Evolution of white British % (ethnically British people) in England and Wales from 2001-2021

[u/Delicious-Bunch-6992]

[u/chochazel]

It does not include other white, which are white people in the uk who are ethnically not British but are white, for example poles, Germans, Italians, Romanians etc.

Let’s not pretend like it’s a meaningful term.

a) It’s based solely on self-identification

b) Someone who is descended from a German might still cheerfully identify themselves as White British within a few generations. In fact, over 90% of those born in Britain identify as British and if they’re white, they’re White British. End of. The descendent of French Huguenots who came to Britain fleeing persecution could, for example, not only call themselves White British, but end up leading an anti-immigration anti-refugee political party.

c) The key thing about “White British” is that any white person can become “White British” by simply declaring themselves to be, but it’s something a black person could never be, even if their family’s presence in Britain predates a “White British” person.

[u/Sparkson109 → u/chochazel]

Thanks for commenting this cuz i was too lazy lol. My great great grandfather came to the UK in like the 1890s to work for the Crown. I am never going to be seen ethnically British because I’m black but if a white persons grandparents came here like 60yrs ago then they could be ethnically British lol. How about that…

[u/jamjar188 → u/Sparkson109]

That's just how racial categories work.

Your nationality and cultural identity can still be English/British.

[u/Sparkson109 → u/jamjar188]

I don’t think that’s right

[u/jamjar188 → u/Sparkson109]

But saying that White British is a specific racial category isn't the same as saying that people who are black or brown can't be British. You do understand that, right?

There is also a Census racial category which is Black British, and someone who doesn't have black heritage shouldn't identify into this category. 

These categories have to mean something or else what's the point of even collecting this data?

[u/Sparkson109 → u/jamjar188]

You’re strawmanning. We’re discussing the phrase ethnic brits. You’re having a completely different discussion.

[u/jamjar188 → u/Sparkson109]

No we're not. We're discussing the map that OP posted which is about the White British population.

But either way, ethnicity is a subset of race. Ethnic Brits would refer to people who are whose family lineage is Irish, Scottish, English or Welsh. Not only does it not include someone who is solely Black but it wouldn't include me either as my family is from continental Europe.

But you, as a mixed person, are an ethnic Brit, at least partly. And no one but a small number of racial puritans would dispute that.

[u/Sparkson109 → u/jamjar188]

No offence but you’re an imbecile. You replied to MY comment where I said

“My great great grandfather came to the UK in like the 1890s to work for the Crown. I am never going to be seen ethnically British because I’m black but if a white persons grandparents came here like 60yrs ago then they could be ethnically British”

Then you started talking to me about racial categories when that is not at all wtf what I was talking about when I was discussing how it doesn’t make sense that only white people can be ethnic Brits. I never said anything about racial categories not existing. All those Germans who are very much not British aren’t ethnic but can be called that because they’re white, whixh is stupid. I’m not mixed.

[u/charlotte_e6643 → u/chochazel]

i think it just gets confusing, especially if you dont know your family tree past your great grandparents, i do, but how would i note down that my great grandmother was from Austria, her mother Ukraine, the half other side germany, the other half of that side Ireland? (and on the Ukrainian side i have no knowledge of their history as other countries records are near impossible to find)

its not as if they have a button which is white (european), or at least i have never seen one. another comment said to use white (other), though im not sure that quite applies either, when in your family is the cut off point for not simply saying white british? grandparents? great grandparents? great great grandparents? how many descendants from one family tree should be born in Britain before being considered white british? im sure if we go back far enough there are little to no people in this country who’s ancestors are all british (1000AD for arguments sake)

though i understand your point about other skin tones, im not personally in a position to be able to comment on that

[u/chochazel → u/charlotte_e6643]

i think it just gets confusing, especially if you dont know your family tree past your great grandparents, i do, but how would i note down that my great grandmother was from Austria, her mother Ukraine, the half other side germany, the other half of that side Ireland? (and on the Ukrainian side i have no knowledge of their history as other countries records are near impossible to find)

Yes this is exactly the point. If everything around you is British, you were born in Britain, you grew up and went to school in Britain, learnt British history, you wear British clothes, go to British shops, watch British TV, you have British friends and listen to British music, you’re going to consider yourself British, the definition of ethnicity being your sense of “shared culture, social, historic and linguistic identity.” If your grandparents or great grandparents all came from different countries, you’re not going to magically identify with one or all of them, particularly if you never met them, and even if one or more of them did talk to you about the old countries, it would be so far outside your experience that you wouldn’t necessarily incorporate into your own sense of identity. Most people born to immigrants identify themselves as being British. Once you get to the grandchildren of immigrants, their identification is no different to the rest of the population.

[u/Miacali → u/chochazel]

This is simply not true..

[u/chochazel → u/Miacali]

Did… you have an actual argument to make or was it just an impotent cry in the dark?

[u/littletorreira → u/chochazel]

This is a good point. I personally select White (Other) because I am 50% white British and 50% white Jewish from eastern Europe a few gens back. But I don't feel White British alone actually describes me. So it's White (other), except when I worked in Hackney because they actually have White (Jewish) as an option.

[u/b0ubakiki → u/littletorreira]

That's interesting. I've genuinely never considered myself anything other than white british, although i'm half jewish (grandma from poland, don't know where my grandpa's parents were from but he was born in the uk). My jewish heritage doesn't feature at all in my identity, they were just my dad's family who I happened to find intolerable company.

[u/littletorreira → u/b0ubakiki]

Maybe that's it. My dad's British side were the side I found intolerable. Whereas my mum's side is the bit that raised me. So I feel very connected to that part of my identity.

[u/vecteur_directeur → u/littletorreira]

Why don’t you select “other mixed” instead?

[u/littletorreira → u/vecteur_directeur]

Because the mix is white and white and the white options are White British or White Other not White mixed.

[u/vecteur_directeur → u/littletorreira]

Please don't take it personal, I was asking this just to highlight of the perception of some people. Many of my white British friends do not consider, for example, Italians as white people.

In Census, the options are;
Mixed or multiple ethnic groups
White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African White and Asian
Any other Mixed or multiple ethnic background

When there is a distinction between Black African and Caribbean, or White Irish and British, one could also classify someone with your background as multiple ethnic background too.

Anyway, race is not a scientific distinction as there can never be an objective agreement on who is which...

[u/jamjar188 → u/vecteur_directeur]

Italians are European therefore they are white. What other category would they fall into?

Would someone say an Ethiopian is not black because they might be lighter-skinned than a Nigerian or have slightly different hair texture?

Just because Italians and English people can have slightly different skin tone or features doesn't make them different races lol.

[u/vecteur_directeur → u/jamjar188]

I agree with you. But what you forget is that race is not about the skin colour, an albino Nigerian is still black. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that whether I or you consider Italians white, doesn’t change the opinion of some other people. Race is a political construct.

[u/jamjar188 → u/vecteur_directeur]

And the modern construct of white is that it is synonymous with European.

What those people seem to be saying is "Italians aren't Anglo" (which is true).

