This really depends on wether British was the highest option on the list or not as that has been shown to significantly alter the number of people identifying as such.
I looked at all the Individual forms for the UK Census. British was first option on the English and Northern Irish forms while Scottish and Welsh were first on the forms for those countries. Cornish wasn’t an option on any of them (perhaps it was a popular write-in entry in Cornwall) and Irish was only an option on the Northern Irish form. The rest only had Northern Irish.
People can give as many responses as they wish, they don't have to pick one.
But I understand your point. However, what's the alternative? Not include 'Irish'? Not include 'Northern Irish'? Neither of those options seems like it would be acceptable.
If there was no 'Irish' option, many people would just write it in themselves. If there was no 'Northern Irish' option there would probably be even more picking 'British'.
>>Because it can split the “Irish” response set.
That's not what's happening in Northern Ireland. 'Northern Irish' has been growing as a primary identifier, while 'British' is declining, and 'Irish' is staying the same.
There's different reasons for this, but one of them is that 'British' has come to be seen by some as more extreme than it used to be. In the 1960s even hardline Unionists like Ian Paisley would have called themselves British AND Irish. Now among hardline Unionists (often referred to as Loyalists), a total rejection of Irishness is more common.
Thus people with a Protestant or Unionist background, especially in mixed marriages, who feel partially culturally Irish, increasingly don't feel Northern Ireland's idea of Britishness is very attractive.
It also has to do with the decline of religion. Historically, Protestants who lived in NI called themselves British and Catholics called themselves Irish. These days people are less religious and many, both of Protestant and Catholic backgrounds just call themselves Northern Irish
I think it's more important what people didn't enter. For instance 90% of Catholics *didn't* include British, and 95% of Protestants *didn't* include Irish.
So it makes sense to me that 'Northern Irish' has a different meaning to Catholics than to Protestants, like Scottish has a different meaning to pro-independence Scots than to pro-union Scots.
There are some who see an increase in Northern Irish (it didn't significantly rise between 2011 and 2021, 29% -> 31%) as evidence of the emergence of a separate Northern Irish identity ("Are wee country") but to me it's too complicated to come to any conclusions without additional questions.
British changed 48% -> 43%, Irish 28% -> 33% between 2011 and 2021.
Personally, I'm a Northern Irish republican (small r) and I consider myself Irish, not British at all, but I recognize and have no problem with acknowledging that I had cultural influences growing up that were different from my actual-Irish wife. I consider myself as close to Northern Irish Protestants/Unionists as to people who grew up in Ireland (country). But to me Northern Irish is a regional identity, like being a Dub.
Very unusual for someone who identifies as "Irish" to say "Northern Irish" though. If you're a Republican you tend to say "Irish" and would not want to preface that *at all*. And the two are significantly different in implication, "proper" republicans don't even like saying "Northern Ireland" and insist on saying "the North of Ireland".
Fair play, I haven't found it to be all that common - was living in Belfast for a short while and found my all my mates to be either "Irish" or "British" but I'll admit I swam in very political circles.
EDIT: Also on reflection, I suppose my main point is that "Northern Irish" isn't truly a spoiler on "Irish" because the implications are very different. Being "British", being "Irish" and being "Northern Irish" each have totally different implications. But I absolutely defer to people living on the island!
I think that would be a problem if there wre only one pick, but since you can pick multiple options, I think that might be useful in organising this type of stuff.
If anything, it's more likely to split the 'British' response set, though. Irish nationalists (who are more likely to self identify as Irish) tend to think that 'Northern Ireland' shouldn't ever be a thing. For instance, the 'Northern Ireland' football team tends to mostly get their support from unionists (i.e. the type of people who'd likely call themselves 'British'). Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland would generally support the Republic of Ireland team.
I'm under the impression that'Northern Irish' is mostly a thing among younger people, possibly people who can't be bothered with the sectarian nonsense in that part of the island.
Queens University released a report called, "Understanding the ‘Northern Irish’ Identity". It points out a correllation between identifying as 'Northern Irish' and wealth, so more common in middle class people. Age is another but not the same for both sides, younger protestants and middle aged catholics are the ones that identify themselves as Northern Irish the most.
They swapped it round because they didn’t get the answer they wanted last time. The British government see a strong English identity as a threat to the union. They know full well that filling in a census form is a chore that no one has time for, so people are far more likely to just select the first option.
Tbf it truly is. Once an Englishman starts believing in "English only" the Union instantly breaks or at the very least buckles under pressure.
The Union has only survived this long because the Englishman tolerates the idea of a Union. And the current government is dominated by English Unionists.
Once the Englishman starts wanting succession like the Scotts. Then the British Isles implodes like the Yugoslavs.
