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George Carmody's avatar

I don't often disagree with you, Eric, but on this occasion I must.

Sunak is not English. He has never made this absurd claim for himself, recognising, on the contrary, that he has a civic British identity while retaining his Indian and Hindu ethnic and religious identities. He is a British Indian. Here are his own words on the matter:

'I am now a citizen of Britain. But my religion is Hindu. My religious and cultural heritage is Indian. I proudly say that I am a Hindu and my identity is also a Hindu.'

'My wife is Indian, and being a proud Hindu means I will always have a connection with India and the people of India. I am hugely proud of my Indian roots and my connections to India.'

'I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu. I don’t eat beef, it has never been a problem.'

So any pretended English identity has never even come into it as far as Sunak is concerned (note, he self-describes as 'thoroughly British'). So why have others taken it upon themselves to speak for him? And who does a Scot such as Fraser Nelson think he is to tell the English who is and is not a member of our nation?

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All Mouth And Trousers's avatar

Sorry but this is nonsense.

As a Brit if I moved to Kenya, as Sunak's ancestors did, and had children there and those children married the children of other British ex-pats born in East Africa (as Sunak's parents did) and they moved to India and had a child with the same levels of Indian attributes you claim Sunak has of English attributes they would NOT be considered Indian or Kenyan either by the state or locals and I doubt very much that you would consider them as Indian either.

This is always a one-way street and always will be. Many people consider white South Africans not to be African even after though their families have lived there for hundreds of years.

I really don't see what British Jews considering themselves to be white or what they record in the census has to do with anything, it is utterly irrelevant in this argument and why you introduced it I don't know. The same is true with the USA, it has an entirely different culture wrt migration and nationality. Everyone non-native American in the USA comes from migrant stock, that cannot be said of the UK, quite the opposite.

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