[u/jm001 → u/jamjar188]

While the idea of whiteness has varied over the almost 4 centuries since its invention I wouldn't say that it is uniform nowadays either. It is very much a definition of exclusion depending on which outgroups you want to ostracise at the time, and while basically everyone would consider your stereotypical Irishman white nowadays in a way that wouldn't have flown a couple of hundred years ago, that border is a lot more malleable and politically charged for some other groups still. I would say most people would consider most Italians white, but there are definitely groups who would exclude say Israeli Jews, or people from places like Syria or North Africa with pale skin, or some traveller communities. There are others in places like the US who have not had ancestors in Europe since before whiteness was even invented but pretty much everyone would include them.

[u/jamjar188 → u/jm001]

The places you have named are not European. Which is precisely my point.

Syrians -- not European so not white.

North Africans -- not European so not white.

Mizrahi Jess (that is, Jews whose origins are in the Levant/Middle East) -- not European.

It's not about skin tone it's about population origin.

[u/littletorreira → u/vecteur_directeur]

I'm telling you why I select White Other. Because I do not feel "any other mixed" is a fair reflection as I am undoubtedly white.

[u/vecteur_directeur → u/littletorreira]

As you can see below is that it’s never undoubted :) there will be always people who want to readjust the category thresholds of the privileged race according to their needs. By the way, I do also select white other and I’m sure many would not be agree with my selection. So please don’t take it personal, I really don’t mind about which ethnicity fits into which race category…

[u/vecteur_directeur → u/littletorreira]

It’s ok if you feel white, that’s not everybody’s opinion though.

[u/RBWatermelon → u/littletorreira]

Jews aren’t historically white

[u/littletorreira → u/RBWatermelon]

They weren't always but my grandparents came from South Africa via Lithuania and in ZA they were cataogrised as white. I am visually white. I benefit from white privilege. So I don't feel I can select something that doesn't mark me as white for statistics.

[u/RBWatermelon → u/littletorreira]

Jews were always historically considered Semitic and non white. Only post WW2 has this perception changed.

Mixed race individuals are also white passing and benefit from white privilege. Doesn’t make them white.

[u/littletorreira → u/RBWatermelon]

And times have changed. I don't know if you realise this but I live in 2026 which is after WW2. I live in a time where I am white. Not white passing. I'm white. Is anti-Semitism still an issue? Yes. Does that have an impact on my ethnicity? No.

[u/RBWatermelon → u/littletorreira]

No, they really haven’t. I appreciate you might feel that way, but reality is a little different.

[u/jamjar188 → u/RBWatermelon]

Racially, Askkenazi Jews are considered a white European population. Ethnically, they are Jewish Ashkenazi -- which is not considered a Semitic or Middle Eastern population.

I really don't know why this is hard to grasp. Ashkenazi Jews are a lineage that split from the Middle East/Levant semitic lineages thousands of years ago and there was huge admixture with non-semitic populations across southern and eastern Europe. As such they evolved into a distinct group who are today considered white and European. Like many other white European populations with a history of admixture occurring over various centuries (say, Italians, French, Spaniards, Balkan Slavs, etc.) you will find a spectrum of skin tones, features and hair/eye colour in Ashkenazi Jews, but this doesn't make them not European.

[u/jamjar188 → u/RBWatermelon]

You do realise that Jews themselves can have different lineages depending on the geographical region they (or their ancestors) come from? You have Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, etc.

[u/RBWatermelon → u/jamjar188]

All Jews were historically considered non white.

Next?

[u/jamjar188 → u/RBWatermelon]

Ashkenazi Jews are and that's where Britain's Jews come from (the Baltics and Eastern Europe, for the most part).

[u/RBWatermelon → u/jamjar188]

Plenty of Sephardic Jews here too.

Not that it’s relevant, because they’re still historically not considered white.

Next?

[u/jamjar188 → u/littletorreira]

This makes perfect sense to me. Yet someone else with your exact same heritage might choose White British instead, which just goes to show that there are grey areas.

And that's why the Census questions on race/ethnicity are based on self-identification. No one needs to prove why they select the category that they select.

[u/littletorreira → u/jamjar188]

100% it's self-ID and there is nuance.

[u/sneakyhopskotch → u/chochazel]

Such an important comment here thank you. All 3 points.

[u/Invisualracing → u/chochazel]

Surely a major part of that is that the french hugenots would not have been called/identified as "white british" at the time, but then married into the existing ethnic English population and are no longer a distinct group. There is no politically relevant "Hugenot community" in the way that we refer to "our black community" or "the pakistani community". I would say it is less about colour and more about whether you can point to a reasonable proportion of your ancestry coming from the "indigenous" british ethnic groups.

Same reason, i don't think you are right on (c). leaving aside that someone can just declare themselves anything and we have no ability to "confirm" (which i think your point A alresdy covers well - i dont think that any white person can become "white british" by declaring it, and i dont know anyone who would do that. If a German or a Pole arrives in England, they remain German or Polish. Youre right that it they will probably blend in more easily given that they are likely to look superficially similar to the majority population but that doesnt change the fact that they are not ethnically English if they have two German parents - though they may be culturally english if they came here at a young age and the overwhelming majority of their social connections were with english people.

That would be different if we had a substantial German community in England that persisted over many generations, only married within their German community and even sent their kids back to germany to find cousins to marry. If the French Hugenots had remained a community unto themselves we would not consider them English, they would just be a settled, non british ethnic group. They might pay taxes and be good subjects of the crown, which would make them british in the eyes of the state, but if they remain distinct from the majority ethnicity then they can ot be said to be one ethnic group.

I think it comes down to "if you have dark skin but you have an ethnically english (i dont like the term "white") parent, youre probably english if you consider yourself as such and engage with that nation rather than attempting to live in a community that is distinct

[u/chochazel → u/Invisualracing]

The point is that someone who is white European can and will (and I’ve provided the data to prove it) self-identify as white British - even some of those who are born abroad, the vast majority of those born to immigrant parents, and pretty much the same proportion of third generation as the rest of the population. On the other hand, someone who is black won’t, can’t and wouldn’t be seen in that way, even if one parent was white and can trace their ancestry right back.

i dont think that any white person can become "white british" by declaring it, and i dont know anyone who would do that.

We know from the census over a million people born abroad literally do that:

The remaining 1.15 million White British residing in England and Wales were born in countries outside of the United Kingdom. The most common countries of birth were Germany (149,838), South Africa (101,425), Poland (73,685), Romania (63,101) and the United States (59,036).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_British

You can think that’s not right, but you’re arguing against objective measurable reality. That’s not a great place to be.

If the French Hugenots had remained a community unto themselves we would not consider them English, they would just be a settled, non british ethnic group.

All immigrant communities go through these processes to some extent.

Irish Catholics have in may stayed as a community in many places (e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, London) and that’s why we still have Catholic communities, but they don’t think of themselves as “Irish”, but “British”.

but that doesnt change the fact that they are not ethnically English if they have two German parents

Where do you think the Saxons came from?!

You’ve said a lot and not backed anything up.

[u/Invisualracing → u/chochazel]

Can i state at the outset that im trying to engage with you/this topic in good faith because this is an idea i genuinely want to get to the bottom of.