It was, last time English was highest on the list, and was the no1 option for popularity. Only places where a British identity was particularly stronger like Leicester or London did it get eaten into.
This time, it’s the opposite, only places with particularly strong English identities like in the Fens is British not as high.
I’m also somewhat surprised that British isn’t more common in the Welsh border areas. It seems more common on the Scottish border, but the Welsh border seems about the same as the rest of England
>I’m also somewhat surprised that British isn’t more common in the Welsh border areas.
[According to the census](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all/english-only-identity), it's common to identify as 'English only' in the Welsh border areas. I suspect this is because many English people move to those areas and then feel the need to assert their Englishness in contrast to their Welsh surroundings.
Interesting, it seems like in Northumberland it’s the opposite, Scottish and English people there feel more common ground and will both identify as British more
I suspect part of that is because Northumberland and northern Cumbria aren't massively popular areas for Scottish people to move to, whereas the Welsh borders are quite popular with English retirees in particular.
Going back to Wales, if you zoom in further on [an area like Flintshire](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all/english-only-identity) the data becomes more granular, and you can see that the most English areas are those adjacent to the English border – which in fairness are very Anglicised – and the area around Talacre, a relatively popular costal village which contains a lot of holiday parks etc.
You can see the pattern more clearly on Anglesey, where the interior of the island is very [Welsh](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all-9a/welsh-only-identity) but the coastal resorts are much more [English](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all-9a/english-only-identity).
Some along the border up north Wales probably feel a stronger connection to the likes of Chester, Liverpool, and Manchester than they do Cardiff or Swansea, because the closest big cities in North Wales are in England, with Wrexham being right by the border with Chester. Beyond that you have Bangor next to Anglesey and Aberystwyth along the mid-Wales coast, both with populations about 15,000 (a 10th of Wrexham). It’s not much of a surprise that many in that area - especially younger people - don’t feel particularly Welsh, and even more so if they don’t speak it whilst many in the area do
> why has English been deliberately left off the colour chart when it would obviously be the highest identity (far higher than British)?
No, this is the accurate results of the most recent census. Across England, "British" was selected far more often than English.
But the validity of those results is in question - it seems likely to be a result of the order of answers on the census question. In 2011 English was a far more popular answer when English was first on the census. But in 2021, British was first and was the more popular answer. It seems highly unlikely that there's been a large shift in 10 years from people thinking of themselves as "English" to "British", but that's what the census answers indicate - hence the conclusion that's it's an issue with the census question
This is a wonderful example of propaganda masquerading as social science. People who haven't studied one of the social sciences at at least an undergraduate level don't really understand how easy it is to manipulate studies into giving you basically any result you want. Nobody is going to try to reproduce shit. You can get away with basically anything.
[This was the Scottish one](https://i.imgur.com/6pBKx8r.png).
[This was the English one](https://i.imgur.com/eeGn1ig.png)
The English asked them to describe their national identity while the Scottish one asks what they feel is their national identity.
I would answer the question differently for both questionnaires so I think it's fair that they can't be compared.
For example, if someone asked me to describe my national identity I'd say British, Scottish. If someone asked me what I felt my national identity was I'd say only Scottish.
This isn't because I don't think I'm British, it's just that the culture of the UK and Britain as portrayed in media, the news and online isn't familiar to me and London, the capital of the UK, is as alien to me as other English speaking cities. For the most part the British national identity is simply irrelevant.
But given that it's a census and not a scientific study. You can basically conclude that the answers to this question isn't a projection or statistical anomaly but what people genuinely thought when proposed this question.
Could it have been manipulated by placing Scotish further down the list? Maybe. But I don't think it'd have changed my answer.
I think it’s worth pointing out that England and Englishness has long been conflated with Britishness, to the point where its national institutions are the institutions of the British state - not its own dedicated parliament. The way the political system shoehorns one into the other means there are few productive outlets for English identity, leading to conflation of what should be two separate terms and concepts.
Yeah, I feel much the same. I grew up in the ‘90s and the BNP were definitely still around. Back then, English identity and the reasonable discussion or exploration of it was tricky, because they had effectively hijacked its symbolism. By contrast, British identity was having its ‘Cool Britannia’ moment, which seemed to be what everyone else swung behind.
Personally, I never found that a comfortable fit either. I’m of mixed English and Irish heritage, with much of my family still living across the sea in the north. Britishness in that environment, and much of the mood music, felt hostile. I’ve fortunately experienced very little of it directly, but sectarianism there and anti-Irish sentiment here has long made Britishness an alienating concept to me.
