Britishness

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Fun Fact: Actually, the perople of Lancaster and Cornwall were also celtish, and as such, Cornwall and Lancaster were seperate countries from England until they were made Duchies.

When people ask where I'm from, I don't say Britain, or England. I say, I'm from the Isle of Wight, which is a part of England in the UK.

Basically what you taking about is complex because the countries involved in the 'Union' are England, Scotland, Wales. Northern Ireland is a ' administrative region' although it also consider to be a country. So yes second generation immigrants are more likely to identify with being British because they don't feel aligned to one country. However if you go to the much older generation of immigrants, say Jewish Londoner from the East End, they would more likely say they are an English Jew because it is more 'correct'. I don’t mind some people identifying with being British, but cause some tension with some people because it is taken as a slight of the individual. In actual fact it doesn’t make much difference. Few people really understand what the union is abroad and even in the UK. I seriously doubt there is a majority of stark royalists. Mostly there is apathy on the issue with some obsession on their celebrity lifestyle. We are also moving towards devolution so the countries are getting more powers.

Personally I can't stand nationalism. I don't like being fixed. I grew up in different countries around the world. If I’m going to feel like anywhere is home it is the part of London where I live.

My citizenship is British and has been since birth. I am English as I speak the language.

Flying the national flag can be seen by some (I have no idea who) as being racist and therefore almost wrong to display the flag to the country. This is even the case during the World Cup and Euro Cup games.

So ... If I speak English in the UK, does that mean it is wrong for it is the true language here?

Can't remember what I put as my location, but I will soon see

Although I live in Australia I am English, when asked I say that I come from England. Rarely in conversation would I say that I am British but thinking about the OP I probably would put UK down for my location if I was still in England. It sounds weird until you realise that sometimes we play sport as the UK, then we will play against each other as separate nations, Also the various countries will play international matches as if they are sovereign states.
Then we come under the same flag for Government and UN type things. We also speak markedly different dialects and languages.

So I suppose you identify in the way that seems most appropriate. I do wonder how many Welsh or Scottish people would call themselves British or say they were from the UK.

Last time I visited Liverpool I was in a souvenir store and it was full of Union Jacks and one single English flag. When I just asked out of curiosity why he had only 1 English flag in store and so many Union Jacks (I thought there may be some national holiday or so going on) he said that the English ones were practically sold out while, apart from the odd tourist, nobody bought the Union flags. A local Liverpudlian who heard the question and came to me saying he was English and did not care about the UK at all nor did he feel any sympathy for the union.

In Scotland I have only seen 1 union flag, which was waving above an official town hall in Glasgow. Other than that, I saw many Scottish flags waving from regular houses balconies and such. A few Scots I know would refuse to answer UK when asked where they are from. It is ironic in a way that the biggest football game in this country will bring crowds waving Irish flags and Union flags while anywhere else in the country you would only see Scottish flags.

The Union is a bizarre thing when you realise that Isle of Man, Gibraltar, Jersey etc are crown dependencies but not part of the Union. So in a way those tiny places have nore autonomy than Wales or Scotland...

I'd say British. If absolutely pressed, I'd say that I'm English (which I am - I was born in Kent and currently live in East Anglia)...but I usually don't because to be honest, I don't even think about it that way.

The way we see it - and my husband and I have discussed this - some (not necessarily all) of the Scots and Welsh and Northern Irish (and more recently, the Cornish) are more vocal about their national identity because they see themselves as, well, the long-oppressed Celtic minorities. As my husband points out, there were also Celts here in East Anglia (heard of Boudicca?), but because the Saxons overran our bit, any of us who wanted to claim Celtic independence couldn't find much to reconstruct. We don't, for example, have much left of whatever language they spoke.

The English tend to be a bit more reticent because, hey, we've been the mainstream culture for hundreds of years, we haven't got the same 'fighting the oppressors' thing going on. Plus, Keith is right - these days there's a nasty tendency for people to identify outward manifestations of 'Englishness' - like, say, flying an England flag for the World Cup - as being 'racist'. Sad, but many people associate our flag with the National Front and skinheads on the rampage.

Also, in some quarters you'll find there's bad feeling towards Scotland..some of the English now see the situation in this country as unfair because there is a perception (exactly how true it is I don't know) that Scots voters are getting various 'goodies' (better drugs in the NHS, more care for their elderly folk) on the whole of the UK's tax money because of differences in their laws. If you speak to many English people, they'll express a desire that Scotland should be entirely independent and finance its own policies...although, to be honest, if we wanted to get conspiratorial I'd say I wouldn't be sure that wasn't the Scots government's aim in the first place...but that's a whole other story, and politics is not my strong point so I won't comment further because I don't understand half of how it works.

Mainly, though, the fact that I identify as British rather than English comes from the fact that I spend a lot of time around Americans, both online and off, and (unless they have any ancestral links to a particular part of the UK, in which case some of them make a big thing of it!) most of those I know simply say 'British' of those of us this side of the pond, without inquiring further into which bit of Britain.

I sort of forgot to reply to that, but someone wrote that Northern Ireland is an administrative region rather than a constituent country within the union. Que?? I lived in NI for 2 years and never ever heard that. Even the British embassys website says that the UK is made up out of 4 countries, so they name Northern Ireland in the same sort of way as they name Wales, England and Scotland.