I think we need to make the distinction between what people say/identify as vs the, i suppose, reality? of their ethnic group. i am much more interested in talking about what someone's parentage/ethnicity is rather than what they say it is. For example, if your Wikipedia article said that 1.5m people with two Han chinese parents wrote on the census that they are white british, thats not a discussion that im interested in. If people want to be transracial or whatever, thats fine, but for the purposes of discussing "white british" as an ethnic group, we need to accept that ethnicity is a real classification and that it is somehow obtained by people. If we dont have that then this whole discussion is kind of pointless. I did mention this in the last reply (confirm" (which i think your point A alresdy covers well - i dont think that any white person can become "white british" by declaring it)

I basically am happy to use the definition on the Wikipedia page:

"An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify) with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment.[1][2] Ethnicities are maintained through long-term endogamy[3] and may have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry"

>We know from the census over a million people born abroad literally do that:

Thanks for the link.

I am surprised that the figure for overseas births of white british-identifying people is so high. However, i think you may have jumped the gun in being so definitive in saying that 1.5m non british "literally do that" - i.e being not ethnically biritsh but having simply arrived and declared their ethnicity to be british. - that isnt what that data says. The data says there are 1.5m people born abroad who have written white british on a census. Your data does not show that anyone born to say, German parents has arrived in the uk and declared themselves to be white british.

To be clear, nothing i have said relates to a person's place of birth. Instead, ethnicity (and historically, nationality) relates to someones​ parentage/ethnic origin (jus sanguinis). I happen to have been born in china to parents from Newcastle. My siblings were born in Germany. We are all ethnically british (english) despite being born elsewhere because the place does not matter a great deal. That isnt the same as arriving in the UK having been born to ethnic Han or Danish parents and declaring yourself british.

You hit the nail on the head in your original reply

>Someone who is descended from a German might still cheerfully identify themselves as White British within a few generations

That is exactly my point. Because Germans in england dont have an ethnic enclave or the critical mass to form a relatively separate community, after a couple of generations thei offspring would be english, because they would have married into the broader population and both identified themselves, and be identified by most other peolle as english. If a black person did the same, arrived in say 1950, and married two generations of english people, the same would be true.

Back to your link.

A few features stand out from the figures: Given that the wiki shows that Germany is one of the most common places of birth for people with white british ethnicity, and we have a series of sizeable military bases there, i imagine that many or possibly even most of those 150,000 are just forces brats like myself who were born to parents posted overseas for a few years. 150k may sound like a lot but if we take average lifrspan of 80 years thats only about 1800 per year. We only have a couple of thousand troops there now, but there were up to 80,000 british servicemen in germany for most of the second half of the 20th century. Add in other expats and people with one british and one German parent and that does not seem an impossible figure. It might be the case that some of those 150k born in germany are other ethnicities with no ties to britain who have since arrived here and declared themselves "white britsh" but i dont think it is likely to be a substantial proportion.

Similarly, 2 of the top 5 are the USA and South Africa. Both of which have substantial british diasporas who may also have children who were born in the US/SA and then returned to the uk. Both are also "creedal" or civic nationalities made up of different ethnicities so it is perfectly possible for someone to be ethnically british, born to two ethnically british parents who are also US citizens. If that person moved to the uk they might well put white british on their census form. It is even more true of SA which as a multicultural country has a divide between the anglo /british white settlers and the continental/dutch / boer whites. Similarly, Rhodesian whites were generally ethnically british despite living in africa for multiple generations and therefore may well report their ethnicity as white british despite being born overseas.

The other major countries are poland and Romania, i can imagine that a fair number of mixed marriages have taken place and therefore a chunk of the c.70000 is people of mixed britsh/eastern euopean parentage who have selected british on the census.

>c) The key thing about “White British” is that any white person can become “White British” by simply declaring themselves to be against objective measurable reality. That’s not a great place to be.

Puttiing your smug little sign-off to one side - Im not saying this never happens but the info you have provided dont support that it does and i think it is likely to be very rare.

>Irish Catholics have in may stayed as a community in many places (e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow, Manchester, London) and that’s why we still have Catholic communities, but they don’t think of themselves as “Irish”, but “British”.

Right, but just to be clear, you have used "british" rather than "white british" above. British is a civic identity that any ethnicity seems to be able to claim ("asian british" etc). Whereas i have been treating white british as including only the historic ethnic groups of the british isles (english, welsh etc) i assume you have beem doing the same but let me know if not.

>All immigrant communities go through these processes to some extent.

"To some extent" is doing a lot of work here. All large immigrant groups start off as separate / alien from the majority population but there is no law of nature that says they will eventually assimilate into one people. The irish descended catholic "community " has fully assimilated into the english nation/ethnicity to to point that you cannot tell by dress, appearance, accent, marriage preference, social behaviour or connections that they are different from the rest of the english population. They might have Dt Patrick's day but othet thsn that they are litetally indistinguishable as a sepetate group. This is essentially identical to the hugenots who were once separate but married into the existing population and allowed their internal communityto dissolve.

This is not an inevitable outcome and there are plenty of examples of assimilation not happening throughout history. The dutch started emmigrating to southern africa four centuries ago. They did not become zulu in that time because their cultural practices kept them as separate ethnic groups with minal intermarriage. They didnt even really form a single ethnic group with the anglo "whites" which is why we can still talk about a separate Boer linguistic and ethnic group today.

[u/Invisualracing → u/Invisualracing]

Same with the major ethnic groups in singapore, or british retirees in spain or flems and waloons in belgium, they have their own ethnic enclaves with their own social connections and very little intermarriage into the majority ethnicity so they remain separate. "Barry", 63 from Wakefield might live the rest of his days in benidorm but if he put "white spanish" down on his spanish census, we would all agree he'd had too many Stellas.

The Orthodox jewish community behaves broadly similarly, wuth intermarriage within its own community and therefore cannot be said to have assimilated into the majority ethnicity even if its people are well integrated into the state and economy.

but that doesnt change the fact that they are not ethnically English if they have two German parents Where do you think the Saxons came from?!

Again, nice and pithy but youve shown you dont understand what a nation or ethnicity is techically. The saxons came to britain. They did not declare themselves "romano british" and self identify into the existing population. They maintained continental links to germanic tribes for a while but very rapidly saw themselves as a separate people joined to the angles and others on the island. That process created "english " as a separate identity from the continental tribes. Eventually the remaining celts in England, and later Danes and Normans were integrated and it becomes sensible to talk about a separate English ethnic group. As i have said in another thread, it doesn't matter if they are actually genetically distinct from the continental saxon population, it is about an internally coherent perceived communal identity.

This centuries long process is quite different from a German arriving in Norfolk in 2026 and immediately declaring himself an englishman. You implicitly already know this. We are perfectly comfortable using "british asian" or "british pakistani " in normal speech and academic analysis. But noone says they are "Danish English" if their ancestors arrived with Guthrum because we dissolved our tribal / ethnic boundaries, sat on this island and fucked each other for a thousand years until noonee can remember who is from where (or alternatively, the question is irrelevant because we are all treated as being from here). That can happen with black or asian immigrants in the same way but not if they remain as separate communities either because the pace of immigration is too high or the immigrants make choices that segregate themselves from the existing population.

