Lancaster Unity: The BNP may have been elected to Europe but on football they founder
How do we determine one's nationality? Specifically, how do we determine "Englishness" or "Britishness"? Drinking tea, bad teeth, and always the valiant loser?
Probably the best book on the subject is Watching the English by Kate Fox
. She is a social anthropologist and director of the Social Issues Research Centre. In it, she spends a lot of time, well, watching the English in an attempt to discover the social rules that govern our society. She explains why we talk about the weather so much, the rules of drinking in a bar, the importance of not being earnest and our need to always support the underdog. Even so, she is looking at the traits of the English, not what it is specifically that makes us English or British.
Heading back to the Lancaster UAF post, around half of the England football squad selected to play against Andorra would not be permitted entry into Britain's party of the people. The first black professional footballer in England was Arthur Wharton, playing way back in 1886 - over 120 years ago, and only 29 years after the formation of the world's first football club (and 19 years after the formation the the first football association). This BNPs notions of nationality are over a hundred years old!
Britain has long been a multicultural society, and that isn't going to change. the vast majority of immigrants in this country are from former colonies. Many of them moved here when we still had close links with our Commonwealth, and some probably when they were a part of the British Empire! These days, many immigrants are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the Former Yugoslavia, because our war against their (often legally elected) government forced them to leave in the first place! How long must these people live here before we may call them Brits? Could the BNPs successor gain power in three or four generations time and throw out the descendants of today's legal asylum seekers?
So, what makes someone British? For me, it's simple. Can you vote in Britain? Can you get a British passport, Driver's Licence or other legal document? Can you work in Britain? Do you feel British? If you answered yes to any one of these questions, and want to be British, I see no reason why you shouldn't be, and no one - not even a politician - has a right to tell you you're not.
How do we determine one's nationality? Specifically, how do we determine "Englishness" or "Britishness"? Drinking tea, bad teeth, and always the valiant loser?
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Probably the best book on the subject is Watching the English by Kate Fox
. She is a social anthropologist and director of the Social Issues Research Centre. In it, she spends a lot of time, well, watching the English in an attempt to discover the social rules that govern our society. She explains why we talk about the weather so much, the rules of drinking in a bar, the importance of not being earnest and our need to always support the underdog. Even so, she is looking at the traits of the English, not what it is specifically that makes us English or British.Heading back to the Lancaster UAF post, around half of the England football squad selected to play against Andorra would not be permitted entry into Britain's party of the people. The first black professional footballer in England was Arthur Wharton, playing way back in 1886 - over 120 years ago, and only 29 years after the formation of the world's first football club (and 19 years after the formation the the first football association). This BNPs notions of nationality are over a hundred years old!
Britain has long been a multicultural society, and that isn't going to change. the vast majority of immigrants in this country are from former colonies. Many of them moved here when we still had close links with our Commonwealth, and some probably when they were a part of the British Empire! These days, many immigrants are from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the Former Yugoslavia, because our war against their (often legally elected) government forced them to leave in the first place! How long must these people live here before we may call them Brits? Could the BNPs successor gain power in three or four generations time and throw out the descendants of today's legal asylum seekers?
So, what makes someone British? For me, it's simple. Can you vote in Britain? Can you get a British passport, Driver's Licence or other legal document? Can you work in Britain? Do you feel British? If you answered yes to any one of these questions, and want to be British, I see no reason why you shouldn't be, and no one - not even a politician - has a right to tell you you're not.
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