BME: BLACK AND MINORITY ENGLISH
In 2005 I stood against Labour MP for North Swindon, Michael Wills, in the general election - on the basis that Wills was an enthusiastic backer of the war on Iraq, and remains a thoroughly unrepentant one. It was a rich experience, and (if you ignore the fact that almost no-one actually voted for me!) quite a sucessful one, in terms of ensuring that socialist arguments were consistently reported in the local press throughout the campaign, and in raising the profile of the socialist left in the town.
Michael Wills is an urbane chap, and his claim to fame prior to entering politics is that he was the BBC producer who struck upon the cunning wheeze to defy Margeret Thatcher’s ban on allowing Sinn Fein representatives to speak on TV, by lip synching actors to the film faultlessly mimicking Gerry Adams’s voice.
Michael Wills is a very strong British unionist, and is apparently the brains behind Gordon Brown’s campaign about Britishness and British values.
So I was very interested to read the following on the always rewarding Little Man in a Toque blog
Back in March, in his speech on the Politics of Identity, Michael Wills informed us that “Our British identity is different from our English identity…because it is quintessentially plural. And therefore inherently inclusive”.
His speech was informed by the findings of an Ipsos MORI poll, which has only this week seen the light of day on the Ministry of Justice website. I was particularly interested to see that the MoJ chose to break down the results into ethnicity: “BME” (Black and Minority Ethnic) or “white”.
When asked “How strongly, if at all, do you feel a sense of belonging to Britain?”, 81% of whites and 75% of BMEs pick “strongly”.
In England alone when asked “How strongly, if at all, do you feel a sense of belonging to England?“, 82% of whites and 77% of BMEs pick “strongly”.
England Britain Ethnicity White BME White BME Very Strongly 47% 39% 43% 36% Fairly Strongly 35% 39% 38% 40% Not Very Strongly 13% 14% 15% 17% Not At All 4% 3% 4% 4% Don’t Know 1% 5% 1% 4% Strongly 82% 77% 81% 75% Not Strongly 17% 18% 18% 20% In other words both whites and BMEs feel a greater sense of belonging to England than they do to Britain, which casts doubt on the idea that “British” is a more inclusive umbrella identity than “English”.
Of course, Michael Wills neglected to mention these facts when he gave his speech on Politics and Identity; what he said was: “What emerges strongly from these findings is the strength of British identity as a source of belonging. And this is true across age, gender, region and ethnicity. 75% of black and minority ethnic respondents, for example, said they felt a strong sense of belonging to Britain.”
Of course it doesn’t necessarily follow that BMEs feel comfortable describing themselves as English, but it does tend to suggest that England is just as plural a nation as the much heralded inclusive Britain (or possibly more so given that the former has a higher %age of BMEs than the latter).
Andy, you might have a successful experience while standing against Wills, but when it comes to statistics, you are not that successful.
See, when you do a mean of some data, there is something that comes with it, it’s called Standard Deviation (funny how journalists and others tend to forget about that little pretty thing).
Now, in a nutshell, when you compare two sets of data, if they fall within each other’s SD, well you have something that we describe as statically non-significant.
So you see that table is exactly that: no significant difference between the strong feeling about English vs British.
The only significant information is the strong felling for both, compared to “don’t give a damn”.
In short, that article and conclusion are just bollocks.
Comment by StatMaster — 31 October, 2008 @ 11:30 am
All people born in England are English regardless of their
parents roots, and their parents can choose what ever. I would like the left to stop calling the white community the white community and the black or Asian communities as different. britishness was never about the tube bombings,that was only a cover. It’s about the west lothian question and the English question which impacts on every one in England equally. get a grip. most people take others on face value, you either like them or you don’t and it has nothing to do with where you are from.
Comment by tally — 31 October, 2008 @ 11:35 am
StatMaster is right - there’s basically no difference between the ‘Britain’ and ‘England’ answers. However, I think that’s quite an interesting story in itself. I agree that it does tend to suggest that England is just as plural a nation as the much heralded inclusive Britain, which is heartening - although LMIT’s parenthesis is a bit of a red herring, as the level of ‘belonging’ to England in different groups is a totally different question from the number of people from different groups living in England.