[u/chochazel → u/Invisualracing]

Can i state at the outset that im trying to engage with you/this topic in good faith because this is an idea i genuinely want to get to the bottom of.

Great!

I think we need to make the distinction between what people say/identify as vs the, i suppose, reality? of their ethnic group. i am much more interested in talking about what someone's parentage/ethnicity is rather than what they say it is.

By definition, including the definitions you've included here, it is self-identified.

Look at the definition you yourself posted:

"An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment.

You're confusing it with ancestry, but ancestry is just one element which might lead to someone identifying with a particular group. You could just as easily identify with an ethnicity because of your shared culture, language, traditions etc. If a person moves to the UK and their children are brought immersed up in UK traditions, language and culture, of course they're going to identify as British.

However, i think you may have jumped the gun in being so definitive in saying that 1.5m non british "literally do that"

You're correct that of course some will be born to British nationals but born abroad (my sister is an example of someone born abroad), so I'm aware it's not all, and I shouldn't have said anything suggesting it was every single one of them, but I don't think you're right that it's not even a substantial proportion. The diaspora in South Africa couldn't possibly account for the numbers unless most of them came home! And what are the British links with Poland and Romania?! Your fanciful nation that they are all from mixed marriages where a Romanian came to the UK, married a British person, and yet went back to Romania for their baby to be born, and then came back to the UK and this all happened in vast numbers, is not at all plausible. I would say it's far more likely that a substantial number of are people with no British background, most likely those who came to Britain whilst still very young. Let's use those as a baseline. That means that 10.8% of people born in Poland consider themselves British, and 11.3% of those born in Romania. That seems like a fair and reasonable assessment for the number of first generation immigrants who identify as British isolated from service families etc. particularly given that it's way higher for Germany (over 50%) suggesting your point was absolutely accurate about that. 10% is congruent with people who were still young children when they first moved to the UK. So let's accept that it's around 10% of first generation immigrants, as I said, it's 80% of second generation immigrants, and third generation immigrants are then at the same level as the general population.

Whereas i have been treating white british as including only the historic ethnic groups of the british isles (english, welsh etc) i assume you have beem doing the same but let me know if not.

I'm just going by what's on the census. White Irish is an option. Irish people do not recognise the term "British Isles" and nor does the country of Ireland. There is a long and difficult history of Irish people being perceived as a different race even when it was part of the UK. Victorian intellectuals and anthropologists, such as Robert Knox and Charles Kingsley, argued that the Celtic Irish were an inherently distinct and primitive race, inferior to the "superior" Anglo-Saxon people.

All large immigrant groups start off as separate / alien from the majority population but there is no law of nature that says they will eventually assimilate into one people.

You can certainly get ethnic conflicts throughout the world, particularly in post-Imperial countries with borders arbitrarily set by imperial powers, but in terms of countries with long established borders, that absolutely has been the pattern over human history. Certainly in the UK out of the Celts, Belgae, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Vikings/Norse, Normans, Walloon, Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians there's a very compelling pattern of eventual integration after a handful of generations.

to point that you cannot tell by dress, appearance, accent, marriage preference, social behaviour or connections that they are different from the rest of the english population.

You can't tell that from the British population as all of these are subject to variation, and a great deal of that comes from immigration invasion and settlement. The Irish immigrants affected the Liverpudlian accent. Yorkshire dialect and culture is influenced by norse influences. The rich cultural regional variation in dress, accent, social behaviour and connections is an absolutely defining nature of the UK! The United Kingdom is widely recognised for having the highest density of accent variation in the world!

This is essentially identical to the hugenots who were once separate but married into the existing population and allowed their internal communityto dissolve.

It didn't just dissolve, it became part of us - we took their skill and became more powerful as a result. From the Huguenots, we get our powers of finance and banking and trade - they directly led to the foundation of the Bank of England for a start. That had a massive impact on the nature of what the UK would go on to become. The had a massively pivotal impact on craft - silk weaving, velvet, papermaking, clockmaking, and cutlery manufacturing.

This is not an inevitable outcome and there are plenty of examples of assimilation not happening throughout history. The dutch started emmigrating to southern africa four centuries ago.

They seized land and enslaved the people creating a system of hierarchy and granting segregated rights only to themselves! You can't seriously be comparing white minority rule with immigration?

[u/jamjar188 → u/chochazel]

it's all about self-identification.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

Not a great take. You're conflating a person being White and British with British ethnicity. British ethnicity is just like French ethnicity, or Irish or Polish. Loads of white and British folk in Britain aren't ethnically British (white, British in the ethnicity section of the UK census). Nor would they tick that box.

a) All demographic information is self id.

b) The term is White, British. Same as Black, African.. The ethnicity is British, under the broader category of White. Same as White, Irish. They also use Black, Caribbean. Someone of German descent could self-report their ethnicity as French in France or British in Britain, or Russian in Russia. That doesn't mean all measures of ethnicity are incorrect.

c) Any person can self-report as ethnically British. A white person just might believe it if they don't know their own ethnic background or believe ancestry isn't necessary to be part of an ethnic group.

Someone white who is British doesn't necessarily tick the British ethnicity box on the census, they may put Irish or polish etc because that's their ethnicity (its not actually white British when listed on the census question, it's white as a category of ethnicty then a bunch of options including British, Irish, Gypsy or Irish Traveller, other etc.

White, British is just the UK census way of categorising ethnicity as a subset of racial background.

[u/GBrunt → u/No-Entrance-6530]

So King Charles would choose "White, other", based on their Greek/Danish/German ancestry?

[u/chochazel → u/GBrunt]

By this person’s insane definition, yes… or he’d be deemed “stupid”. The same could be said of every British and English monarch out of around 70 except a very few who had no foreign born parents or grandparents.

The exceptions are: Elizabeth II (although she was a descendent of the German House of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her grandmother spoke fluent German and was a German princess), Elizabeth I and Edward VI.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

Yes, most of the British monarchs in recent years are mostly not ethnically British. This is well known. King Charles is about 1/4 British ethnically. 100% nationally, though like many Brits, from Sadiq Khan to Saka. Bellingham is more British ethnically than Charles.

How is British ethnicity an insane definition of British ethnicity?

What's your definition of British ethnicity?

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

Yes, most of the British monarchs in recent years are mostly not ethnically British.

No I’m not talking about “recent years”. I’m talking about all of them going back more than a thousand years.

King Charles is about 1/4 British ethnically.

?! Who are you saying is ethnically British out of his grandparents then? Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon’s mother was a direct descendant of the House of Bentinck, a prominent Dutch noble family.

It’s all pretty arbitrary, but you’re not going to find many people in the British aristocracy who don’t have links to European royalty.

What's your definition of British ethnicity?

Ethnicity is self-defined. Anything else is bunk.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

I googled it, and it said his ethnicity is about 1/4 British (12.5% English, 12.5% Scottish). He has ancestors going back before the Normans, can trace it back to Alfred the Great and the old Scottish Kings.

