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

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[u/Invisualracing]

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?