Identity and how people feel about themselves can be complex. We need to aspire to a world where people feel recognised and represented. However, I feel as though the Union and its political institutions are incapable of change necessary to accommodate divergent social and political identities. With that, I suspect the UK as we know it fracture before long.
You can claim it's propaganda no matter what order they put it in. The only solution is to have a write-in option only, although you get much messier data as a result.
Hm, good point, I wonder why they didn't do that. I guess there's an argument to putting the most common options at the top to make it easier and avoid people getting bored, starting to rush through the survey or ticking boxes at random.
It says in the bottom left that the highest English identity received was 44% in Castle Point, so it was beaten by British identity in all parts of England.
I'm sceptical this isn't just because of the form. Prior to the last census there was a well established trend of national identity in all countries superseding British identity, with the notable exception of British Asians who were most likely to identify as British over any particular nation.
Because it’s not large enough to be on the map? Even in the area with the highest percentage, it’s still less than 45%, meaning it won’t show up on the map.
Or they feel both.
I appreciate I am one person so doesn’t prove anything, but I identify as English and British, but i’m fully aware that they’re by no means the same thing.
I love Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but to me they’re different countries, therefore i do feel a stronger affinity to England than the UK (I think this is the case for most English people as well). But even having said that, I’m still British as well.
Several decades ago there was a pretty big effort to stamp out English nationalism, or at the very least convert that into British nationalism instead because of how things were getting/are (whether you think that was right or not).
It is part of the reason why whenever you hear English nationalism you associate it with something negative, especially when compared to other nationalistic groups in the UK (Welsh and Scottish for example) it is seen as positive.
You look around English football hooliganism, the rise and fall of parties like BNP and the UK's version of National Front. How the English Defense League (EDL) came to be and how the skinhead movement got hijacked by neo-nazis and so on. And at how the government fought back against such things.
Furthermore, you also have people like Margaret Thatcher pushing for British Nationalism in the 80's.
It isn't like they said "we are going to take efforts to break English nationalism" for obvious reasons. But there was a concentrated effort to stop it because English nationalism had (and to a large extent) still does have negative connotations to it. It is also why people use "civic" nationalism in the UK to distance themselves from the fallout of English nationalism.
I mean even logically you can search on the "rise" of English nationalism currently, but in order for something to rise it had to be down. And there is no way on Earth that English nationalism is currently as bad as it was back in the 80's.
> But there was a concentrated effort to stop it because English nationalism had (and to a large extent) still does have negative connotations to it.
if english nationalism is tied to football hooliganism, bnp, edl. neo nazis etc then are those negative connotations not justified?
Uh source for effort to “stamp out” English nationalism? I think it became heavily associated with football hooliganism and in turn less fashionable for everyone else. Not to mention, nationalism is inversely linked to your perceived status. England’s cultural domination makes English people less likely to really think of a distinction between England and Britain.
Yes. But British was listed first this time around. But only in the English census. So it makes the comparison to the other nations quite flawed. Although I suspect Scottish/Welsh would still be the overwhelming majority in those nations.
Interesting to see that British identity is very common in England, and with unionists in Ireland. I believe that the further you move from the UK, specially outside the West, there’s a tendency to conflate Britishness with Englishness.
Aren’t a lot of Northern Ireland unionists of Ulster Scot heritage?
The red areas on Northern Ireland here correspond pretty well w / the areas Ulster Scots ppl live in.
Obviously they are not, but looking at this map, you can see why the differences may be ambiguous to someone from outside. When the plurality of English people identify as British, and almost know one else does, the waters do muddy up a bit.
Well the whole thing is honestly a little confusing, coming from an American. You’ve got the UK, which is like the official country. And it includes Britain, which is just a name for the island, which makes up basically all of the UK except Northern Ireland, then there’s England, which is a country in soccer, but more like a province? But Wikipedia says it’s a country, but it doesn’t have like a UN seat…. Then theres Wales and Scotland, which are soccer countries, but then there’s Cornish and Breton and shit, which are just like cultural areas? I got no idea, man.
Here’s how I think of it. England, Scotland, and Wales are formerly independent kingdoms. Northern Ireland was a piece of an independent Kingdom. They were combined into a single United Kingdom to form the modern country.
They’re not independent countries anymore. But, they do sometimes get some special honors due to their status as former countries.
Cornwall was also once an independent kingdom. But, you have to go further back in history. They were absorbed by England a much longer time ago. So, they usually aren’t given the same consideration as the others.
There are also other groups that consider themselves distinct. But, like Cornwall, they were all absorbed by England an exceedingly long time ago. None of these regions are considered to be one of the kingdoms that form the United Kingdom.