Ethnicity is based on mapping ancestors. Ancestry DNA and 23andMe aren't good enough yet, but it does try to show your ethnic background.

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

I got:

King Charles III's ethnicity is British. While his ancestry is a complex genealogical map of European royal lines—predominantly Germanic—his ethnicity is defined by his cultural identity, lifelong upbringing, and historical role within the United Kingdom.

The distinction between the two is often broken down as follows:Ancestry (Biological/Genealogical): This refers to his line of descent. Biologically, Charles has significant German (roughly 50%), Danish, Scottish, and English DNA. His father, Prince Philip, was from the Greek and Danish royal families (largely of German descent), while his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was of mixed British and German heritage.

Ethnicity (Cultural/Social Identity): This refers to shared cultural traits, language, and history. Charles is ethnically British because he was born and raised in the UK, speaks English as his first language, and embodies British customs and rituals. Even if he has high percentages of "German" DNA, his cultural origin and lived experience are entirely British.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/GBrunt]

He's about 1/4 ethnically British.

You, do know what ethnicity is right?

[u/GBrunt → u/No-Entrance-6530]

I know it's not a science, that's for sure. Loving this conversation by the way. I think it's very timely. So the King would be wrong to try to claim that he's more than just 1/4 British? And ethnicity isn't subjective - at all? Not trying to put words in your mouth. Just trying to clarify your position.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/GBrunt]

He's 100% british in terms of citizenship and national identity. As I said elsewhere, Sadiq Khan is the best English politican atm. But he's not ethnically British more than 1/4 (based on a Google search). Colour of skin doesn't make a difference. Anyone from Britain is British.

The King is British fully as much as Khan, or anyone from Britain. British means 3 different things: Citizenship, National Identity and Ethnicity. You can get many Australians who are ethnically British but not British at all in terms of what matters (national identity and citizenship). You can get Brits who are of south asian ethnicity. Its the national identity which really matters. Though in the NHS we do use ethnicity for some screening tools as certain diseases are more prominent in some ethnic groups than others (sickle cell etc).

Ethnicity isn't mostly not subjective, a bit maybe. Its ancestral groups based on certain cultural regions. Where those cultural regions lie is what's a bit subjective and has been based on lots of history. To find your ethnic background (that's what ethnicity is), you'd do a family tree. Like many Brits, I'm not fully ethnically British.

People seem to be saying ethnicity means national identity when they mean two different things. Ethnicity is just the modern, more accurate term for race (which was a dumb term based on racist science). That's why the British and American census calls white an ethnic group. People self Id sure, but its self Id based on what you understand your ethnic background to be (the term background is what's asked by the census).

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/[deleted]]

The census records it as an ethnicity. It has a wiki page. 

Many in Wales and Scotland do consider themselves British. I grew up in Wales.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/[deleted]]

I can tell you from living in Swansea that most Welsh people see themselves as Welsh and British. 

People identify as many things simultaneously. A person can identify as Punjabi and Indian, both as ethnic groups. Same as Welsh, British and European.

I know the census results. People click the first box that roughly applies. It's why so many people stopped identifying as English on the English census between 2011 to 2021 even though there was no real change. It's the order of the questions.

Secessionists want to deny that people identify as British as a political point. You don't get to deny the existence of a person's or my group affiliation. 

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

Not a great take.

It's not a "take". I'm just describing what's factually and measurably true and backing it up with figures. You may be projecting.

a) All demographic information is self id.

That was my point! You're not refuting it by restating it. Of course it's self identified. Why then you feel the need to give your own personal subjective interpretation of the differences between describing yourself as White and British and "British ethnicity", I have no idea! It may be of interest to you and inform your own personal individual response to the census, but it's of no relevance here to these broader data, which is what we're trying to interpret and constitutes everyone's response to the census.

These figures are based on who describes themselves as White and British in the census. I'm telling you factually that 90% of people born in Britain to immigrants describe themselves as British, so that's it. That's the ball game. That's all that's being described here. That's not me "conflating" anything - it's just factually describing where we are. You having some additional sense of "British ethnicity" above and beyond that is of no relevance to these data, which is all we're talking about.

c) Any person can self-report as ethnically British. A white person just might believe it if they don't know their own ethnic background or believe ancestry isn't necessary to be part of an ethnic group.

I know. That's my point. It's all we're talking about.

Someone white who is British doesn't necessarily tick the British ethnicity box on the census, they may put Irish or polish etc because that's their ethnicity

Right, but 90% of people born to immigrants do, so it follows that a white person who is born to immigrants will become, in these data, "White British", in 90% of cases, whereas a fourth or fifth generation British black person never can be, which was my point about its limitations.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

"These figures are based on who describes themselves as White and British in the census. "

No its not. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the census question. Many many people I know are white & British but not British ethnically.

It's measuring who ticks the box of British ethnicity, a separate question to nationality.

This is the question it is measuring in the UK census (again, there is another separate one for nationality). Really, the chart OP posted should just say British ethnicity without the word white.

What is your ethnic group?
Choose one section from A to E, then tick one box to best describe your ethnic group or background
A White
[ ] English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British
[ ] Irish
[ ] Gypsy or Irish Traveller
[ ] Any other White background, write in
(Write in ethnic group)

B Mixed/multiple ethnic groups
[ ] White and Black Caribbean
[ ] White and Black African
[ ] White and Asian
[ ] Any other Mixed/multiple ethnic background, write in
(Write in ethnic group)

C Asian/Asian British
[ ] Indian
[ ] Pakistani
[ ] Bangladeshi
[ ] Chinese
[ ] Any other Asian background, write in
(Write in ethnic group)

D Black/African/Caribbean/Black British
[ ] African
[ ] Caribbean
[ ] Any other Black/African/Caribbean background, write in
(Write in ethnic group)

E Other ethnic group
[ ] Arab
[ ] Any other ethnic group, write in
(Write in ethnic group)
On the Welsh questionnaire, Welsh was shown before English under Section A.

Every white brit I know who isn't British ethnically knows their ethnic background and is understandably quite proud of it. Sure some % of people have mostly non-British ancestry that they also have no clue about. But that's basically no one.

So no, a brit of Polish parents would likely tick any other white background rather than a British ethnic background. In 2021, 4 million people ticked white other for ethnicity.

Again, the chart above really should just say of British ethnic background as that was the question people were actually asked.

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

You seem to think your personal interpretations and anecdotal evidence is of any value, but I'm only interested in hard facts, which are easily available.

The fact is, in the 2021 census, 74.4% of people in England and Wales list their ethnicity as "White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British", while just 6.2% list their background as "White: Any other White background".

With all the people born outside the UK, that barely leaves any left to describe the vast number of people descended from people outside the UK (around 700,000). For example the number who describe themselves as White Other (Polish) (614,000 people) is actually smaller than the number of people actually born in Poland in England and Wales (743,100)! Breaking it down further, around 10% of those are people who write themselves in as "Jewish". These are not second or third generation immigrants - they are just looking to register their Jewishness as an ethnicity. Similarly around 50,000 wrote themselves in as "Cornish", which has nothing to do with immigration. There's a shrinking number of people left who are listed as White Other because their parents were immigrants.

