“Screw up and you are nobody’s child.” I think Einstein said something to that effect, but, of course, more eloquently.

Even though I don’t have any spiritual or religious faith, I like what my mum keeps telling everyone, “the spirit defies everything, nothing can pin in it down.”

British? Welsh? English? Italian? As long as you’re a winner everybody wants to stick their label on you. Screw up and you are nobody’s child.

It’s been a while since we linked to Bill, so…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W27wBf7Jw34

Excellent piece Sunny. And you are right about the rent-a-quote David Davies.

But I like it, because we all have multiple identities (as John Lilburne points out). I prefer multiple identities than being forced to subscribe to just one.

This morning I had to fill out an ethnicity monitoring form for a civil service role and on it that they asked about both nationality and ethnicity. Under nationality were the options:

British
English
Irish
Scottish
Welsh
Other

I am a naturalised citizen, and have only lived in the UK for 8 years. I realised that whilst I had no problem stating my nationality as British I felt very awkward saying it was English, even though I live in London (and therefore England). I felt that ‘English’ implied an ethnicity (and an accent) that I do not have, whereas British only referred to the citizenship and therefore felt more neutral and appropriate.

I had never thought about it before today.

But perhaps this feeling of indifference to nationality arises out of a split sense of national identity. Growing up in England I was always the Irish girl, who disappeared off to Ireland for a couple of months a year, who had parents with funny accents and siblings each of whose names seemed more ‘made up’ than the one before. But in Ireland I was the English cousin with the funny ‘posh’ accent, a bit of a townie with barely pigeon Irish. So perhaps I don’t identify so well with a strong sense of one national identity, such as being Welsh. For a Welsh nationalist who denies there is a true union and has feelings of antipathy towards England, it might seem insulting. But they’re not being called English, and as ‘British’ as a term encompasses ‘Welsh’ within it, if you’re saying British is an insult, the paradox is that part of what you’re insulted by is being called Welsh…

But yes, maybe we should just give them some holes if they feel the need. What might be helpful is to give people who have a strong sense of national identity more opportunity to express this fully. Having dual nationality, being British might be a fact but a more full description of that fact is British/Irish. Having one part of their identity ignored might be an insult to some people. And when it comes to form-filling and putting in boxes, as Muhamad and Ashik point out it is also helpful to separate nationality from ethnicity. You may have Welsh/Celtic ethnic roots but Wales has been part of Great Britain since the 18th century and, like it or not, that’s just a fact.

I can understand that being called British can potentially offend the Welsh, Irish and the Scots but I personally don’t have a problem with simple British.

At best, aren’t we all ‘bon Européens’?