What Britishness Can And Does Do That Englishness Doesn't Is To Discriminate Against All Citizens Of England

"What Englishness can't do that Britishness can do is appeal unambiguously to people of different ethnic origins," notes Janan Ganesh, political correspondent for The Economist.

It's the BBC reporting again.

But Janeh Ganesh is talking cobblers.

Britishness is not and was never intended to be a blanket nationality simply aimed at everybody living in England.

It was intended to be the blanket nationality of everybody living in England, Scotland and Wales.

With the will to do so, the word "English" could be substituted for the word "British" and an inclusive, civic English nationality be developed very easily.

New arrivals in England have "Britishness" rammed down their threats. So do longstayers

Whilst the PC crowd waste no opportunity to demonise Englishness as a non-inclusive, racist mind set.

But the English have long been a "mongrel" nation.

And all the better for it.

For a start the 'Anglo Saxons' never called themselves that, and the newcomers married into the existing population to form the early English - as proven by DNA studies in places like Oakington. And a 'Celtic' fringe? There isn't one. DNA proves that too. Edward Lhuyd's 1707 'Celtic' linguistic label did not rewrite people's DNA. The Scots notion hopped over the water from Ireland, and the Bell Beaker People displaced around 90% of the island's Neanderthal population.

Insular? This island?

What Britishness does is place every man, woman and child in England at a serious disadvantage when compared to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The West Lothian Question, the Barnett Formula and devolution have seen to that.

A lot of this disadvantage comes from the 1707 linguistic label 'Celtic', applied to the Welsh language and other 'insular' languages by Edward Lhuyd (the 'insular' label also being a Welsh invention although the English language, with its all its quirks and richness was created in England but doesn't qualify for the 'insular' label) and later expanded into a fake ethnicity for the Welsh, Scots and Irish. 

Wasn't Wales a web of competing factions and kingdoms, slugging it out internally, not a peaceful, united polity? Yep. Wasn't Ireland partitioned by a Welsh PM with avid backing of Protestant Scots? Yep. 

Didn't Scotland attempt its own colonisation project at Darien, blame the English (as always) for its failure, then enter the Union, thus creating Britishness as a nationality and being disproportionately active in the British Empire, then blaming the English (as always) for the whole enterprise? Yep. Wasn't the Poll Tax invented by a Scotsman called Douglas Mason and implemented there a year early at the behest of its own Secretary of State - and then the English (as always) were blamed? Yep. Weren't the Scottish Clearances carried out by the Scots, and then the English (as always) were blamed? Yep.

And meanwhile the most ethnically diverse country, England, gets less per capita spending via the Barnett Formula (even declared unfair to England by its own creator, the late Lord Joel Barnett), meaning that those just above the poverty line in England pay nearly £10 per prescription item, while millionaires get then free in the far less ethnically diverse Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland, money scooped largely from the tax payers in England.

Because everything historically was the fault of England, apparently.

And then there is the little question of the West Lothian Question, in which non-accountable MPs get to vote - and sometimes decisively - on legislation affecting only England.

You see what a mess the so-called UK is?

The Celtic Myth Creates An Elite and Demonises England - "Celts", "Nations and Regions", "Welsh Law", The 'British' Nationality, The Barnett Formula & West Lothian Question...

The Houses of Parliament - home of the so-called 'UK' Parliament - which discriminates against its largest, most ethnically diverse country, England, in favour of white tribal myths and one-sided victimhood narratives in Scotland and Wales. The interests of fifty six million people versus the privileges of eight. No contest. The Parliamentary hogs from all corners of the UK will never initiate just change, and will continue to demonize England - for as long as they can. The situation is not sustainable in the long term as more and more people in England, of all ethnicities, are beginning to wake up to the facts.

Before anybody jumps to conclusions, I am an old style Socialist. Right Wing or Left Wing nowadays seem to be all trendy agendas and quite a lot of smoke and mirrors. Nobody in 'UK' politics cares that a poor person, just above the poverty line in Great Yarmouth or Leeds, and in fact everywhere in England, pays nearly £10.00 for a prescription, but millionaires in Scotland or Wales get them for free. This article is about fact, modernity and fairness for all.

One of the biggest causes of artificial divisions between the English, Scots and Welsh is the use of the word "Celt" or "Celtic". And 'Anglo' - as in 'Anglosphere'? Nope. There was never a language called Anglo. The language was/is English, Old, Middle, Modern - and the Anglo Saxons didn't arrive in England with the Old English language ready to unpack.