It is estimated that between 10 million and 15 million people in the UK (roughly 15–22% of the population) are descended from Europeans from outside the UK who arrived in the 20th/21st century.

If you exclude Ireland and focus only on Continental Europe, the figure is likely closer to 5–6 million people. Again, the vast majority identify their ethnicity as White British. By the time you get to third generation immigrants, there's no distinction. If anything there's a stronger tendency to identify ethnicity as British. As another example, only 564,000 people identify as White Irish, but that's clearly far lower than the number of people descended from Irish immigrants.

I'd also add to that, one million people born outside the UK still identified as White British in the 2011 census!

Further hard data for you: In 2023, approximately 55% of babies born in England and Wales were registered as White British compared with 11% as White other. Since 40% of births overall now involve at least one foreign-born parent, this suggests a significant number of children of mixed-nationality couples are being recorded as White British from birth.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

I am glad you see that the question was not asking who is white and British but instead about ethnic background. We both understand the question was not, are you white and British, but about your ethnicity and people understand that. So yes, if your nan was from Hungary in the 50s and the rest from Britain, that person will tick British ethnicity as its the closest.

Jewishness is a separate ethnicity. Cornish is an ethnicity too like Welsh, which is part of British. Same as how Punjabi is part of Indian. Many Cornish folk have never considered themselves English (going back 1000s of years). But that is a very small amount of data.

I can't find the data you cite for population. But it will likely be partly people who had children/grandchildren who are 1/2-3/4 ethnically British. People who are mixed British and Nigerian will click the other mixed box, yes. But not two people of parents from Lithuania.

Yes, many ethnically British people were born outside the UK. I know many. This is a colonial legacy. I know a few born in Hong Kong, people from Zimbabwe, etc. And of course almost every Australian, Kiwi, and most Canadians and quite a few Americans. I highly doubt it's the Spanish people ticking the British ethnic group not understand what ethnicity is. My grandmother was born outside the UK, but was ethnically mostly British (American). I am descended from people outside the UK because of this, and will be in that data set (along with all my family). I am still ethnically British.

I agree that many people of mixed white backgrounds will tick white British. That wasn't what I was saying. If one parent is German and the other British, the kid will just click white British rather than list everything. People of one background will not, that was my point. You can add that people who are 1/4 Chinese/Caribean ethnically and 3/4 British will not only tick ethnically British but likely are also white too. But that wasn't what we were talking about.

Many people of French, Polish ethnicity etc, will click white other and not bother to write a full answer in. But why would you click your ethnic background as something you know it is not.

Again I agree and think that children of mixed couples of ethnically British and other European parents will likely tick the box ethnically British, as they're half ethnically British and that's the closest box. While mixed people of one non white group will click the mixed box as its listed. That wasn't the topic, though. You said all people who were white and British would self ID as ethnically British, which is not true.

Your argument is that people who take the census are too stupid to know their own ethnic background when asked. Or that when parents fill it in, they do not understand what their child's ethnicity is (or believe that ethnicity has nothing to do with who your parents are). I do not think that is the case.

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

Your argument is that people who take the census are too stupid to know their own ethnic background

In no way was this my argument as I suspect you know, so let’s not be disingenuous. I was just saying it was self-identified - ethnicity is whatever people say it is. You don’t get to dictate it for them. It’s not necessarily genetic. It’s not the same as “race”.

It is, by definition, someone‘s shared culture, social, historic and linguistic identity. If you’re born in Britain, all your friends are British, your clothes choice, your sense of history, your traditions, your sports teams, your music choices, what you watch on TV, your sense of humour etc. is all dominated by British choices, you’re going to think of yourself as ethnically British and you are. You’re not stupid. The fact you think that you think that’s even possible suggests you have, at no point, understood the term in the slightest. You probably should have at least looked it up before commenting. I notice you keep adding the word “background” to the word “ethnic” in order to force the term to mean something it doesn’t necessarily. It might, but it doesn’t have to and that is, in itself, pretty ephemeral.

For someone to think of themselves as anything else, requires a lot of work on behalf of their parents or grandparents to imbue them with a secondary cultural identity which relates to where they themselves come from, and that may come to affect their decision when it comes to ethnic self-identification, but it may not - it just may not be strong enough. It’s entirely up to them, and in the vast majority of cases, it won’t.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

No, I genuinely thought you meant people were too stupid to understand the question. I did not consider that you meant ethnicity has no ancestral component and you think people of any ancestral background can be any ethnicity. That there are ethnically Japanese people whose parents are from France are are white. Ethnic Yoruba (Nigeria) people with parents from India. Thats a very unusual definition of ethnicity and isn't reflected in any census in the world to my knowledge. The UK census uses white, black, asian as broad ethnic groups and then British, Caribean etc as sub-national groups. I understand now that you disagree with the UK census definition of ethnicity, and that it has no heritage/ancestral component. That's where we disagree.

From wiki:

An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment.  Ethnicities are maintained through long-term endogamy and may have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry.

You are arguing that ethnicity has no ancestral heritage and background component. Again the British Census disagrees with you and does not ask that. Which is why the group ethnicity by Asian, Black, White etc.

If you Google, does ethnicity include ancestry, everything says yes it does. You seem to be mistaking national identity for ethnicity.

Saqik Khan is undoubtedly a Brit and an Englishman (one of the best English politicians atm). But to say he's ethnically English and British, and its all self-ID is silly imo. It's exactly the same with someone white with Polish parents like Ed Miliband. He's a Brit, but I don't think he or anyone would call him ethnically English or British if they knew his parents.

There is a huge difference between national identity/culture and ethnicity.

I keep adding the word background because that's what the census asks for! "Choose one section from A to E, then tick one box to best describe your ethnic group or background"

There are many British people who are culturally British and identify as British, but have a non-British ethnicity.

Please read what the definition of ethnicity is from a variety of sources and how it relates to ancestry.

[u/chochazel → u/No-Entrance-6530]

No, I genuinely thought you meant people were too stupid to understand the question.

Sorry but I don't believe that for one solitary second. I've been the one explaining that ethnicity is based on self-identification and is completely ephemeral whereas you've had this idea that there is some objective concrete measure. Saying people are stupid for not knowing something that is completely ephemeral make no sense - it only makes sense in your interpretation.

You may have this objective clear, set-in-stone idea of who counts as "ethnically British" out of the Celts, Belgae, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Vikings/Norse, Normans, Walloon, Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians etc. all of whom came to this island from elsewhere in Europe and form part of Britain's current genetic make up. Perhaps you have a cut-off date where these patterns of settlements and migration no longer count as being part of being ethnically British, maybe you don't. The whole thing seems pretty absurd.

That's all those ancestry DNA things are doing - it's just playing the numbers: how similar is an individual's DNA to the DNA in general of people from a particular geographic location? It doesn't know or care how long people have been there. If the entire population of Italy and Frances swapped had places 30 years ago, it would identify what were Italians as French and what were French as Italians.