Comment by Phil — 31 October, 2008 @ 11:48 am
#2 Tally….. I agree with you….
and would like to say this:
To be a proletarian Internationalist…. always creates a sort of ‘identity’ crisis this side of the world wide establishment of a unified socialist planet.
I am on record at the age of 15 ‘Lying’ and describing myself as ‘Irish’ on a film by the NewsReel Collective on anti Racism called “Divide and Rule Never”…
The painful truth is that I am not Irish…Boo Hoo!
My mom is Welsh my dad English….the fact that my maternal grandmother had an ‘affair’ with an ex-IRA convict does not count as being Irish.
My Indentity Crisis is thankfully being resolved… but it has been a struggle
When I worked for Kirklees Metropolitan Council as a Housing Caretaker in the early 90’s in West Yorkshire I was uncomfortable with the ‘ethnic monitoring form’ I had to complete so on the Theorectical understanding that all humanity evolved from ‘African Eve’ [indentity established through tracing back mitochorial DNA to about 140,000 years ago] I put down ‘Black African’… which no doubt pleased someone in down hall collating ethnic minority recruitment records.
Then finally, I had thought I had struck gold… turns out my Paternal ancestors were Pikey’s, Gypo’s and probably proper Roma….Which explained a Lot in my mind about my essentially nomadic behaviour and propensity towards anarchism and criminality.
So when I applied for a job as Community Support Officer in West Mercia Police I put down my ethnic identity as Roma. Didn’t get the job… but now I get regular e-mails from a nice lady called Bal from West Mercia Police Postive Action Team with updates on BME recruitment initatives.
Recently, I have come to the realisatin that I am English…. my god I AM ENGLISH.. what is more I am becoming proud of this…. I am proud of the Diggers, I am proud of the Chartists, I am proud of everything the working class in England attempted to achieve through its social democracy in the 20th Century. My Englishness is just a fact of life… but now I embrace it….
To me everything that stinks is British… the British Empire, the British Army, the British State…. I can be English and disconnect from that disgusting legacy.
And what is more I keep bumbing into Black and Asian people who also as Andy’s Ministry of Justice Survey says also have no problem with being English…
I would like to propose that on April 23rd 2009 that we organise [in the most imaginative of ways] a National General Strike. An English General Strike.
Rise Like Lions.
Comment by nestor machno — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:08 pm
Yes - Phil is correct.
The common sense politicall narrative is that more BME identify with being British than English, ebacsue Englishness is seen as an ethnicised identity, and Britishness is more plural.
These findings suggest that this common sense narrative is unfounded.
Indeed as England is actually the most ethnically and culturally diverse of the nations of the British isles, there is no reason at all why Englishness should not be seen as a multi-cultural and pluralist civic rather than ethnic identity
Comment by Andy Newman — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
#4… nestor….as “A proud young englisman on worceter’s hills your life began a happy boy through green field ran you kept gods and mans laws.. but when your age was barely ten your countries wrongs were told again by tens of thousands marching then and your heart stirred to the cause”…I understand where you are coming from… I am ENGLISH TOO!
Mr Newman… may I respectfully suggest that next time you stand against Mr Wills that you wrapped yourself tightly in the Glorious Flag of our Patron Saint George [not Galloway but that Turkish/Palestinian chappie]
Comment by Abu Jamal — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
#1… Starmaster…. the article …. is not “bollocks” and I would kindly ask you not to be so rude. Rudeness is not a way of social interaction that genuine english people appreciate.
Strangely enough what made me begin to think about Englishness was the 7/7 bombings carried out by 3 Englishmen of Asian Heritage and one Englishman actually born in Jamiaca.
As I knew one of the bombers personally and knew of his own ‘identity’ crisis when he was a young man…. it got me thinking.
