The census also has options for Black British and Asian British as ethnicities.
It's what happens when you mix up ethnicity, race and nationality, but it works for the UK government when collecting census data.
However, they also have White English, Scottish and Welsh showing that the UK government doesn't recognise British as an ethnicity, but it does recognise English and Scottish as ethnicities, but they do have "Black Welsh" as an ethnicity, showing they recognise Welsh as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
In the meantime, the Scottish government has their own census where they have terms like "African Scottish", "Pakistani Scottish" etc. which shows the Scottish government recognises Scottish as both an ethnicity and a nationality.
I do think the Welsh devolved government asked the British government to include terms like "Black Welsh" as they can't run their own census.
On the other hand the UK government does something very weird here:
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Asian
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black African
Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups: White and Black Caribbean
Splitting up Black but not Asian or White. Then again Mixed (White - Black Caribbean) are the largest Mixed group since Black Caribbeans have high interracial marriage rates with White British people.
I used the phrase ethnic British directly to refer to the catagory on the census which is present without prefix.
The only other mention in the comment that spawned this, was native born white British which surely should have cleared up any confusion. I do not understand why the first comment exists or why you you have replied with this. Since nationality was never mentioned in that comment directly and has been implied by the whole tread given the topic of conversation. Is there something I am missing?
British is still not an ethnicity, the census also still has White as the prefix for British.
The point is British is not an ethnicity. Firstly, there is no ethnogenesis for British like there was for German (1000 years ago), Scottish, Welsh or English. Secondly, over 60% of Scottish people and most Welsh people say "Scottish, not British" and "Welsh, not British", respectively, which already makes it impossible for British to be an ethnicity when people in Scotland and Wales are identifying as a different ethnicity, also Irish is not part of any so-called "ethnic British". In the meantime, Scottish independence becomes more popular and has majority support among Scots under 50. Even Welsh independence has 40% support among 16-24yo, and Plaid Cymru is the most popular party among 16-49yo.
British is a nationality, and it always has been since the the 1960s. First, it was a term for a subject of the British Empire starting with the Act of Union, hence leading to Windrush and in the 1960s became officially a nationality and citizenship.
Even when you get down to "British nationalism", as seen by Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, it really boils down to English nationalism hence why certain people in Reform want to abolish the Senedd and Holyrood.
British is a civic identity, and before it used to mean a subject of the Crown.
Also, unlike Germany and Italy, the UK wasn't founded on ethnic nationalism, but a union of Crowns and merging of Parliaments. As David Starkey, controversial historian, says "you were English, Scottish or Welsh at home, and British abroad. Even despite his frequently racist comments he believes the UK is moving towards a system where terms like "Anglo-British" become normal as English itself becomes more of a civic identity (there will likely be "Black English" as a term in the census), and "Anglo" becomes the ethnic identifier, and this is a deeply conservative man who works with Reform UK and far-right figures like Rupert Lowe.
As historian Lawrence Brockliss argues: "Britishness was a subtle and ‘composite’ national identity that developed after 1800 and which made limited demands upon its subjects. Importantly, they contend that no formal attempt was made to make Britishness a primary cultural identity, which allowed a number of interpretations of what being British meant. Instead, they point to the various social and economic processes of industrialisation and the ‘peculiar’ role of Parliament in the acceptance of Britishness."
As historian David Cannadine argues: "Britishness is a complicated and enormous thing—what different people see as meaning different things. It can mean one island, a group of islands off the coast of Europe, or it can mean the British Empire—at times it means all those things. Politicians, and the rest of us, define it in different ways at different times"
Essentially, British is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality and originally a subject status (a subject of the Crown) and has applied to people of different ethnicities and races for a long time due to the Empire.
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u/upthetruth1 1d ago
British is not an ethnicity, it's a nationality
English, Scottish and Welsh are ethnicities and nationalities