It has been proven by DNA studies that the English were and are not Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxons (who didn't call themselves that) married in to the existing population almost from the beginning and soon formed the early English, and the Scots and Welsh were and are not Celts.

That's all down to Welsh Nationalist Edward Lhuyd's jottings in 1707. He was writing about languages and 'Celtic' was a label he decided on.

It was never a UK bloodline, It's a myth. There may be linguistic influences (even that is uncertain - it's a label from 1707), but we are not separate ancient tribes - and certainly not ancient WHITE tribes of 'mongrel' 'Anglo Saxons' and 'pure' 'Celts'.

The fact that the the retrospectively-named 'Anglo Saxons' mixed with the existing population to form the early English is fascinating. So there is continuity in England, back to prehistoric times, and the original foundation of Englishness was an inclusive mixing of newcomers with people already here. This opens up interesting avenues to explore in the light of the DNA discoveries - the origins of the English language (the so-called Anglo Saxons did not arrive with the English language all already to unpack, and, logically, it must have evolved as a fusion with the existing population) and culture (the newcomers could not have vanquished all pre-existing culture), for instance. But the timidity of historians and the bristling hostility to anything which questions the entrenched beliefs of the so-called 'Celtic Nations' prohibits this.

The so-called Celts have become another group oppressed and abused by the awful English in centuries past.

Many 'academics' write selective studies to underpin the English=Evil narrative. They are highly selective with their material, and are easily funded, as the English=Evil narrative is popular. It sells.

The term 'Celtic' is often used in a racist sense by some Welsh, Scots and even Cornish (bandwagon-jumpers) writers and campaigners to imply a sense of belonging to this island far more than the people of England - or, in the case of Cornwall, the rest of England.

So, why do so many English bloggers and web site owners seem so happy to perpetuate the myth?

Were we once Romano-British? Nonsensical phrase - the Romans left hardly any genetic footprint. They occupied and ruled. An impact on culture and landscape? Most certainly! But not enough genes to have created a 'Romano-British' ethnicity. Are we or our language 'Germanic'? A term coined in relatively recent times. Rather an odd classification when viewed with modern DNA evidence. And 'Germanic' does not mean 'German' by the way. Celts? DNA evidence uncovers the truth, and we now have an exciting chance to view our real history, free of the likes of the Venerable Bede and Edward Lhuyd angles. 

But no, we musn't upset the ridiculous 'Celtic' narratives of a tiny minority outside of England.

On another matter, the sins of Empire... Scotland had already bankrupted itself on a colonial venture (Darien) before union with England, and was disproportionately active in the British Empire. Ireland was partitioned by a Welsh Prime Minister with fervent backing from Scots Protestant MPs.

In the case of Darien, some very vocal Scots (of course) try to blame England (as always). But, let's face it - the whole thing was poorly planned and reckless. Scotland cannot keep blaming England for its own mistakes. And England then paid Scotland's debts, and Scotland went on to make a mint of money in the British Empire, being, as previously mentioned, disproportionately active and far from a helpless minion.

The Scottish Clearances? Scots elites, not the English, did that - and Scotland's hugely disproportionate showing in the British Empire proves it wasn't some meek, 'oppressed' minion of England.

Did you know that the Poll Tax was the brainchild of a Scotsman called Douglas Mason? Well, it was! And that it was Scottish Secretary of State, who pushed for Scotland to have it a year ahead of England and Wales? Well, he did!

And Wales - an 'indigenousness' ancient nation, predating all? Nope. Firstly, way, way back in the mists of history, long before England, Scotland and Wales, the Beaker People replaced around 90% of the existing Neolithic population on this island. And they didn't originate from the Welsh valleys. They came from overseas. And Wales was not a unified country even much later: it was factions, fighting and disputing each other, different kingdoms.

Welsh? An 'insular' language? Double standards there. Obviously, the island was absorbing newcomers over thousands of years. English was formed in England with clear influences from elsewhere, but that's not 'insular'?

'Brittonic'? More Welsh-influenced nonsense from John Rhys, a Welsh nationalist, a modern word, meant to infer longer tenure on this island for a romanticised 'Celtic' elite.

Welsh Law? An ancient, egalitarian system? Pure poppycock. It's a romanticised notion from much later, designed to help Wales keep its moral superiority stance - and taking English money. 