The bombs were a shock… because to me they represented that something profound had changed in our society.
The last home grown English “Terrorism” that I could recall was the Angry Brigade in the early 70’s… this was something really different.
England would never be the same again.
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:27 pm
“Rudeness is not a way of social interaction that genuine english people appreciate.”
genuine English? This is claptrap. Rudeness is a way of social interaction that no one appreciates whether English, genuinely or not.
However the notion of ‘genuine English’ is deeply reactionary.
Comment by Jason — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:36 pm
7*
If you want to give a nationality to the angry brigade they were british not english
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:45 pm
#8.. Jason … I stand corrected!… but rather than saying ‘This is claptrap’ perhaps you could have said ‘I do not agree’? I agree with you that the notion that there is such a thing as ‘genuine english’ is deeply reactionary… perhaps I was just playing devils advocate… you know like that Tridadian/English chap Darcus Howe.
I was just wondering are you English?
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 12:47 pm
#6 Abu… Your reference to the involvement of George’s in English Radical Politics reminded me of another George… the old Chartist who launched The Red Republican newspaper that ran for 24 issues from June to November 1850
The Red Republican was owned and edited by George Julian Harney, who had previously edited the principal Chartist newspaper, the Northern Star but had fallen out with Feargus O’Connor, its proprietor and, for more than a decade, the leading light of the Chartist movement.
One of the first things Harney fell out with O’Connor over was the Idea of a Grand National Holiday [ie a political general strike] to achieve the aims of the Charter.
One of Harney’s allies in the London Chartists was William Chuffey A Black Minority English chap.Born in 1788, Cuffey became a tailor. Angered by declining pay and working conditions, he joined the London Chartists from the movement’s beginning. In 1840 he was elected as the Westminster delegate to the Chartists’ Metropolitan Delegate Council and became a member of the executive of the National Charter Association. By 1848, he had emerged as the acknowledged leader of the London Chartists, respected for his integrity and scrupulous attention to detail.
www.westminster.gov.uk/libraries/archives/blackpresence/15.cfm
George Julian Harney became consicously a socialist via the radicalising affect of participation in the Chartist movement and his paper The Red Republican was situated firmly on the left wing of Chartism, and continued the extensive coverage of European issues that Harney had pioneered in his earlier Democratic Review and in the Northern Star (and for which he had been censured by O’Connor, who felt his editor should concentrate on the domestic fight for the franchise). It had a relatively open editorial policy, publishing the thoughts of revolutionaries such as Kossuth from Hungary, Mazzini from Italy, and Louis Blanc from France. It also carried the first England language edition of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’ Communist Manifesto, translated by Helen Macfarlane.
Helen first translator and commentator on Hegel in English, internationalist and fiery, incisive revolutionary journalist. Little is known of Helen Macfarlane’s life, but these accolades alone suggest she may be the most important female figure in the history of revolutionary socialism in Britain.
You see comrades in Chartism we have a model of the intergration of a Female, Male black and white English leadership…..one we need to reproduce today.
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
as an old labour supporter I understand the people of that ilk have been banished from New Labour, but I don’t understand how the unions rolled over too. It’s got me fucked. Up front university fees on English students but none in Wales and Scotland? The NUS is infiltrated with new labour and needs to be seen off. they were probrably thinking of their futures on a quango some where.come on wake up.
Comment by tally — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:17 pm
Look what you’ve done now. Started off the Civil War Re-enactment Society again.
Comment by paul v — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
#9 .. Anomynous… well actually I want to call the Angry Brigade ‘English’
Mendelson was brought up in Watford the rest of the crew Creek, Barker et al were all ‘English’… obviously it took a Scotsman from partick to get them together… a feature of the English is a certain laziness when it comes to organising a revolution.. or even a trade union branch… The English tend to rely on the more spirited energy of those celts to do all the donkey work.
Anyway as has been pointed out Enlishness as an Identity can work well to incorporate everyone who actually lives in England at the moment and in the here and now…. it can be a inclusive concept of citizenship.
