Can someone be born in England, grow up in England, speak English as their first language, support England and regard England as home — yet still not be English?
That question goes to the heart of the distinction between civic and ethnic national identity. It has particular significance for England following an unusually explicit discussion of the subject by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman in an interview with The Spectator.
Braverman describes herself as a “British Asian” but “categorically not English.” This is not presented as a rejection of England. On the contrary, she argues strongly that the English possess a distinct historical identity which should be recognised. The important question is where the boundaries of that identity are drawn.
What is ethnic national identity?
An ethnic conception of national identity places particular importance on ancestry, descent, inherited culture and historical lineage.
Braverman explicitly distinguishes birthplace and cultural participation from ethnicity. She says that someone can:
“be born in England, they can speak English, they can support the England football team”
and nevertheless “may not be ethnically English.” She continues by describing a historically continuous English population:
“there is a defined specific group of English people who have been here for centuries. There is a lineage. There’s an ancestry.”
There is nothing inherently contradictory about recognising English ancestry. Families can trace roots in England over many generations, just as populations elsewhere retain ancestral and cultural identities.
The more difficult question is whether English ancestry and English national identity should mean the same thing.
What is civic national identity?
A civic conception of national identity does not require common ancestry. Membership of the national community can instead develop through citizenship, upbringing, cultural participation, residence, attachment and identification.
Under this model, somebody does not need ancestors who were English hundreds of years ago to become English today.
A person of Indian, Caribbean, African, European or any other ancestry could therefore be both English and British. They might additionally describe themselves as British Asian, Black British, Anglo-Indian or by another identity meaningful to them.
These identities need not be mutually exclusive.
Braverman’s distinction between English and British
What makes Braverman’s argument particularly interesting is that she appears to apply different concepts to Englishness and Britishness.
Englishness is closely connected to ancestry, while Britishness provides the wider civic identity. She calls for recognition of:
“the English people, the Welsh, the Scots, and a unifying vision of civic patriotism in the name of British.”
Her position can therefore broadly be represented as:
English / Scottish / Welsh → historic national or ethnic peoples
British → overarching civic identity
This explains how someone can be intensely patriotic about Britain while simultaneously saying that they are “categorically not English.”
But what happens to civic Englishness?
This raises a fundamental question:
Why can British identity be civic while English identity must remain ancestral?
Braverman goes further than simply acknowledging the existence of an ethnically English population. Discussing the idea that people who identify as English should be entitled to call themselves English, she says:
“If you feel English, you’re entitled to call yourself English. I think that’s where we’re going wrong.”
This is arguably the most significant part of the exchange.
If ancestry ultimately determines who can legitimately become English, millions of people born and raised in England could potentially remain permanently outside English national identity.
They can become British. But can they ever become English?
Consider a simple example
Imagine someone born in Birmingham whose grandparents came to England from India.
They speak English as their first language. They attended an English school. They support England at football. Their friends and family are in England. Their cultural references are English. They have lived nowhere else.
Ask them where home is and they answer:
England.
Are they English?
A civic understanding of English identity says yes, if that is how they identify.
An exclusively ancestral definition creates a much more difficult question. Their grandparents may not have been English — but what about their grandchildren or great-grandchildren? After how many generations does somebody become English?
Once ancestry becomes a qualification for national membership, somebody must ultimately determine how much ancestry is enough.
English ethnicity and English national identity are not necessarily the same thing
There is another way of approaching the issue. We can distinguish between:
English ethnicity — ancestry, inherited traditions and historical descent.
and
English national identity — belonging to the contemporary English national community.
Recognising the second does not require abolishing the first.
A family whose ancestors have lived in Yorkshire for centuries does not lose that ancestry because a child born in Bradford to immigrant parents can also grow up to call themselves English.
The two concepts can coexist.
An ancient nation can acquire new members
England’s antiquity does not require its modern population to demonstrate ancient ancestry.
England emerged as a unified kingdom during the Anglo-Saxon period and is conventionally associated with the kingship of Æthelstan in the tenth century. That historical continuity belongs to England as a nation.
It does not follow that every contemporary English person must demonstrate genealogical continuity stretching back towards England’s foundation.
England has absorbed populations throughout its history. The nation can therefore be ancient while some members of that nation are relatively recent.
England can be an ancient nation without Englishness being an ancient bloodline.
