A third of babies born in the UK are not white British

[voyds9]

Isn't a lot of it how you see yourself

I'm a Yorkshireman first then I'm English, as I'm from England I see English, British and UK as interchangeable, outside England I understand it is seen differently.

A lot of people I see on a daily basis were born here but see themselves as Muslim, Pakistani, English in that order.

These same people take umbridge when I see them as they see themselves

[Budflicker]

AJS- said:

Considering that we as a nation seem obsessed with biodiversity is other areas and have used snail colonies and rare types of moss to argue against major infrastructure projects, insist on countries like Brazil and Indonesia protecting their rainforests and view historical episodes like the conquest of the new world with abject horror and shame, it seems a bit strange that even mentioning a major change to the ethnic make up of our own human population is seen as pushing the boundaries of decency.

The mongrel race, melting pot fantasy is complete hogwash. We are still an overwhelmingly white, northern Europeab country with a deep rooted Christian tradition in (as far as I know?) every single town and village from the Shetlands to the Scilly Isles.

I don't see anything wrong with discussing the pace and direction of this change.

And yes as someone will surely point out my own daughter is mixed race, non-white, non-Christian or European. Dual nationality and if she ever supports a football team it may not he England. I enjoy being between 2 cultures and think it is genuinely enriching for both sides.

That's not the issue though is it?

The issue is that a large proportion of the future population of the British isles will have no real ties to the country at all other than the accident of birth. Many will be brpught up in enclaves almost entirely transplanted from other parts of the world with English as a second language and traditional English values as a curious side show. Many of these will be Muslim and a proportion of these will be actively hostile to precisely the values and traditions that have made this plurality, coexistence and liberty possible.

I'm not very comfortable with simply hoping that these millions of people turn out to be nice, and dispense with the unpleasant aspects of their own cultures which are incompatible with our own. I would like to see a far more active approach to ensuring that this happens. This involves better (not necessarily 'stricter') immigration policies and a more thorough and confident approach to promoting the values which have made Britain what it is.

So in summary the fact that a third of those born in the UK are non-white is not in and of itself a problem but it does point to a need to see exactly who is being born here, and how this will change the future of the country and what we can do now to make sure those changes are desirable for all.

Good post.

[Eric Mc]

speedy_thrills said:

When do you become non-British? Like people call themselves Irish and you actually realise when they say Irish they mean their ancestors left pre-1922...so not really Irish?

The Irish were never really considered "British" for most of their existence. For a brief period, 1801 to 1921, Ireland was part of the United Kingdom. Th rest of the time it has largely looked after its own affairs. Even Northern Ireland after 1921 maintained a large element of independence.
The notion of "Britishness" was an invention to try and bring a coherence to the nations of the British Isles under the English Crown. It has waxed and waned in its significance over the centuries.

[anonymous-user]

Pints said:

Don't worry. If you speak the mother tongue like that, it's also quite clear you're not Afrikaans either.

Clearly

[brenflys777]

S10GTA said:

Jimboka said:

I guess the thread was designed to cause outrage.
It's rather good that it failed miserably.

This. And I'm quite pleased that I live in a time where a vast majority of us are more tolerant of others than maybe our parents were/are. The bigots are a dying breed and in a generation or two will be virtually nonexistent

I'd agree that the bigots were a dying breed, possibly not anymore. Plenty of new bigots incoming.

In my opinion one of the worst aspects of the massive uncontrolled amounts of net migration in the last 20 years is that beyond the infrastructure issues the social conflicts have been ignored in the noble pursuit of tolerance. The colour of children born in the UK really doesn't concern me as I and others have said, however the way these children are brought up to think of their country, society, rights and responsibilities does bother me.

I'm forty and I would say homophobic attitudes are rarely seen in my generation. In the area I used to work in the Police we had a large Pakistani Muslim dominated area with a large number of exceptionally homophobic preachers who had recently arrived in the UK and had enormous influence locally. Some of the most racially insulting people I met were from that area too. That was nearly twenty years ago but these bigoted attitudes weren't being watered down or reduced by the collective societal influence because there was no integration. Too much and too rapid an increase in the number of people from intolerant societies will be damaging to the social advancement in the UK. When they have children the effect can increase exponentially and as we've seen locally in the Midlands school and wider influences are ineffective if control of those institutions is also in the hands of intolerant bigots.

[Halb]

'Britishness' and the flag really came into it's own during the First World War. Up until then the Union flag was not that widely used by the people, the local flags held preference, the union flag was basically just a war banner. But a real cohesive attempt to make being British a thing was pushed as part of the propaganda/war effort.