Whereas Britishness does actually link us to a pile of imperialist garbage… I find it hopefully that more Black and Minority Ethnic individuals are just as happy with an ‘English’ Identity if not more so than a British Identity.
These things are not unimportant in the period that is opening up….
The break up of britain is already producing the phenomenon where people of Indian and Pakistani origins in Wales are happy to be welsh and stand as Plaid Candidates.
The BRITISH Nation Party….is definitely a problem [but only really in England]…. and one that can be countered quiet effectively by posing a radical inclusive version of Englishness… Meanwhile many Scottish Politicians at the Heart of British political power in West Minster are promoting ‘Britishness’
I would be brilliant if non of this mattered and if overnight everyone were to become magically citizens of the world and dispense with any conception of national identity… unfortunately the reality is it will be sometime before we get there meanwhile…..English beats British every time in my book.
The Angry Brigade Lived in England and planted bombs in England and shot up places in England were tried in English Courts and went to Gaol in England…. for plowing up the home sectretary kitchen.
if you want to call them British, fair enough… but I think english is a better description.
The 7/7 Bombers lived in England…… etc…etc.. and killed loads of innocent English people from a wide and diverse set of ethnic background.. they never went to Gaol because they martyred themselves…. and for me that is the moment that I became English.
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:33 pm
You see comrades in Chartism we have a model of the intergration of a Female, Male black and white English leadership…..one we need to reproduce today.
Yes and chartism is also a model for the unity of the british working class in the struggle against capital. Any attempt to divide the british working class along national lines is reactionary. Is that not what all this rubbish about english national identity is really aimed at?
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
#12… Tally… don’t be fucked up… join RESPECT and get RESPECT! unless of course you don’t live in England??
#13…paulv…Sorry paul! But… What would be so wrong with Re-Enacting the English Civil War?? Maybe the Levellers will come out on top this time round??
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:41 pm
http://www.chartists.net/First-convention-1839.htm
worth checking this site out on chartism
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:47 pm
15#.. Anonymous… I am no expert…but althought Chartism had manifestations [insurrectionist] in Wales and Scotland… primarilily it was an English Phenomenon….the unity of the working class and their allies in all oppressed layers is essential on a global scale…. I am not Suggesting the break up of the TUC or any other institutions of collobaration or co-ordination between working class people in the ‘UK’…. I am just posing the potential progressive components of an emerging Englishness…
It’s just a fact of life that I can’t join the Scottish Socialist Party… and even if I did… it would look silly if I stood for election under that banner in Bromsgrove in the middle of middle earth [oops i meant England!]
I would like to be a member of the Cuban Communist Party or Even Sinn Fein… but for now as a proud middle aged Englishman I will have to content myself with RESPECT.
There is actually a ‘Ruling Class’…. BRITISH Ruling Class ideological offensive under way to strenghten Britishness and British identity to rally behind the British Army in its imperialist adventures….. so as far as I am concerned if Andy wants to point out that the Black Minority English exist as a ’self identified’ group then we can have a chat about the signifcance of this.
For me it is significant…. its not that long ago in the European Cup that it became noticable in English inner Cities that many non-white workers were displaying the Cross of St George on their homes and motor vehicles….
I noticed it … did you…. or do you not live in England?
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
“it would be brilliant if none of this mattered”
As far as I can see it doesn’t - except to you.
Comment by paul v — 31 October, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
I live in Glasgow. If the working class in britain is divided along national lines it will be rendered weaker in its struggle against capital. Socialists should oppose all nationalism- particularly nationalism’s like british and scottish nationalism. We should always stand for working class identity and working class solidarity against nationalism. There is nothing progressive in british nationalism or scottish nationalism or english nationalism
sandy
Comment by Anonymous — 31 October, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Mark, sorry.
But the truth is the chances of a revolution in an advanced capitalist state like Britain that didn’t have similar upheavals in other advanced capitalist states is unlikely. We are internationalists.
