British or English

							British or English?

In comments on an earlier post someone asked about the distinction between British and
English.

It’s not a question I lose any sleep over, but it prompted me to make a few notes about national
identity in the British Isles….

To begin with the basics, the British Isles consist of the islands of Britain, Ireland, and a lot of
smaller islands. Within this archipelago there are three political units: the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Northern Ireland [see notes 1 and 2]; the Republic of Ireland [note 3]; and the
Isle of Man, which is a self-governing possession of the British Crown but not a part of the UK.
The Channel Islands (Jersey, Guernsey, etc) off the coast of Normandy are also possessions of
the British Crown (by inheritance from William the Conqueror as Duke of Normandy) but not part
of the UK.

Citizens of the UK, by birth or naturalisation, are entitled to be called British citizens [note 4].
There is no distinction of territorial nationality within the UK, so there is no legal basis for
describing someone as ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, etc., rather than British. But as a matter of history,
the island of Britain contains three traditional countries or nations: England, Scotland, and
Wales [note 5], which for many purposes have different laws and institutions, and to some
extent have different languages [note 6]. Individuals with specific connections to those countries
may be called, or call themselves, English, Scottish or Welsh. As there is no legal basis for
these distinctions, it is to some extent a matter of taste how people are classified. The obvious
criteria are place of birth, place of residence, ancestry, and language. If all the criteria coincide,
there is no real uncertainty, but they often conflict. Take Tony Blair: born in Scotland, to a
Scottish father and an Ulster Protestant mother; moved to England in early childhood; educated
in England and Scotland; speaks with an English accent; currently lives in England. Is he
English or Scottish?

Ambiguities of this kind are common. There has been freedom of movement and intermarriage
between different parts of the British Isles for centuries, and a large proportion of the population
of Britain have connections of blood or residence to more than one of the component countries
of the Isles. Given such ambiguities, it is generally easiest to use the more inclusive term
‘British’. Few people born and raised in Britain (as distinct from Ireland) are likely to be strongly
offended by being called British, but an English person (by birth) may be offended to be called
Welsh just because he happens to live in Wales, and a Scot will certainly be offended to be
called English. Within England, some people in Cornwall would describe themselves as Cornish
rather than English [note 7].

There remains the problem of Ireland. Citizens of the Republic of Ireland can only properly be
called Irish. People born in Northern Ireland are British citizens, but Northern Ireland Catholics
will usually prefer to be called Irish, and Protestants will prefer to be called British. ’Northern
Irish’ is probably the safest designation for both groups.

Even where individuals meet all the obvious criteria to be described as English, Scottish, or
Welsh, they may prefer to be called British. A recent official survey of households in Britain
included questions on this subject. (The full report is available here as a 2Mb pdf file.) The
survey was conducted in England, Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland. Respondents
were asked to select their national identity from a list comprising: English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish,
British and Other. They were allowed to choose more than one. Some of the key results are:


In all three countries a majority chose the national identity appropriate to the place of interview:
80% chose Scottish in Scotland, 62% Welsh in Wales, and 57% English in England.
People living in England are more likely to describe themselves as British (48%) than those in
Scotland (27%) or Wales (35%).


31% described themselves only as British, with 13% choosing a combination of British and
either English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. 4% gave an 'other' identity; 1% gave other combinations.


Older people were less likely to describe themselves as British; 36% of those aged 65 and over
described themselves as British, compared with 47-52% of people aged less than 55.


People in London were the most likely to describe themselves as having an 'other' national
identity; 19% compared with 2-5% in other areas of England, Scotland or Wales.

I’m not sure how much significance can be attached to these results. According to the detailed
notes in the report, the first option was ‘English’, ‘Scottish’, etc, according to the place of the
interview. The results might have been different if ’British’ were the first option. That being said,
I am not surprised that the Scots and Welsh are more likely to choose Scottish or Welsh as their
sole national identity than the English are to choose English. This is partly due to the existence
of strong Scottish and Welsh nationalist movements, but more fundamentally to the fact that the
Scots and Welsh define themselves by contrast to England, while the English define themselves
by contrast to the other large nations of Europe (France, Germany, etc), and for this purpose it
is natural for them to identify themselves with Britain at least as much as with England. It is
perhaps significant that the only strongly nationalist parties in England are the British National
Party and the UK Independence Party.

The ‘national identity’ question was also put to non-white ethnic minorities. The main results
were:


Of ethnic minority respondents 57% identified themselves as British, 11% as English, 1% each
as Scottish, Welsh or Irish, and 37% as ‘other’.