The truth about NI is by the way that neither Ireland nor the UK are keen on having it. The Irish government is in a luxury position: they can win voters sympathy by whining about how much they would love a united Ireland. In reality they are happy that the British have to pay to guarantee the safety in NI. The British government would love a United Ireland so that they dont need to fund security in NI anymore, but of course they cannot just admit that they would love to ditch Northern Ireland so they wont ever admit in public. But in reality, the Six Counties are not really wanted by neither Eire nor the UK. The difference is that the UK is stuck with it and cannot just ignore Northern Ireland exists, while if something bad happens the Irish government doesnt have to do any single bit to restore safety. Northern Ireland is a very complex one, and the one place within the UK where the Union flag is frequently used even by citizens. People who do support the union with Britain feel British and will proudly wave the Union flag, as opposed to those wanting a unified Ireland.

Odd is as well that if you fly to Gibraltar (other side of Europe) or the Falklands (other end of the world) people will proudly call themselves Brits and waive the Union Jack. Those people live in very tiny places thousands of miles away from London, and they feel more British than the people in England or Scotland. That is ironic. But then as I said, places like the Falklands, Guernsey, Jersey, Bermuda and Gibraltar are either seen as overseas territories, crown dependencies etc, but not as part of the UK. They are no sovereign nations but not part of the UK neither. So the political situation is very complex as all those overseas colonies have different statutes and different ties to the British government, but in theory the Isle of Man or Gibraltar have more autonomy than Wales or Scotland.

But well, in America the situation is quite complex as well, isnt it? Is Puerto Rico a colony, a sovereign nation, or something in between? American Samoa and Guam are no states, they are not listed as sovereign countries but then also have a fair degree of autonomy. So it is not just the UK where the situation is rather complicated.

I included both Scotland and UK in my location partly because I feel an affinity to both and
partly because as this is an American site there might be some members who aren't sure
where Scotland is . I wouldn't blame them because some people over here aren't
experts on USA geography. The UK is unique in many ways in that the separate countries
that comprise it have somehow retained their identities,despite the fact that we probably
have more in common than we realise. Other places in Europe,such as Catalonia in Spain
and Brittany in France,probably have as much right to be regarded as separate entities
but it hasn't worked out that way to the same extent..The fact that the different countries in the UK compete individually in major football tournaments etc is a factor in keeping up the profile .
There are misunderstood historical myths that also perpetuate the rivalries,e.g. that
Bonnie Prince Charlie was fighting for Scots against the English.The truth is there were
more Scots on the British side than supported the rebellion.
As I'm interested in history I also know that Scotland's capital Edinburgh used to be part of the English kingdom of Northumbria and the ancient Scottish kingdom of Strathclyde used to include parts of what are now England and Wales.That knowledge makes it easier for me to feel 'British' but I know that many of my fellow Scots don't feel the same affinity,maybe because to people around the world the terms 'Britain' and 'England' can be interchangeable.
That's not really fair on England either and I can understand frustrations there about why
Scotland and Wales should have their own parliaments while England doesn't.As to the perception that Scotland is benefiting more than it should,the reality isn't so clear cut.
In any case,we Scots had Maggie Thatcher's Poll Tax foisted on us before the rest of the UK,so
it's often a case of swings and roundabouts !

A lot of English people I know identify as British.

The Scots and Welsh I know usually identify as Scots or Welsh. Some of them are even nationalists.

I think it has been much easier to subsume the English identity into the British identity (as the largest and culturally dominant constituent country of the UK) than the Scots, Welsh or (when Ireland was part of the UK, and in the case of Northern Ireland) Irish ones.

Scots, Welsh and Irish nationalists usually talk about being oppressed by the English, not the British, since they all think each other should have their own independent countries.

In the US you see a lot of bumper stickers that say, "England, get out of Ireland." Nobody ever writes, "Britain, get out of Ireland." The implication presumably is that the Scots and Welsh are oppressed, and only the English are the oppressors.

It is an oddity that in the US and many European countries, people sympathise with Ireland and advocate a unified Ireland. Often however those people have never been to Northern Ireland and dont know about its complex and unique backgrounds. I lived in NI for 2 years, beforehand I was also saying that it would be logical to unify Ireland because it is one island and such... When I moved to Belfast I kept a neutral profile, allowing me to infiltrate in both unionist and republical circles. I learnt both sides of the story a bit more and now do not dare to take a stand anymore because both sides have some good reasons to make their claims. Of course I still think Ireland has some good reasons to claim NI, but then some unionist statements also make sense so it is not as easy as it seems for people from mainland Europe who all seem to want a united Ireland without having digged into Northern Irelands unique backgrounds. I do not blame anyone though, before I moved to NI I also had too simplistic opinions about it, which I only learnt were too onesided once I moved to Belfast myself.

Has anyone ever been to Gibraltar? Those people feel probably more British than anyone in mainland UK. They do not want to be Spanish, and every national holiday in the UK, in every street in Gibraltar you will see Union flags waving from the apartment balconies. Quite amazing how this national pride seems to be stronger in a colony than in the actual country itself.

The motto of Britain should be 'No motto please - we're British'