At this stage of development to call for some kind of English national liberation struggle is potty.
Comment by paul v — 31 October, 2008 @ 2:22 pm
#21 paulv Sorry….
I am not advocating some kind of National Liberation Struggle…I simply want to engage with England and Englishness as part and parcel of the process of the Break up of Britain which is occurring and in which many socialists are participating in…. Anonymous lives in Glasgow… well in the next election he or she may well have the choice of voting for New Labour, Solidarity, the SSP or god forbid the SNP… He or She won’t be voting for RESPECT… because he or She can’t because we do not organise in Scotland….
Paul… Why is that? Why doesn’t RESPECT organise in Scotland?…. If working class unity needs expression organisationally in the context of Britain or the UK then why doesn’t RESPECT organise in Northern Ireland or Wales either??
What ’stage of development’ are we at now?
I would like to support the idea of a “Grand National Holiday” on St. Georges Day next year. Hopefully I’ll have a job by then so I can go on Strike. The class struggle in England has decisive differences with that in both Scotland and Wales and and element of these differences are clearly linked to specific cultural and political variations in the component nation states of Britain.
We should quickly establish agreement around the ideas that have been proposed across the Left on a Charter…. I don’t have a problem with it being a British Charter because as Mr T pointed out long time ago;
“The Chartist movement resembles a prelude which contains in an undeveloped form the musical theme of the whole opera. In this sense the British working class can and must see in Chartism not only its past, but also its future.”
At this ’stage’ it will be a miracle if we can agree on any sort of Charter… and signing a petition would represent a huge break from acceptance of the status quo for many, many people… My contribution is the suggestion we try to get people to take a day off in support of the charter…if the TUC backed the Charter then we are in business and it should be the centre of RESPECT’s work in England. Through the idea of Grand National Holiday in England we could build unions in many of the workplaces currently unorganised…and then we’d be cooking with gas. [hopefully from a sustainable resource] this is not a proposal for an insurrectionary General Strike but a day off. [I invisage loads of local one day ‘Tolpuddle Festivals’.
As RESPECT is de facto an English Party… and discussion about what this means is important… As the Black and Minority English [at the momenment mainly the Muslim BME communities of the East End and Birmingham] have a relationship to RESPECT then we should be interested in their sense of ‘identity’. The vast bulk and highest concentrations of non-white people in Britain are in England and not the other nations of britain…consequently a discussion of issues of race and class perhaps have more urgency in England than in Wales or Scotland. The threat of Facsism expressing itself through the rise of the BNP is much more pronounced in England than in Wales or Scotland. It is an essentially English Problem…and the BNP take advantage of some of the legitimate grievances of the marginalised ‘poor whites’ and tries to turn them into ‘trash.’
As for ’stages’…. well I feel there is unfinished business from the last Civil War… all I want to do is finish it with as little violence as possible.. and that job is not on the agenda at this stage.I have said elsewhere we have to build a national grid for sustainable eco-socialism… and we need to move to a situation where we can turn the power up and illuminate our people who have been kept in the dark and fed bullshit without significant resistance for 160 years.
#17 Sandy… thanks for the link… the site is an excellent resource… That first Chartist Demo in Birmingham in 1839 was the first time that the ‘Peelers’ used new technology to defeat the radical democratci workers…. about 70 of them came up on the Train from London to the old Birmingham Curzon Street Station which had just been opened… the Brum and Black Country Chartists in their Thousands were easily dispersed by the sheer organised violence of the Coppers from the smoke… We will have to remember that next time we have a Chartist Demo in Brum.
Comment by mark anthony france — 31 October, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Mark.
Respect is not an English party. Where we have members, they try to do what they can. We had a Scottish comrade stay with us for the conference.
The stage of development I was talking about was the capitalist one. It is multi-national. Workers in Birmingham have the same fight on their hands as workers in Glasgow, Cardiff and Dublin.