Wales was factions, different kingdoms - and they were always squabbling and fighting. Rather like many other places. A lot of the "Welsh Law" thing is based on bits and bobs of writings from the 13th Century, apparently some of it culled from centuries earlier (no proof), and romanticised and retrofitted as something it wasn't in more recent years.

English Law and English Common Law are historical facts, well recorded. Actual history.

Do we say England was lovely? Of course not. But we're rebalancing the scales here. Selective rewritings of history to support preening and higher funding for a fiction are not acceptable.

Let's look further at Wales. Let's imagine it hadn't been incorporated into the Kingdom of England. Well, an alternative scenario might be interesting to look at. Let's say England had erected a wall between itself and this much smaller country. It will almost certainly have been invaded and there would be no Welsh identity today. No propping up its finances with Barnett largesse. Goodness knows what it would have been like today, but it would not contain people like Rhodri Morgan, proudly saying, 'We've made the English jealous!' as he abolished prescription charges for even millionaires - on English Barnett Formula largesse.

It may have been much nicer financially for everybody in England if Wales had been absorbed and flooded by people from a nation far away.

At least we wouldn't have all this current twisted, elitist nonsense.

And let's not forget that Wales voted for Brexit. 

On the subject of inclusivity, let's not forget that immigration to England is far higher than to Scotland and Wales (even proportionally) and that the white Celtic myths and victimhood narratives of Scotland and Wales do not bear putting under any objective microscope.

And yet they get copious amounts of cream from the current system.

And the Scots and Welsh may fancy themselves as 'non-racist', with their 'New Scot' bunk and so on, but their silence on millionaires in their countries getting free prescriptions, while poor people scrimp to pay nearly ten quid per item in England, and their UK MP's 'right' to influence the affairs of that far more ethnically diverse country next door speak volumes.

We are supposed to be 'the UK'. Do you ever hear the Scottish and Welsh people or politicians ever speaking against the effects of the Barnett Formula and West Lothian Question on the neighbouring, far more ethnically diverse, UK folk in England?

Once Scot Tony Blair began fanning the flames of Scots and Welsh nationalism in the late 1990s, he began a course of division and elitism, based on myths and racism.

It's Scotland's Oil! No, it's not. It's UK. When you look back, Scotland has enjoyed much largesse and had its voice tremendously amplified by the union with England, via the Darien bail-out, its access to English trading markets, and its disproportionate activity in the British Empire. On top of that, we heap the Barnett Formula, and another financial formula favouring Scotland before that. The notion that 'it's Scotland's oil' implies that what's Scotland's is Scotland's, and what's England's is also Scotland's.

The Barnett Formula, declared unfair to the poor of England by its late creator, Lord Joel Barnett, is still in force (and remember the Scots had a different formula favouring them before that), asymmetric national devolution has created the West Lothian Question in which non-representative MPs vote on English legislation, and all of this discriminates against the UK's largest and most ethnically diverse (even proportionally) country, England.

If you live in England, you have to accept that some of 'your' English legislation is decided by MPs who do not represent you, and you have no power to elect or otherwise. It is happening - just check Hansard.

The Barnett Formula provides funding on a NATIONAL basis for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, above the English funding. It does not apply to anybody living in England.

And poorer areas are not just confined to the North of England, despite the UK Government's deceitful 'regions' carve up attempts. Three of the poorest streets in England were discovered to be in the so-called 'affluent' East of England! And there are areas across the whole of England that are poorer than the Scottish average.

Every poor person (in fact every person) in England suffers the Barnett disparities. The formula is only meted out to the so-called 'nations'.

So, backing up ancient white divisive myths is a priority when it comes to a minority (eight million - the combined populations of Scotland and Wales), is it, UK Parliament?

Wikipedia is a closed shop of apparently Left Wing people. Modern Left Wing is not Left Wing at all, of course. If the state of the affairs we have in the so-called UK was occurring in any other nation, the screams and howls of protest  would resound across the relevant 'Talk' pages on Wikipedia and the injustices addressed on its 'encyclopedia' pages. But everything is played down when it comes down to England, and Wikipedia does its utmost to uphold the white Celtic myth and the 'historic victimhood' narratives of Scotland and Wales. It's an obsession there, and 'Talk' pages and English history articles are loaded with nonsense about 'Anglo Saxons' (who never called themselves that) rather than 'the English'.