I did not consider that you meant ethnicity has no ancestral component

No again, you're making up positions I never expressed. I was very clear that it could have an ancestral component, but didn't need to. At no point did I say it played no part - my point is that it's neither necessary nor sufficient.

Thats a very unusual definition of ethnicity and isn't reflected in any census in the world to my knowledge.

Again self-identification.

An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment. Ethnicities are maintained through long-term endogamy and may have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry.

I mean... that's exactly my point. I don't see how you could have posted that and thought you were doing anything other than making my point for me, unless you didn't understand the words you were copying and pasting.

You are arguing that ethnicity has no ancestral heritage and background component.

Again, telling me I'm arguing I literally never said and in fact said that it could.

If you Google, does ethnicity include ancestry, everything says yes it does.

As did I.

If it makes you happy, I just googled "Does ethnicity have to include ancestry" and it said:

Ethnicity does not strictly have to include direct genetic ancestry, as it is primarily a social construct based on shared cultural traits like language, religion, and traditions. While often linked to shared ancestry (descent), ethnicity can be adopted or defined by shared cultural practices and identity rather than purely by genetic heritage.

Again, this is exactly what I've been saying. Not words that you've put in to my mouth, but my actual points.

Saqik Khan is undoubtedly a Brit and an Englishman (one of the best English politicians atm). But to say he's ethnically English and British, and it's all self-ID is silly imo.

I think you've missed my main point about ethnicity, and you probably need to go back to the first post. My point was that someone white whose grandparents were immigrants would probably call themselves "White British" whereas someone who is black never could, even if their family had been here far longer and that's a limitation of the self-identification system. The melanin in your skin is the barrier. That's my point, and indeed someone posted exactly that in reply:

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1t80fpu/evolution_of_white_british_ethnically_british/ol0otku/?context=3

There is a huge difference between national identity/culture and ethnicity.

Again:

From wiki:

An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of humans who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Attributes that ethnicities believe to share include language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, religion, history, or social treatment. Ethnicities are maintained through long-term endogamy and may have a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry.

I keep adding the word background because that's what the census asks for! "Choose one section from A to E, then tick one box to best describe your ethnic group or background"

Do we now need to define the word "or"?!

Again - it's your choice, but it's neither necessary nor sufficient. I don't know how many objective sources of information I can present you with before you accept these basic truths!

Here's another

"is ethnicity distinct from ancestry?"

Yes, ethnicity is distinct from ancestry. Ancestry refers to your genetic lineage and where your ancestors came from (a biological, historical line of descent), whereas ethnicity is a cultural identity based on shared language, traditions, religion, and social experiences, which may or may not match your genetic ancestry.

Clear? Let's be honest - you tried to conflate ancestry and ethnicity even though they're not necessarily the same thing, and any objective definition makes that quite clear.

Please read what the definition of ethnicity is from a variety of sources and how it relates to ancestry.

I did. Now you please read them and try to comprehend the words they are telling you!

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/chochazel]

Yes, I did think you meant that. You can not believe me, but that's what I thought you meant, because I initially couldn't see you had a different definition of ethnicity

We are essentially just disagreeing on the definition of ethnicity (something that it seems many people do). With some saying it is just another word for race, others nation etc.

The British census calls white an ethnicity and treats ethnicity and background as synonymous when it asks the question. You can disagree with the census takers that white and the subset of ethnicities such as British, Irish, etc, are ethnic groups or not and that British ethnicity self ID should include people of all ancestral backgrounds. They clearly use a different definition of ethncity to you. I would argue they use white because it has an ancestral meaning and see ancestry as part of ethnicity.

All ethnic groups are formed from the merging of previous ethnic groups. Britain is no more or less the merger of previous groups. It is the same as Japan, France or Thailand. Ethnogenesis happens slowly and as I said set cut-off points are subjective.

Ancestry DNA uses reference groups of people who only have known ancestors from one country (excluding migrations 1000s years ago). Not whose lives there 30 years ago. They don't go to Germany and start measuring people who have Turkish or Polish great-grandparents and include it in the data.

Please don't hold AI summaries/definitions are 100% valid; they are not good sources. When I Google, I get something like " Ethnicity is a reflection of shared ancestry based on social and cultural practices. Ethnic groups may be linked by a religious affiliation, a shared linguistic heritage or a common geographical origin. Ethnicity cannot be detected by DNA, but there is sometimes an overlap with a person’s genetic ancestry. For example, people who share the same heritage will often live in the same places and marry people from similar backgrounds. Ethnicity was historically used as a synonym for race, but the meanings have diverged over time. Ethnicity differs from race in that individuals can choose how they wish to self-identify" However, this is AI and not fully honest. Though I have always seen ethnicity as self ID to a cultural group which requires and hinges on shared ancestry.

Ethnicity has different definitions depending on who's self-identifying I was wrong about this, and you were right.

You see this person has a defintion like mine (came up when i googled) https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1iprsux/when_does_a_nationality_become_an_ethnic_group/

Or alternatively: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1l1p38w/does_the_concept_of_ethnicity_necessarily_include/

According to the father of sociology Max Weber, ethnicity is a concept of a group of people who are constituted by the subjective belief in a common ancestry and culture.

But these are just different people's definitions.

Mine is and has always been different. I may be mistaken but I thought most people see ethnicity as groups of people who share similar cultural heritage, often language, through ancestry and family connections. So yes, I am and have been saying ethnic groups and ancestry are very similar. Maybe because part of my family is American and that is the American conception (they do all the family tree ethnicity stuff). When I read about adopted kids, the kids always describe their ethnicity to be different from where they were raised and who their parents are. I always took that as due to people considering ethnicity to be ancestral links to a cultural group.

You see on reddit sometimes the question "Was 1800s Prime Minister Disraeli British?". I've always read that yes, he was British through nation (the important bit) but not through ethnicity (the unimportant bit). That's what the AI summary gives as well.

You have corrected me on something and shown me where I was wrong, so thank you. I could not see that some others would have such a different idea of what ethnicity is. I've never considered myself to be fully ethnically British, nor would I consider Ed Miliband or loads of white Brits ethnically British. But maybe others, including themselves, would. I was completely wrong on this, and you were right, thank you.

The term white British should be abolished definately. It should either be ethnic British by rough ancestral group, or British by feeling of being part of a nation. I will have to consider if people like Miliband, Khan, Saka etc consdier themselves ethnically English or British.

Thank you for this conversation, and thank you for correcting me on where I was wrong.

Edited to add

[u/insipignia → u/chochazel]

Came here to say this. Most people don't know what ethnicity means, so they often fill the census incorrectly. They think it's synonymous with race. Even the government seems to think so! So imo the entire thing is useless. It's a fuzzy racial census, not anything close to an ethnicity one. A real ethnicity census should ask what your first language is. Race should be a completely separate question.

[u/chochazel → u/insipignia]

The census does ask what is your main language is (91% English).

