Tricky - Glad To Be English - And Andrew Marr On "Taming England"

Two very different features have been drawn to our attention via the excellent Witanagemot Club today. One is on the young celebrity Tricky - proclaiming that he is very happy indeed to be English:

England knows how to integrate

Yesterday I was on the bus and saw a young Chinese girl talking to a 67 year old black woman, and by my hotel I’ve seen a black man and white woman arm in arm, walking to work. I just don’t see that anywhere else, and I’d notice it. At the end of the day, the thing with England is that I’m a black guy, but I’m English. If you’re an Arabic guy in France you could be born in France, but if you’re parents are Arabic, you’re still Arabic, they don’t look as you as being French. When I was growing up, people always saw me as an English kid. I’ve grown up here, so I’m English. I’ve got a British passport, no-one can look at me and tell me I’m not English. So the racism might be against black people, but it’s never that you’re not English.

Well, our knowledge of popular music stops circa 1989 (Pump Up The Jam, Fool's Gold and Jive Bunny!) so we can give no opinion on Tricky's work. But we like his attitude towards his homeland.

Meanwhile, Toque comes up with a snippet from Prospect Magazine, July, 1998. Here's Andrew Marr, telling us just why he feels free to wander around England so arrogantly:

“British” is a political term, not an ethnic one. There are no ethnic British. For millions of non-English island dwellers that makes it useful and reassuring. “Britain” may have imperial connotations, but it also represents the authority of treaty and ethnic compromise. For many black, Asian, European and Irish people here, who will never be English, Britishness is a useful badge of belonging. For you, in Edinburgh, Britain may seem a flag of convenience for Greater England. From where I sit, “British” surmounts and tames England. During the World Cup the cross of St George fluttered on every street; not everyone enjoyed that…

England has absorbed a lot of immigration over a long time without the rise of ethnic nationalism on the French or German model; this has something to do with the separation between the ethnic (Englishness) and the civic or political (Britishness). Asian people and black people can declare: I am British; and know that the assertion is irrefutable. But they don’t feel English, any more than I do. There is no such thing as an ethnic Briton, just as there isn’t an ethnic American. I like that.

So, rather than having an inclusive civic English identity, which would make us all English and equal, regardless of our origins, we have been "tamed" by Britishness. That's why we are ruled by Britishness - why we have health apartheid, the West Lothian Question, the Barnett Formula... why the people of England are not cared for anywhere near as well as their Scots/Welsh counterparts.

And of course that proud Scot Andrew Marr, happy to see England "tamed" and subsumed by Britishness, was all for Scottishness being recognised politically - he fully supported the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

So, good news from Tricky, but a glimpse of what keeps us under the cosh of the Scottish Raj from Andrew Marr.

Tom Griffin On English Identity...

Tom Griffin points out a great truth...

English identity is relegated to a purely cultural status, because unlike Scottish or Welsh identity it has no [institutional] expression.

The cultural exclusivity of Englishness is then used, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, to justify the refusal to establish any specifically English political institutions.

Citizens of England Stand Up!

This is a non-racist blog. If you are an English citizen, regardless of race, colour or creed, you are welcome here (or if you are not and are simply interested, ditto!), but in this country the word "English", apart from in reference to our language, is often frowned upon. Not as much as ten years ago, but it still is. It's OK to be Scottish and Welsh, but not English. It's OK for Scotland and Wales to have democratic representatation and higher public spending, but not England.

Why? Let's explore the issues...

New Labour makes a great thing of not mentioning England. It wasn't always so. Scottish-born Tony Blair was talking about St George's Day and England in 1997, the year he was elected. He was touting for votes then. But not now. Tony apparently supports our national English sports teams, but witness the message he wrote to the Scottish football team a year or two back - "You deserve to win" and the message he wrote on the England flag during the last World Cup - "Everybody is behind you". One sounds a little more passionate than the other, does it not?

It is implied by New Labour and their politically correct hangers-on that to be English is to be an Imperialist. Why? The Scottish, Welsh and Irish (the whole of Ireland) were equally involved in the British Empire, indeed the Scots were disproportionately involved and the BBC recognised that recently with the show Scotland's Empire. But to say you're English will probably lead to cries of "Jingoist!", "Racist!", "Little Englander!"

What a load of tripe.

In the meantime, Tony Blair, born in Edinburgh, declares Scotland a "proud, historic nation" and gives it its own parliament. Jingoist? With Scotland's Imperialist past, one might be forgiven for thinking so. This man is supposedly a Christian - isn't pride a sin in that religion?

England gets broken up into regions, at the behest of the new Scottish Raj and its Welsh-born performing monkey John Prescott, despite a massive "NO" vote in the North East of the country, the only area allowed a referendum.

England endures lower public spending, via the Barnett Formula, which its creator, Lord Joel Barnett, says is unfair to England. Lord Barnett has further declared that he is "ashamed" that his name is associated with the Formula.

England's population of 50 million people is being dictated to by MPs representing a population of 8 million (Scotland and Wales combined).

The politically correct crowd (largely composed of comfortably off, white people) fully believe that England owes the world something. They sit up there in their ivory towers, whilst the government destroys our schools, police forces and health service, our traditions, our counties - the very essence of England.

Resident Anglophobes like Yasmin Alibhai Brown are a rarity but she squawks so persistently that she does the work of a dozen. Alibhai-Brown claims that immigrants to this country are more comfortable with a "British" than an "English" nationality. That is surely because there is no encouragement of an inclusive English civic identity in this country, although such identities are encouraged for Scotland and Wales. New arrivals in England have "Britain" and "British" rammed down their throats right from the start.

To be of "British" nationality on this island simply means that you are a permanent resident of England, Scotland or Wales. I recently read an article written by a Scot which stated that: "You can be born in Scotland and not be a Scot". This is racist, of course, and you will find examples of this attitude in England and Wales, too. But such comments are to be treated with contempt. If you are a citizen of England, Scotland or Wales, wherever you were born, then you are entitled to be classed as English, Scottish or Welsh.

Do not let the "You have to be of Anglo-Saxon/Celtic origin to be English/Scottish/Welsh" arguments blind you either. The English are not purely Anglo Saxon and the Scottish and Welsh are not pure Celts (in fact recent genetic research indicates that the Celts never made it to these islands en masse).

Likewise, the BNP is not an English racist party - it is British.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown blames the English for the Empire and has a huge chip on her shoulder. She is infantile and hysterical in the extreme and her grasp of the true facts of English/British history is far from perfect. But she never attacks the Scottish or Welsh. Probably because she knows they would answer back.

Alibhai-Brown chooses to be non-English and to do us down at every opportunity. New Labour loves her for that very reason. She suits their agenda in England of divide and rule.

If you live in England you are entitled to be English, whatever else you are. You are entitled to wave the Cross of St George; you are entitled to tell this government that you want a fair deal; that Scottish and Welsh jingoist politicians must pull in their horns; that politicians with EU career aspirations must remember the simple rules of democracy at home first, and that you are entitled to see more of your taxes spent on your own country. The money funnelled off to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the EU is currently at a ridiculously high level.

Fight enforced, unelected regionalisation - a divided England has a far weaker voice. Question this undemocratic government at every opportunity - ask your local New Labour campaigners why the government hates England so much. Ask Tory and Lib Dem campaigners why they sit by and do nothing.

But above all get together. The people of England, regardless of race, colour or creed, must join together and fight for a return to democratic rule.

This blog is supportive of the aims of the Campaign for an English Parliament, but is in no way connected.