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What does it mean to you to be English?

I don't feel very English, to be honest, and don't have a clear idea of what it means and this is especially so for me. My family heritage is a mix of various white Europeans thrown in with English and Scottish ancestry. I don't like the jingoism that sometimes seems to go with a lot of English sentiment. The use of the English Flag and the Union Jack is very tied up in my mind with the extreme right's use of these during my youth and I don't like these associations. Intellectually, I know that many people who display these flags are doing so for good reasons of wanting to support a team or some such. Maybe it is because I am not interested in sports that I don't have positive associations with the flags. I was a teen when the UK joined the EEC and I soon felt more of an attachment to being European than I did to being English. I have and still would put being British ahead of being English.
 
cj66 said:
No papers, I saw this in my own county of residence in the UK.
Non-contributants, those that want to change the UK to the same as the very country they departed, first in the cue for hand outs, extremists, no desire to fit in, etc.
Sorry, it's real, don't like it, don't want it. Those who do like it, you can have it.
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Sadly, this is increasingly what it means to be English...
 
paulbysea said:
I don't feel very English, to be honest, and don't have a clear idea of what it means and this is especially so for me.
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This. Not a single one of us would be able to go back very far to discover that we are descended from waves of immigrants from all around the globe. Around one in five white Britons will have black African ancestry. The geneticist Steve Jones is particularly good at teasing this sort of stuff out.

One in five Britons has black ancestor • PET

A study of census figures has shown that about one in five white British people has a direct black ancestor. The well-known Professor Steve Jones, an academic geneticist at University College London, said that Afro-Carribean people had lived in Britain for so long that they were now part of the...
www.progress.org.uk www.progress.org.uk
 
I'd better join the cue.

I feel a lot more English when I go abroad.
My first visit to USA people would say -

"I love your accent do you know the Beatles?"
 
cj66 said:
No papers, I saw this in my own county of residence in the UK.
Non-contributants, those that want to change the UK to the same as the very country they departed, first in the queue for hand outs, extremists, no desire to fit in, etc.
Sorry, it's real, don't like it, don't want it. Those who do like it, you can have it.
Click to expand...

Just so we understand, what’s your proposal for the English who either don’t contribute or are a drain on society, eg:
- the infirm
- those with mental health issues
- the retired who are drawing pension
- veterans who can’t work anymore because of injuries
 
cj66 said:
No papers, I saw this in my own county of residence in the UK.
Non-contributants, those that want to change the UK to the same as the very country they departed, first in the queue for hand outs, extremists, no desire to fit in, etc.
Sorry, it's real, don't like it, don't want it. Those who do like it, you can have it.
Click to expand...
This is how some parts of blighty, see life.
 
Being “English“ means I have to jump through more hoops every time I travel abroad now, when I return home to France. I much preferred the pre-Brexit era and felt more European than English/British. I was born in England, but my mothers side of the family is of Welsh origins, so I have never felt 100% English.
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
Just so we understand, what’s your proposal for the English who either don’t contribute or are a drain on society, eg:
- the infirm
- those with mental health issues
- the retired who are drawing pension
- veterans who can’t work anymore because of injuries
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Deliberate misinterpretation?
Doesn't really deserve a response.
 
tones said:
Often not. I remember at one work do in Basel, the wife of the big boss approaching our American secretary, her husband and myself and saying in a very learned fashion, "Aha, you are all Anglo-Saxons here!" and looking very perplexed when I said, "No." I had to explain to here that I come from Ireland and am therefore Celtic. My secretary and her husband? She was the product of a Hungarian Jew and a Polish Jew, her husband the product of two Czech Jews - she couldn't have found a less Anglo-Saxon group if she tried.

There's also confusion betweeen the UK and Great Britain. I've had to explain many times that I do not come from Great Britain. And if I speak in my very non-American accent, it is automatically assumed that I'm English.
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I've always found it odd when forms etc list Great Britain as a choice. It doesn't exisit as any kind of meaningful entitiy alone. The name of our country is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or United Kingdom or UK for short. There is neither a country or a nation called Great Britain. People only call themselves British (I suspect) because Ukaydian or UKian etc are awkward, in the same way that citizens of the USA don't relate to themselves as Usaians.
 
paulfromcamden said:
Sooner or later all threads focus on the price of baked beans...
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I was very disappointed when I finally learned that Heinz wasn't a British company. Such was the ubiquitous nature of Heinz Baked Beans when I was a child. Even though I never liked them myself (baked beans I mean).
 
gez said:
I've always found it odd when forms etc list Great Britain as a choice. It doesn't exisit as any kind of meaningful entitiy alone. The name of our country is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", or United Kingdom or UK for short. There is neither a country or a nation called Great Britain. People only call themselves British (I suspect) because Ukaydian or UKian etc are awkward, in the same way that citizens of the USA don't relate to themselves as Usaians.
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It is however the name of the island which contains the nations of Wales, Scotland and England...
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
We were a leading country in stopping the slave trade, e.g. the Atlantic squadron
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I'm not so conviced that one can be safely stated as a "Good" given that we were a major implementor and instigator in the slave trade in the first place. I suppose one could argue that we at least accepted the error of our ways, (which is a good thing obviously), but it doesn't undo the harm.

Similar complexities around the topic of our overall impact in the Empire colonies (India being the most oft debated).
 
Yank said:
It is however the name of the island which contains the nations of Wales, Scotland and England...
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Very true, which is why I don't have an issue with it's use in general terms. Just when it's listed as an option for say "What is your Nationality" or "What is your Country of Birth" etc Which is fairly often the case.
 
gez said:
I'm not so conviced that one can be safely stated as a "Good" given that we were a major implementor and instigator in the slave trade in the first place. I suppose one could argue that we at least accepted the error of our ways, (which is a good thing obviously), but it doesn't undo the harm.

Similar complexities around the topic of our overall impact in the Empire colonies (India being the most oft debated).
Click to expand...

“Instigator”? Not really. As I’ve mentioned already, slavery has existed as long as civilisation.
In the case of English involvement, we took the transatlantic trade from the Portuguese. The slaves we transported were captured by fellow Africans and sold to us, as against sent via the Sahara route.

So no, NOT instigators.
Were the English prime movers, oh definitely, though if you look at the numbers of slaves transported overland in Africa, they’re also obscene.

I’ll happily re highlight the banning of slavery within the British Empire.
Especially when compared to the US, who not only continued until their civil war, but then found a way around its banning with the use of indentured servitude, which is basically slavery by another name.

What a lovely race humans are.
 
tones said:
The other thing was that the USA was not merely a rival country but a rival continent, with the means of production far exceeding that of all of Europe, which, once it got going, would produce Nazi Germany into the ground. In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Admiral Yamamoto said it best - I fear that we have wakened a sleeping giant and have filled him with a terrible resolve. Hitler very foolishly did exactly that, and paid the price.
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There is of course no doubting the USA's impact on the outcome of WWII, but the Soviets were every bit as equal in their contribution to that end. In fact militarily there is a strong argument that they did more to win the war than the rest of the Alies put together: they covered more phsycial ground over a shorter time than the rest did and got to Berlin first. (and paid a far higher price in terms of losses - both military and civilian).
Could WWII have been won without Soviet involvement (assuming they had remained neutral and Hitler never attacked them)? Sure of course, it would have just taken a hell of a lot longer. Plus the result would have been the same if the USSR were involved but the USA never entered Europe, Hitler would still have been defeated eventually. The USSR ultimately just had far too much capacity of manpower to bring to bear and because of it would have ultimately been able to halt Hitlers advance and then outproduce them in weapons with their factories safely out of reach.
 
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