Dear @JohnSwinney A man who allows other men who are convicted rapists and abusers of women, to enter the women’s prison estate, on the strength of their own say-so, is a misogynist. It’s not a nuanced issue. It’s visible from the moon. Your hypocrisy is rank

I can recognise bravery in people I don’t agree with in the same way that I can recognise physical beauty in people I don’t agree with. It’s not hard if you separate recognition from emotion.

It is the rejection of discernment, not to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Fair point. The idea that we have to entirely trash everything about people we don't agree with, on particular things or in general, is absurd.

This ‘Englishness’ thing. I don’t think coherence, ultimately, is possible. My own forebears, as far as they’re reliably known, are from Ireland, Wales and Suffolk. That’s celts (more than one type) and Saxons / Angles. For a start. Growing up as a Catholic in Lancashire I 1/

dn760003.eu.archive.org/0/it… pdf copy of Ekwall’s 1922 book.

Neither am I but I do think people need to have the discussions.

place name history.

The only thing I have concluded from the discussion is that nobody knows what ethnicity means, how it is defined, its boundaries or its purpose.

means for the people who are currently talking past each other about whether it even exists… much in common with the trans madness there IMO.

I read someone else saying we’re not really talking about the ethnicity here though we’re actually talking about the ‘and so’. It’s obvious reality denial to pretend that there is no such thing as English ethnicity & that grates on me but we can’t move to discussing what ‘and so’

Yes, this is how I see it.

English as a concept only dates back to the 9th century so most of the major movements of people predate that. C10th to C20th is pretty homogenous/stable

my ancestry from genealogy and ancestry DNA and each one has an attached cultural heritage that makes up the whole means they aren’t made up things.

I get exactly what you mean about Lancashire, it is a strange crossroads county of British Isles identities. It’s kind of a liminal space. I also understand the Catholic thing. I’m about a third each English, Scottish and Irish as many Lancastrians are. But that I know this about

Every single forebear I've found is English from southwest, also south of London and London back to 1500s. I was born & brought up in Scotland. I'm Scottish. And English, as is all my extended family. My ethnicity hasn't changed. Offspring "totally Scottish" despite English dad

We were pretty homogenous for a thousand years. English was an identity that brought together fractious tribes and kingdoms (built on language and religion). The natural barrier of the seas meant we didn't have to think about blood and soil like mainland Europe

This is yet another big-ticket issue on which reasonable people may reasonably disagree. Because of my background and other stuff, I think I am a somewhat low-value target when it comes to this. I saw someone on here picking holes in Sunak’s ‘Englishness’ the other day and it was interesting to see that I still qualified lol. Not that I am quite sure what to make of that. If and when I am better I would love to write something about this. I wish someone would.

I don't think there's any other rational, forensically historical way of seeing it. 'English' has always subsumed and stood in for a multiplicity or realities. The facts are incontrovertible.

Thank you for this thoughtful thread. It is fascinating to me reading others’ thoughts on Englishness, etc. and regardless of where they land. There’s a lot of stuff bubbling under the surface and tbf I can see why.

I’ll be honest, it never once occurred to me that ‘English’ was a race rather than a nationality. The English are a mongrel race of Normans, Germanic tribes and Anglo Saxons who themselves were a melting pot of old English, Danes etc

Is there any other ethnicity you would describe as “mongrels”?