What is it you wish our members in Birmingham and London to identify with? The examples you give are all of class struggle, why do you need to associate this with England.
I think we may be in danger of repeating ourselves here. We will have to agree to disagree I’m afraid.
Keep up the good work in the people’s republic of Bromsgrove.
Comment by Anonymous — 31 October, 2008 @ 7:00 pm
Mark.
Respect is not an English party. Where we have members they try to do what they can. We had a Scottish comrade stay with us for the conference.
The stage of development I was talking about was the capitalist one. It is multi-national. Workers in Birmingham have the same fight on their hands as workers in Glasgow, Cardiff and Dublin.
What is it you wish our members in Birmingham and London to identify with? The examples you give are all of class struggle, why do you need to associate this with England.
I think we may be in danger of repeating ourselves here. We will have to agree to disagree I’m afraid.
Keep up the good work in the people’s republic of
Bromsgrove.
Comment by paul v — 31 October, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
Mark.
Respect is not an English party. Where we have members, they try to do what they can. We had a Scottish comrade stay with us for the conference.
The stage of development I was talking about was the capitalist one. It is multi-national. Workers in Birmingham have the same fight on their hands as workers in Glasgow, Cardiff and Dublin.
What is it you wish our members in Birmingham and London to identify with? The examples you give are all of class struggle, why do you need to associate this with England.
I think we may be in danger of repeating ourselves here. We will have to agree to disagree I’m afraid.
Keep up the good work in the people’s republic of
Bromsgrove.
I wrote that last evening but for some reason it didn’t get through. Looking at it again on a fresh new day, I feel a bit uneasy about it.
There’s something much more basic, instinctive, emotional even, about my constant sniping at your idea of England as a separate nation. I’m a workers of the world unite, brother/sisterhood of humankind sort of person. Often for political, practical, tactical or strategic reasons this feeling gets tempered. On this issue though I see no reason not to let rip.
The English are not popular. We are arrogant. The Scots are mean. The Welsh burst into song and cry over an indigestion advert. All these things are superficial, it’s just banter. So easy to overcome in joint struggles.
To talk of the English nation or identity only strengthens this superficial view.
Whether Scotland or Wales do actually want independence has been discussed on another thread.
Comment by paul v — 1 November, 2008 @ 11:12 am
“If you want to give a nationality to the angry brigade they were british not english”
I knew those Angry Brigade members who stood trial very well and they were all in fact English Anarcho-nihilists, if there is such a term. However, there was one on the periphery, so to speak, who was a Scot. So loosely speaking they were British. Although each back then would ridicule both definitions with contempt. As indeed a couple of them did me when seeing me wearing a Mao Tse-Tung badge. Petit bourgeois adventurers that they were. Pah !
Comment by anon — 1 November, 2008 @ 11:36 am
It seems to me that what no one has done here so far is to question the tag BME. Who thought it up and why has it now become acceptable. As far as I have been able to trace back it was invented by a combination of the CRE/Operation Black Vote/and any number of Lee Jasper financial fraud front organisations.
There is, it seems, a constituency out there which has its own unelected representatives and does not moreover even know that it exists. The whole BME scam, like the sometimes used BAME, Black Asian Minority Ethnic for those of you not up to speed on the latest financial shake down, has now been taken as a reality.
Most of you will have divined by now that I have excellent conections with the Bangladeshi community especially in Tower Hamlets. I can take you to any number of that community who will deny that they are anything else than either Bangla/British or British/Bangla. As far as my friends are concerned there is no such thing as BME or BAME and in fact the vast majority have never heard of the phrases.
It does no one any help, apart from the race industry hustlers, to continue to perpetrate the fraud.
Comment by terryfitz — 3 November, 2008 @ 11:54 am
I don’t think there are any white people in this country, other than self-defined ones, but find when I have to fill in such surveys that there is no box for “member of human race” and so I unwiilingly find myself identifying myself by colour. Probably happens to a lot of people.
Comment by skidmarx — 3 November, 2008 @ 12:21 pm