citizen who looks a bit different is an interloper, but that just shows how thick they are. By that logic, almost every US citizen is a sort of interloper, for example.
” By that logic, almost every US citizen is a sort of interloper, for example.”
I’m sure the native Americans (whats left of them) think exactly that.
Well, they were conquered, and that means they lost the land.
Much like Englishmen today.
@bobby b
Well, they were conquered, and that means they lost the land.
You mean we conquered the land that they conquered from someone else, who conquered it from someone prior to that? I suppose someone found it terra nullus a long time ago.
I mean ultimately we are all Africans.
As I said before, all this arguing over who is English and who isn’t is futile unless there is an agreement on what “English” means, and this allows us a useful tool to call our opponents racist because we don’t agree on the definition of a word. So much of modern debate is of this sort and it is such a waste of time.
” all this arguing over who is English and who isn’t is futile unless there is an agreement on what “English” means, and this allows us a useful tool to call our opponents racist because we don’t agree on the definition of a word. So much of modern debate is of this sort and it is such a waste of time.”
Weird that its only being English where its a waste of time discussing it though isn’t it? I mean does anyone suggest that its pointless discussing who is Indian, or Nigerian, or Turkish? They all seem to be allowed to have their own ethnic grouping that they collectively get to decide who is and who isn’t part of it. Why can’t the English do likewise?
It’s a hard argument in which to make actual scientific or even logical points, but it concerns very strongly-held feelings of community and “my people” such that it is a vital question that we do need to work out in some form eventually.
I doubt that we will ever be able to settle on a definition of English or American that will satisfy many. This subject is a lot like porn, with Justice Potter’s “I know it when I see it.”
But the fact that definitions and central meanings are so vague does not make it something that we can ignore. This is an issue that brings countries to war. We must resolve it to at least a majority’s satisfaction. The right to choose associations must definitionally include the right to NOT associate.
@Jim
Weird that its only being English where its a waste of time discussing it though isn’t it?
You probably shouldn’t project what other people think and say on to me. You can certainly discuss what it means to be English, but until you have reached an argreement with your interlocutor arguing whether Rishi or Jim are English is entirely futile. We have this problem a lot recently with that most controversial of words “woman”. And FWIW, women do not have an exclusive right to define what “woman” means, so I’m not sure English people have the exclusive right to define what English means, especially so since it is self evidently a bit of a chicken and egg conundrum.
@bobby b
But the fact that definitions and central meanings are so vague does not make it something that we can ignore.
That is perhaps true, but the problem arises when Fraser thinks English means one thing and BobbyB thinks it means another thing and then we argue who is and isn’t English. Therein lies the futility. You as a lawyer I’m sure dealt with this all the time. Before deciding whether a person is guilty of a crime, first degree murder for example, the judge has to clearly instruct the jury as to what first degree murder actually means, what the elements are and what standard of evidence to use to determine guilt or innocence. Without that the jury would be running in circles because everybody has a slightly different idea what counts as first degree and what counts as murder and what counts as sufficiency of evidence.
The right to choose associations must definitionally include the right to NOT associate.
With that I certainly agree. Though I would be cautious and say that this is a personal right. I might not like my neighbor and might refuse to speak with him, but I don’t have the right to have him move away from me. But this is a pedantic point within the broader discussion here: I certainly agree that a country has a right, in fact a duty, to protect its borders, and that country has a democratic right to define the parameters by which the border is controlled, including demanding that incoming residents not be allowed to deeply undermine the principles and culture that that body politic and their ancestors have formed.
No, but you’re starting far in with the extreme.
How about, we do have the right, as a demos, to enforce long-standing immigration law and policy in order to exclude from entry into our society a group of people who are asking to be let in and supported as a charitable request, when we’re pretty sure they will actively degrade our overall quality of life.
That’s just bonkers. Muslims, for example, account for about 7% of the U.K. population. Not quite the same as the settlement of white men in the Americas, with their bugs and weapons.
This whole discussion also needs to recognise the point that what counts are values, not skin colour. A son of India-born Hindu businessmen who ends up attending Winchester and works in the City and Wall Strertvhas broadly different values from an Afghan tribal member dreaming of mayhem, or an unemployable white late teen in Middlesbrough who throws bricks through windows of old people for the nihilistic fun of it. Funnily enough, the latter is the most ethnically English.
It’s the values and culture that count.
Compare the cost of windows broken by an unemployed Middlesbrough white teen vs the expansion of public sector debt during Rishi Sunak’s time as Chancellor and PM. Let’s not even get started with the costs of Boriswave!
Despite all his private school education and City career, his supposed ‘values and culture’, Sunak behaved far more nihilistically.
The obvious test for whether a person is part of X group or not is whether they would fight for that group. How many 2nd/3rd/4th generation immigrants would fight for their adopted countries? Vs how many would be on the next plane out using their dual citizenship to escape?
