English Ethnic Identity (Census Particulars)

Josh Babarinde Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2026 Commons Chamber

[Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the inclusion of English ethnic identity within census particulars in England; and for connected purposes.

Madam Deputy Speaker, do you have to be white to be English? This St George’s Bill says, “No, you do not.” I am a proud Englishman. I have proud Nigerian heritage, but my parents and I were born in England. We grew up in England. Our home is in England. Yet some voices attempt to reduce Englishness to a skin colour and to a bloodline.

If we are to go down that path, my mum’s side of the family has been English for as far back as we have traced, yet since I announced the Bill, some of those voices have said:

“You’re not English and never will be.”

“Your family is foreign and will always be foreign, it doesn’t matter if you’re born here.”

“Go home while you have the legs and breath to carry you. Your days are counting down.”

“No deport, only kill”—

death threats for daring to say that you do not have to be white to be English.

If those people want to gatekeep Englishness on the basis of ancestry, let us talk about ancestry, because there is one thing their argument cannot withstand: English history. English ethnicity is real, but it is a matter of historical fact that it has never been one bloodline. The very word “English” comes from the Angles who sailed here from what is now Germany. Then came the Danes. Then came the Normans, the Flemish weavers, the Huguenots who fled France, the Windrush generation who helped to build our NHS, and the Ugandan Asian shopkeepers who lifted our high streets. Even our royal family has German roots: it was the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1917. Is the King not English either, I ask?

The layered, multifaceted Englishness that I am talking about is not a new thing. In fact, it is the subject of Daniel Defoe’s best-selling piece, “The True-Born Englishman” in 1701. He said:

“A true-born Englishman’s a contradiction,

In speech an irony, in fact a fiction”.

Of our descent from the Angles, the Romans, the Danes and more, he said:

“Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;

What e’er they were they’re true-born English now.”

He was saying that the English have never been one pure group—that the people some now call the original English were once the newcomers. This is not a dilution of the English people. This is the unique story of the English people.

But ethnicity is about far more than descent. As per the Oxford English Dictionary, its definition is having

“a common cultural or national tradition”.

It is about having a shared life, a shared soul. It is the things we cheer for together and the things we grieve together. There are few places we feel that shared life and soul more than when we watch England play, but I remember the final of the men’s Euros in July 2021, when three black men stepped up to take penalties for their country. They missed, and within minutes were drowned in racist abuse. The message from those dark corners was brutal and it was clear: you are English when you win, according to some, but you are something else when you lose. Well, I refuse to accept that Englishness can be whittled down to the colour of one’s skin, and so do the public. According to More in Common, 74% of people in this country say you can be English, whatever the colour of your skin, and British Future’s findings are similar. The question is whether the state will now catch up.

In the ethnicity question in the census, the only box that says “English” sits under the “White” category. If you are black, the form offers you “Black British”, and if you are Asian, it offers you “Asian British”—but not “English”. The same question in the Welsh census offers a “Black Welsh” category, and in Scotland the census offers “Scottish Asian”, for example. Yet the best that England offers in our census is a miscellaneous write-in box that may as well be the margin. Is the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), a former Prime Minister, only marginal to our country? Is the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), a former Deputy Prime Minister and co-sponsor of this Bill, only marginal to our country? What about Ian Wright, Lewis Hamilton and Cynthia Erivo? The list goes on. Are they just marginal, too? Of course not, and the census should say so.

This St George’s Bill fixes that. It provides for the addition of categories such as “Black English” and “Asian English” to the census. The Bill takes nothing away from anyone. “White English” stays exactly where it is, and so do “Black British”, “Asian, British” and the rest. The Bill simply adds choices that reflect how people already see themselves, because it is not for politicians to decide who is English. That is for people to say themselves.

To those who feel uneasy about all this, let me say something directly. To those who feel it sincerely: you are right to be proud of England, its traditions, its quirks and its eccentricities, as I am, but every institution we honour survives only because new people join it and come to care. This includes our churches, our communities and our families. History tells us that Englishness is no different. History tells us that Englishness is not a pie that gets smaller with every slice taken from it; Englishness is a chorus that grows louder with every voice. Nationalism says, “This country is mine, not yours”, but patriotism says, “This country is all of ours.” In this House, we must be patriots.

While this St George’s Bill may add just a few words to a form, we all know that words tell people that they count—that they belong—so let us move people out of the margin and on to the page. “White English”, “Black English”, “Asian English”, “Mixed English”—all are English. Let the next generation never have to ask whether they are allowed to be English. Let the next generation never have to wonder if the St George’s flag represents them. Let them simply know it. Do you have to be white to be English? No, no, no. I commend this St George’s Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Josh Babarinde, David Lammy, Sir James Cleverly, Adam Jogee, Ben Obese-Jecty, Victoria Collins, Munira Wilson, Layla Moran and Mark Pritchard present the Bill.

Josh Babarinde accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 23 April 2027, and to be printed (Bill 178).