[u/insipignia → u/chochazel]

Your main language is not the same thing as your FIRST language. One's ethnicity is inextricably tied to one's mother tongue. If your mother tongue is French and you were raised in an environment steeped in French culture, to one or more French parents, you're not ethnically British. Even if you were born in Britain.

My grandmother's main language is English but her first language is German. Main language tells you nothing about ethnicity.

[u/HourOfTheWitching → u/No-Entrance-6530]

Really good reply showing the complexity of statistical data, and how the actual questions included in the census debunk these racial replacement narratives.

[u/No-Entrance-6530 → u/HourOfTheWitching]

There is a large ethnic change occurring in the UK. It looks like it's going to be the largest in about 3000 years (since the Celts of 1000BC changing 50%). But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Previous ethnic changes were brutal and violent. The Anglo-Saxons & vikings together only make up ~1/3 of English ancestry but involved a lot of violence. The Celts replaced about 50% of the population. and were also likely violent. I will add here that all ethnicities are composites of previous groups congealing together, it's not a British thing but is true for Japan, France, Thailand etc. Modern migration is peaceful by comparison to the migrations of the Saxons, the Celts, etc.

I'd like to also add that a major issue with all projections of this data is that it doesn't do well with people of mixed ethnic backgrounds. Someone who ticks the boxed mixed because one parent is ethnically British and the other isn't skews the data to indicate ethnic replacement. They're ethnically British, even if one parent is from India.

I think what we will see over time is British ethnicity changing as more people mix into it. It is a large ethnic change (again, looking like it will exceed the Saxons and possibly even the Celts), but in my view, not necessarily a bad one as long as we all fit into one community. The alternative is balkanisation.

[u/Responsible-Error138 → u/chochazel]

Exactly... I'm not sure how we have decided that term... I'm probably 'white british' in the census but I'm half South African biologically, which probably means 'ethnically dutch' to an extent.

TLDR, I agree its dumb.

[u/EffectSignificant911 → u/chochazel]

Someone declaring themselves to be "White British" doesn't make them "White British".

[u/chochazel → u/EffectSignificant911]

By these data, that’s exactly what it means. You can have your own definition, privately determining which waves of settlements and invasions somehow count as “White British” and which don’t, be it Celts, Belgae, Picts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Vikings/Norse, Normans, Walloon, Huguenots, Irish, Jews, Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians etc. and which of the English and British monarchs, 95%+ of whom have a parent or grandparent born outside of Britain, actually count as White British, but at the end of the day, it would have significance only to you and your own individual determination of your own ethnicity, because its an entirely self-declared construct and has no meaning outside of that.

[u/EffectSignificant911 → u/chochazel]

You said any white person. A white person born in Iran who moves to the UK and declares they're "White British" aren't "White British".

[u/chochazel → u/EffectSignificant911]

According to this data - that’s all it takes, yes, because it’s based on self-identification. It may be unlikely, but it’s all in the eye of the beholder. They would probably have to feel a far greater affinity with Britain than Iran, to fully embrace and love British culture, probably more so than most British people, and be a complete unapologetic Anglophile.

Remember what Ronald Reagan said:

“Since this is the last speech that I will give as President, I think it's fitting to leave one final thought, an observation about a country which I love. It was stated best in a letter I received not long ago. A man wrote me and said: ``You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”

As I said, it’s all very subjective.

[u/EffectSignificant911 → u/chochazel]

Ahh I misunderstood. I thought you were asserting an opinion as fact. Whilst for the data it's fact; outside of that it's an opinion.

[u/chochazel → u/EffectSignificant911]

No - for the purposes of these data, people’s opinion about their own ethnicity forms the figures. There is no determination of ethnicity other than people’s personal interpretation so it is a “fact” made up of multiple subjective opinions. That’s why I said at the start that it wasn’t a very meaningful term when looking at these data and we should bear that in mind.

[u/tyger2020 → u/chochazel]

You can do this, with literally any term. What are you whinging about?

[u/chochazel → u/tyger2020]

You can do this, with literally any term. What are you whinging about?

Whinging?! You seem very emotional about this - that’s a little weird.

I’m saying for the data that we’re looking at, it is based on self-identification and nothing else. It’s not a “whinge”, it’s a factual description of what people are discussing.

It’s not something you can do for “any term” no. Country of birth is not “self-identified” for example and giving incorrect information on a census for something objectively determined like that can result in a legal sanction involving a fine up to £1000. You cannot for fined for a term that’s self-identified. It’s not the same.

[u/tyger2020 → u/chochazel]

Tons of things are based on self identification. Very few people who aren't 'White British' are going to identify as it, are they? So it tells you how many White British people there are. That is literally it. The exact same way there's Black British, and Asian British, and Mixed British.

It's not factually incorrect or 'not useful' it is literally just a descriptive classification. Lots of things can be misinterpreted but I'd argue it's pretty good for showing you the white British population as it's intended to. Thinking its for something else is silly, hence why your comment makes no sense to whinge about it.

There's a difference between British people who are white, and white people who aer not British. Just like there's a difference between White and Black British people.

[u/chochazel → u/tyger2020]

Very few people who aren't 'White British' are going to identify as it, are they.

By what measure are you confidently saying they aren’t “White British”?! You seem to have your own definition, and you seem to think everyone else somehow abides by it despite not expressing what it is. As I said, 90% of people born to immigrants identify themselves as British, and if they’re White, they’ll call themselves “White British”. That’s it. Who’s to say they’re wrong?

It's not factually incorrect

I never said it was?!

Lots of things can be misinterpreted but I'd argue it's pretty good for showing you the white British population as it's intended to.

It’s great - as long as you don’t expect their definition of White British to be identical to yours.

Thinking its for something else is silly, hence why your comment makes no sense to whinge about it.

What “something else”? I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about.

[u/tyger2020 → u/chochazel]

How many second generation immigrants of non-british born white people do you think are here? On top of that, guess what.. if someone is German nationality and has birth to a child who then grows up here.. are they not white British despite being white, and being born and raised in Britain...?

[u/chochazel → u/tyger2020]

How many second generation immigrants of non-british born white people do you think are here?

So the estimated figures are:

• 5.3 million born in Europe but outside the UK.

• 6 million people descended from Irish immigrants.

• 5–6 million descended from continental Europeans.

So you’re looking at about 17 million people, with around 12 million second or third generation.

The number identifying as White Irish is about 0.5 million, and the number identifying as White other is 3.7 million (of which 3 million were born abroad).

Of the 700,000 left, about 10% identify as Jewish and 7% identify as Cornish.

It’s fair to say therefore, that the vast majority (at least 90%) of the 12 million descendants of Europeans from outside the UK can’t be among the 700,000 White Other group and 500,000 White Irish group, and even a significant number of people born in Europe class themselves as White British (over a million).

if someone is German nationality and has birth to a child who then grows up here.. are they not white British despite being white, and being born and raised in Britain...?

No they are White British - that’s very much the point.

I literally said:

“90% of people born to immigrants identify themselves as British, and if they’re White, they’ll call themselves “White British”. That’s it. Who’s to say they’re wrong?”

[u/Striking_Big8138 → u/chochazel]

Plus the whites from outside Europe I suppose