” A son of India-born Hindu businessmen who ends up attending Winchester and works in the City and Wall Street has broadly different values from an Afghan tribal member dreaming of mayhem, or an unemployable white late teen in Middlesbrough who throws bricks through windows of old people for the nihilistic fun of it. ”
But when push came to shove, who would the Winchester schooled son of a Hindu businessman side with? England or India? We don’t know, because we can’t look inside his head. But we do know the likes of the unemployed brick thrower from Middlesbrough have historically formed the backbone of the British Army.
@bobby b
How about, we do have the right, as a demos, to enforce long-standing immigration law and policy
Yes, we do. In fact I think I said as much in my comment.
FWIW, it is interesting that you chose the word “demos” here. Originally this word referred not to the common people but to specific tracts of land in Attica, a “deme” would be a small village or rural area. It was only over time it came to mean the people who occupied that land and later combined with the “kratos” meaning rule or power to form the early ideas of democracy. Which, I think, is interesting with regards to the discussion on what it means to be English.
I’m going to go all Paul Marks here, but one interesting consequence of this, due to the Cleisthenes reforms, was that sons who had been named for their father, so “Fraser Son of Robert”, were now named in what is called the demotic style based on their ancestral deme, so “Fraser of Glasgow”. This being to root people in their deme, village or district, rather than perpetuate the ideas of the aristoi, the upper classes.
It is also worth saying that I am not a fan of unadulterated democracy. The best democracies allow the people to chose government policy, but to do so within a higher level framework such as a constitution or bill of rights — a set of principles that are considerably harder to change by the day to day caprice of the voter. And I think that those should encapsulate what a nation is and what it core principles are. This seems quite relevant to the ideas being discussed here.
Nonsense: that’s nihilistic about his life? You disagree with his actions in government – as I do – but it’s beyond nuts to suggest he was motivated by a desire to destroy for its own sake.
Jim, you can conjecture how loyal people are but I see no reason why people who have a mixed background wouldn’t get involved in things like defending their prime country and doing various duties. For example, they can’t avoid jury duty.
depending on the culture and context, children and grandchildren can often be equally patriotic or more so precisely because they know they people cast aspersions of the sort you come up with here.
When all you achieve is ruin, it’s pretty irrelevant what the motivations were. You still have destruction. Hence the consequences of Sunak are far more destructive than a Middlesbrough chav.
That doesn’t work: the thug knows he’s a thug; he relishes the destruction. I don’t think the former PM – and the American-born one prior to that (BJ) thought that what they were doing in those terms. From my understanding Sunak was alone in wanting the economic impact of lockdowns to be considered in cabinet: his sin was in not resigning over the issue when it might have made a difference.
But that’s not the same as wanting to cause destruction and his career doesn’t suggest that.
The consequences are what matters, not the intentions.
If we are talking about intentions – about doing wrong KNOWING one is doing wrong, then Mr Sunak is guilty.
In 2024 he knew very well that the Covid injections had caused injuries and deaths – and yet he denied that (he claimed they were safe) in the House of Commons, in reply to a direct question – he LIED, he lied about a matter of life and death.
Mr Jeremy Hunt (the tax increasing ex Chancellor – who is still in the House of Commons – just as Mr Sunak is still in the House of Commons) claims not to have lied when he stated that his wife was Japanese – the lady is Chinese, indeed presents a programme on Chinese state television. He claims he was just mentally confused.
Perhaps Mr Hunt really is that mentally confused – I doubt it, but that is his defense.
We are veering way off topic but with vaccinations it’s a matter of opinion not fact thet that they were harmful in net terms and that this was known at the time. Like most people I got jabbed because of the risk-reward calculation I made in the circumstances. I’m relatively fit and don’t have an underlying condition.
I suppose it’s possible that Sunak and all the others are wannabe Dr Evils but I think that’s unlikely. They did what was thought wise at the time.
Like you, Paul, I thought early treatment ideas were worth a try, not out of any medical knowledge but because it’s wrong to deny people the option if they want it.
Since we are in Sunak criticism mode, I do criticise him for not doing more to prevent the covid enquiry being a total whitewash in its rigged terms of reference. And I haven’t seen him or Johnson say much about China’s responsibility.
Jeremy Hunt is horrible: he proposed as chancellor to end the resident non-domicile tax system (a policy subsequently enacted by Rachel Reeves). Result: hundreds of very wealthy people have left the U.K. and shrunk the tax base. This was all done to spare Rishi Sunak the embarrassment of rich wife’s tax status, which was entirely legal. But Hunt and Sunak cared about the bloody “optics”, not the strategic economic interests of the U.K.
David Cameron took a similarly weak move over offshore trusts because his father had one (and did nothing wrong). There’s a pattern: the media and Left try to attack a Tory because his family is well off, and the Tory passes a law to try and throw his attackers off balance. This is appeasement. It doesn’t work.
So you can see why I gave plenty of reasons to dislike Mr Sunak.