Anti-English bile is present in places like Canada, Australia and America - eager to find fake roots (via the Celtic myth) and eagerly buying anti-English hate (England has long been a convenient scapegoat as nobody in government speaks for it), in some cases from recent forebears, in others from the myths and nonsense emanating from Scotland and Wales which have spread out there via the fake 'Celtic diaspora'.

The Mel Gibson film Braveheart is a complete work of anti-English fiction.

The bile from minorities in Scotland and Wales also creates tensions in England itself. I have heard several new arrivals in England on my everyday round who have read the bile and believe England is evil and was the sole driver of any past wrongs. 

This is not the truth, and not the way the UK Government should be dealing with things. Of course, England is demonised, and even mention of the name discouraged. There are no attempts to establish an inclusive, civic English identity.

Ironically, it was an English politician called William Wilberforce who led the fight to abolish the British slave trade from the late 1700s onwards.

The UK Parliament is no longer fit for purpose, and hasn't been for years. It tries to create further divisions in England with its attempts to carve the country up into artificial regions (solidly rejected by the North East, but the UK Government still persists), and its MPs are like pigs at a trough. There is poverty across England (ever been to Great Yarmouth?), yet millionaires get free prescriptions in Scotland and Wales, and the 'regions' of England are a recent UK Government invention, not based in history.

New Labour's Council for the Nations and Regions is absurd. The UK is the nation, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are the countries making up that nation. Yet England is being carved up, while its residents pay into the Barnett pot that fans the nationalist 'we are so progressive' notions in Scotland and Wales, like free prescriptions, because of the 'regions' (England, actually, defined by its national borders) being forced to pay and submit to the inequities of the Barnett Formula.

And we know why.

The UK Parliament is completely scurrilous, and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. Fairness for England would rock their cosy gravy train to its very core.

It's the same with the BBC. Furiously 'politically correct', this organisation is a piece of broken apparatus just like the UK Parliament. It bolsters up fake white Celtic myths and one-sided victimhood narratives in Scotland and Wales, blames England for everything, and backs plans to dismember it.

The British nationality? Dates back only a few centuries, the union with Scotland, and is tied to the British Empire. 'British values'? Are we talking colonization here?

The largest and most ethnically diverse UK country, England, gets horribly discriminated against by the UK Parliament, and the BBC backs it. Flying an England flag in England? Aren't you a dubious individual? BBC 'journalists' turn out copious amounts of anti-English bile and historic white myths for Scotland and Wales, and nobody bats an eyelid. We dropped the licence fee many years ago and will never sponsor its outdated bigotry again.

The only ethical way forward is a complete reorganisation of 'UK' politics, with a domestic English Parliament and funding provided according to areas' needs, not ancient white myths and bristling, jingoistic, attitudes from a tiny minority in Scotland and Wales.

We're either a UK or we're not.

If a new UK which cares for ALL its countries as countries, is non-racist and inclusive and serves everybody equally is unobtainable, then the UK must go

Because it IS NOT a united kingdom at all.

Alex Thompson Perpetuates The Celtic Myth - Which Perpetuates Discrimination Against England - The Most Ethnically Diverse UK Country

                     

British? No, no - they're Scots and Welsh only. And they're 'Celts' (so sayeth Alex Thomson of UK Column) - and such victims of the horrendous English. All fine tales built on ancient white race myths and Mel Gibson's 'CRY FREEDOM!' These fine Scottish and Welsh people had nothing to do with the British Empire! (I jest)

Isn't it strange how the Celtic myth is so plainly a myth, and yet it infiltrates so much of UK life? Take the UK Column - an often interesting and rather alternative (no problem there) news site. Sadly, there is heavy 'Celtic' nonsense in the organisation, brought to bear by staff like Alex Thomson. 

The whole venture is rather strangely organised anyway, with a complete non-questioning of the dreadful discrimination against every living soul in the largest and most multi-ethnic 'UK' country of all - via asymmetric national devolution, the Barnett Formula (including free prescriptions for millionaires in Scotland and Wales), the resurgent West Lothian Question, etc - and a very heavy focus on those five million souls living in Scotland.

DNA studies have more than proved that the notion of 'Anglo Saxons' replacing the entire population of what is now England, and a grand, unified 'Celtic' civilisation occupying the entire island before that, are bunk

And 'Celtic'? A 1707 linguistic label from Edward Lhuyd, not an ancient ethnicity. And 'Anglo Saxon'? A retrofit, they didn't call themselves that, and burials (Oakington) prove intermarrying with locals, not conquest. The mixture coalesced into what was quickly called the 'English' people, as a new language and culture was born.