Most of those identifying themselves as British chose this as their sole identity. Only 2%
identified themselves as British and English, etc. However, 5% identified themselves as some
other combination, e.g. British and some other nationality.

Again, I hesitate to put much weight on these findings. It is not clear how many of those
interviewed were actually born in Britain, or were British citizens, which would surely affect their
choice of national identity. However, for immigrants to England and their offspring, there is
evidently a preference to classify themselves as British rather than English. This may be partly
because they associate nationality primarily with legal British citizenship, the British passport,
etc. People from the former British Empire and Commonwealth will also be more accustomed to
the terminology ‘British’ than ‘English’. In this context it is perhaps surprising that as many as
11% of non-whites do identify themselves solely as English - but note that these may include
mixed-race offspring of white English parents.

The survey only asks people how they classify themselves, and not how they classify other
people. My impression is that in England (like France but unlike, say, Germany), the most
important criterion of nationality is not ancestry but place of birth and education. If someone is
born in England there is a presumption that they are English, unless they move away in
childhood and become assimilated into another nationality. This is not to say that ancestry is
irrelevant. It can affect entitlement to British citizenship [note 4]. If someone’s ancestry within
the British Isles is mixed or doubtful, British is a safer description than English. In doubtful cases
language and accent could be deciding factors. Someone who speaks with an English accent
will be accepted as English even if otherwise their connections with England are weak, whereas
someone with a non-English accent will always be doubtful. The reason is probably that accent
is a good indicator of where someone spent their early childhood.


Note 1: The United Kingdom consists of the four territories of England, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland comprises six of the nine counties of the ancient kingdom of
Ulster.

Note 2: ‘Great Britain’ is the standard legal expression for the combined territories of England,
Scotland and Wales, i.e. the UK except for Northern Ireland. The term Great Britain (with
various spellings) seems to have come into use in the 15th or 16th century. In origin it was
simply a way of distinguishing the island of Britain from the French province with the same
name. The significance of this distinction has been lost in English, as the French province is
now called Brittany, but it is retained in French, where it is still necessary to distinguish
Bretagne from Grande Bretagne.

Note 3: Until recently, the Republic of Ireland claimed sovereignty over the whole of Ireland, but
it has now amended its Constitution (here - an interesting document in several respects) to
defer its claim to Northern Ireland until a majority of that territory’s people wish to unite with the
Republic. Unification remains an objective. The Republic offers Irish citizenship, passports, etc,
to anyone born in Northern Ireland, and the Constitution of the Republic states that its official
name is ’Eire, or in the English language, Ireland’. The term ’Republic of Ireland’ is used in the
(Irish) Republic of Ireland Act 1948 and is commonly used both by the Irish government and
others as a neutral description, to avoid implying a territorial claim to Northern Ireland.

Note 4: Citizenship law is complex, but, roughly, anyone born in the UK, to parents who are
themselves British citizens or who are normally resident in the UK, is automatically a British
citizen. People born outside the UK to parents who are British citizens are also in some
circumstances automatically British citizens. There are special provisions relating to citizens of
Britain’s few remaining colonies.

Note 5: the boundaries between the three countries are generally well-defined, except for some
antiquarian disputes about whether the county of Monmouthshire is part of England or Wales,
and whether the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed is part of England, Scotland, or neither. When
Berwick was ceded to England by Scotland in the 15th century the treaty stated that Berwick
was ‘of’ but not ‘in’ the Kingdom of England, and many later documents mention it separately
from England and Scotland. These include the British declaration of war on Russia in 1853 (the
Crimean War). The subsequent peace treaty failed to mention Berwick, leading to the pedantic
claim that Berwick was still technically at war with Russia. In 1966 the Mayor of Berwick and a
Soviet diplomat signed an unofficial peace treaty, accompanied by much vodka.

Note 6: about half of the population of Wales speak Welsh. Only a tiny minority of Scots speak
Gaelic. People from the different parts of the British Isles all have distinctive accents or dialects
of spoken English. The strong dialect of Lowland Scotland (Scots, Broad Scots, or Lallans)
arguably amounts to a distinct language cognate with English, and is recognised as a minority
language by the European Union.

Note 7: the Celtic region of Cornwall was incorporated into the Saxon kingdom of Wessex by
the 9th century, and subsequently into the kingdom of England. The Cornish language persisted
until the 18th century. Cornish nationalists in the 20th century have tried to revive both the
language and a sense of distinct Cornish identity.


Since writing the above, I checked a few points and found useful web pages here and here.