The paradox in Braverman’s own identity
There is another revealing aspect of the interview. Braverman describes falling in love with Britain through experiences deeply rooted in English and British culture.
She recalls the English language, literature, war poetry, Christianity, hymns and national history at school, saying:
“the place I really fell in love with Britain was in my school in the classroom”
For Braverman, those experiences helped make her British. A civic-English interpretation could reach an additional conclusion: they could also contribute to somebody becoming English.
Whether Braverman personally chooses that identity is entirely a matter for her. The wider question is whether English society should tell somebody with the same background that they cannot be English.
The danger of leaving Englishness exclusively ethnic
This becomes increasingly important as England becomes more ethnically diverse.
If the message is “You can become British, but you cannot become English”, Englishness risks becoming detached from the population actually living in England.
People from immigrant backgrounds may feel that English identity is something from which they are permanently excluded. At the same time, people with longstanding English ancestry may increasingly regard Englishness as exclusively ethnic because society has failed to develop a confident civic alternative.
Those tendencies could reinforce one another.
Why should England be different?
Consider how a similar argument might operate elsewhere in Britain.
If somebody of Asian ancestry were born and raised in Glasgow and identified as Scottish, should ancestry automatically prevent that person from being Scottish?
Modern civic conceptions of Scottish identity demonstrate that national identity can encompass people from many ancestral backgrounds. The same question can be asked of Welsh identity.
So England faces an important question:
If Scottishness can be civic, and Britishness can be civic, why cannot Englishness?
Civic Englishness does not require England to forget its past
Civic nationalism does not require a nation to abandon ancestry, history or tradition.
England can celebrate the Anglo-Saxons. It can commemorate Æthelstan. It can recognise the emergence of a unified English kingdom in 927. It can celebrate St George’s Day, English literature, music, landscapes, institutions and England’s contribution to world history.
People whose families have lived in England for centuries can celebrate their ancestry.
None of this requires telling somebody whose parents or grandparents arrived more recently that they can never become English.
A confident civic identity changes the message from:
“This is what my ancestors did.”
to:
“This is the history of the country to which we all belong.”
England at 1,100
This question will become particularly relevant as England approaches the 1,100th anniversary of its unification in 2027.
What exactly are we celebrating?
If England is simply an ancestral community, the anniversary risks becoming primarily a celebration of descent.
But if England is understood as a continuing nation, the anniversary can mean something much larger. People whose ancestors arrived in England 1,000 years ago, 300 years ago, 70 years ago or within their own lifetime can participate in the continuing story of England.
The anniversary then becomes not simply a question of ancestry, but a celebration of 1,100 years of England.
A civic English identity
Englandism argues for a civic understanding of English national identity.
That does not mean denying that an historic English people, culture or ancestry exists. It means distinguishing ethnicity from nationality.
An individual can be ethnically Indian and nationally English. They can be ethnically Caribbean and English. They can possess Scottish, Irish, Polish, Nigerian, Pakistani or countless other ancestries and nevertheless become part of England’s national community.
And they can simultaneously be British.
The objective should neither be to make Englishness meaningless nor to turn it into an ancestry test.
The challenge is to create something between those extremes:
a national identity sufficiently rooted to mean something, but sufficiently open that people can genuinely join it.
Who gets to be English?
Braverman’s comments deserve serious consideration because they raise a legitimate issue. England should not be required to pretend that it possesses no historic people, culture, ancestry or identity.
The English should be as entitled to discuss and celebrate their historical identity as anyone else.
But recognising an ethnic English identity does not require making all English identity ethnic.
England has survived enormous political, cultural and demographic change. Its future need not depend upon closing the door behind the people already inside.
A confident civic Englishness can recognise where England came from while welcoming people into where England is going.
England is an ancient nation.
But membership of that nation does not have to be ancient.
Sources
- Primary source: Suella Braverman interview with Tim Shipman, The Spectator / Coffee House, YouTube. Relevant discussion of English, British and ethnic identity begins at approximately 11:26. Watch the interview on YouTube.
- Transcript: quotations in this article are taken from the transcript of the above interview. Automatic transcripts can contain minor transcription errors; quotations have been kept to the wording supplied by the transcript.
- Further context: England 927 — the historical emergence and unification of England.
- Further context: England 1100 — the 1,100th anniversary of England in 2027.