And Wales, a lovely peaceful, ancient country before the Normans and the English? Nonsense. It was rival factions and kingdoms, slugging it out. 'Welsh Law'? Nonsense. It was not even a united country.

And Scotland, an oppressed underdog? Well, OK - just don't mention Darien, disproportionate activity in the British Empire, clan warfare, and the invention of the Poll Tax by Scotsman Douglas Mason, and its implementation there a year early at the request of its own Secretary of State. We could go on.

And there's the partitioning of Ireland - by a Welsh Prime Minister with avid backing of Protestant Scots.

What drives the Celtic myth is largely jingoism - a sense of false pride, a vilification of the largest country within the UK, England, an appropriating of ancient 'British' history, a victimhood narrative, a strong sense of exclusivity, and an insistence on special treatment.

Take the vilification, for example. Alex Thomson refers (negatively) to 'Anglo American banks'. Um, the 'Anglo' thing is piffle for a start - does he mean English or British? The most appropriate word would be British as the Scots were and are into all that - as they were with the British Empire - to a disproportionate level.

The DNA studies also call into doubt the notion that the 'olde English' derived all - or even most - of their language and culture from the newcomers. It opens up fascinating questions.

But the powerful Celtic myth adherents will do all they can to crush them.

As far as the likes of Alex Thomson are concerned, his ancestors were wonderful, faintly mystical, white beings, who sounded like Clannad when they sang, tossed the caber, formed male voice choirs, and made pasties. They and their 'culture' (?) survive despite centuries of victimhood. So, DNA studies disagree? Who gives a stuff? The level of cognitive dissonance in the so-called 'UK' ensures that, up to now, there's never been much of a challenge.

And all this has made a powerful contribution to a tiny elite in the UK enjoying more funding (the Barnett Formula - called 'grossly unfair' to the poor in England by Lord Joel Barnett, its own creator, which provides higher per capita spending, and things like free prescriptions for millionaires in the least ethnically diverse UK countries), far better and downright unfair democratic representation (asymmetric national devolution) and chances to interfere in the democracy of a far larger and far more ethnically diverse country (England). Ever heard of the (about to resurge) West Lothian Question? Ever checked out the 2003 Foundation Hospitals vote for England?

Interesting article from Prospects magazine, from 2006 - illustrating just how little we actually know about the history of these islands - and just how much DNA studies can tell us. A quick look at Wikipedia will show you just how fiercely this is resisted. I include the beginning of the article here, and a link to the full original at the bottom of this post:

Myths of British Ancestry:

The fact that the British and the Irish both live on islands gives them a misleading sense of security about their unique historical identities. But do we really know who we are, where we come from and what defines the nature of our genetic and cultural heritage? Who are and were the Scots, the Welsh, the Irish and the English? And did the English really crush a glorious Celtic heritage?

Everyone has heard of Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. And most of us are familiar with the idea that the English are descended from Anglo-Saxons, who invaded eastern England after the Romans left, while most of the people in the rest of the British Isles derive from indigenous Celtic ancestors with a sprinkling of Viking blood around the fringes.

Yet there is no agreement among historians or archaeologists on the meaning of the words “Celtic” or “Anglo-Saxon.” What is more, new evidence from genetic analysis (see note below) indicates that the Anglo-Saxons and Celts, to the extent that they can be defined genetically, were both small immigrant minorities. Neither group had much more impact on the British Isles gene pool than the Vikings, the Normans or, indeed, immigrants of the past 50 years.

The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands. Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the ice age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country. The first settlers were unlikely to have spoken a Celtic language but possibly a tongue related to the unique Basque language.

Another wave of immigration arrived during the Neolithic period, when farming developed about 6,500 years ago. But the English still derive most of their current gene pool from the same early Basque source as the Irish, Welsh and Scots. These figures are at odds with the modern perceptions of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon ethnicity based on more recent invasions. There were many later invasions, as well as less violent immigrations, and each left a genetic signal, but no individual event contributed much more than 5 per cent to our modern genetic mix.

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/mythsofbritishancestry

Alex Thomson of UK Column - proud purveyor of the totally spurious Celtic myth - which has contributed to much division and unequal treatment in the so-called 'UK' - all levelled against what is unashamedly its most multi-ethnic country, England.