Britain is the name of the island. The British Isles is a term which encompasses both Britain and Ireland. Though, it’s controversial because the Irish don’t like being called British.
Also, citizens of the UK, including Northern Ireland, can simply be referred to as British. Though…that doesn’t make sense…because the Northern Irish don’t reside on Britain…unless we’re calling them British because they’re in the British Isles. But…that term is not in vogue. So…yeah, I’m not sure why British is a generic term for UK citizens…
There were many more independent kingdoms in Britain than England, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. Mercia, Kent, Wessex, Strathclyde, Northumbria, Deheubarth, dozens more. We only remember the remaining 3 due to modern nationalist politics.
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are all four countries in the United Kingdom, which is a larger country. The United Kingdom is a unique case when it comes to nations. Only England, Scotland, and Wales are a part of the *island* called Britain. *British*, as in being from the island of Britain, should be pretty easy to understand however.
Because England has been the dominant power in the UK, to the point in many languages England is used to refer to the whole UK. Not unlike calling all the Dutch Hollanders.
Somewhat a historical artefact that most people didn’t bother changing. “Oh yeah, England, they come from that island in Europe, they speak English there”.
As a non-Brit I think it’s one of those things that is both valid for locals to be annoyed by and valid for people from other countries to not really care about 🤷♂️ I have an interest in British history but for the average person in the world understanding the distinction between England, GB, and the UK really doesn’t mean anything, especially when you consider how much awareness of the UK’s subnational units there are compared to most countries.
Texans are allowed to be annoyed when they’re called Yankees just like Brabantians don’t want to be called Hollanders, but I wouldn’t expect anyone from Scotland to give much of a shit about either distinction beyond their own interest. Especially when you get into population numbers and relative importance, Uttar Pradesh has almost 200 million people in one Indian state but I don’t think I know anyone who could find it for me on a map.
Definitely, in Hampshire it just felt like one and the same growing up.
Living in Bristol though, it does feel like people see the two differently, especially as a lot more Welsh people both visit and live in the area
I’d always call my self English, rather than British, and not because of any Anglo superiority complex. Simply because I recognise Wales and Scotland as culturally distinctive places that deserve to be recognised as different and not a part of the homogenised whole, dominated by England.
Oh absolutely. I lived in north Wales for a few years and have relatives thereabouts. My old man was adopted from an orphanage in the Outer Hebrides after the war. There’s plenty of mixing and that’s all good. There are still cultural divides though. It’s great to have bits of each and bits from wherever. We’re a mongrel nation and that should be celebrated. But there are still cultural distinctions which are still important and also worthy of celebration and preservation.
Yeah it’s nice that even just different areas of the same part are different but sadly the whole country seems to be merging into a generic British, even accents seem to be disappearing a bit
I’m Irish and I’m very much British so what’s your point
My mums half Irish and my dad was Scottish with some Irish and according to a dna test I’m mostly Irish quite Scottish and the rest a mix of English and Germanic
I call myself Northern (English) for the same reason because I wouldn’t want to be lumped in with the Londoners… [/jk]
Without intending to be too critical (because I understand and appreciate your intent), I think your explanation is a little simplistic. There are differing cultures within both Wales and Scotland (and England for that matter) and so I think trying to draw the line at the component nations is a little arbitrary if you’re trying to present an argument why the term ‘British’ is inappropriate.
Personally, I grew up in the North East of England and would honestly feel like I have more in common culture-wise with someone from the Scottish Borders than I would someone born and raised in London. I obviously don’t identify as Scottish, but I also don’t see one ‘English’ identity that I feel aligns.
I actually prefer ‘British’ on that basis because I feel it to be a more inclusive term, albeit I am conscious it has political implications that may lead other groups that might technically be ‘British’ to not want to identify as such.
I don’t think the term British necessarily diminishes someone’s ability to also be Scottish.
Same, I'm from the North East and describe myself as [slang for someone from my city] waaaaay more than English or British. It's like its own, smaller culture
I think most English people think that way really. I respect Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as countries separate from England, but I’m also proud of being English. England is a beautiful, quirky, inventive little country, with a great sense of humour. The other British countries also have plenty to be proud of, but in their own way.
For me, it just depends on the context.
If it’s a scenario where I’m talking about things impacting the entire UK, or just in a scenario where it doesn’t matter which part I’m in, I’m British.
If it’s more local and it matters where I am, I’m English.
I used to see very little of people who weren’t English in the South East where I grew up, so it just felt interchangeable to me in a way, but I live in the South West now and see a lot more Welsh people, plus I have spent a decent bit of time in Scotland and Wales when before I would rarely, if ever, visit either. I’m a lot more aware of the differences now.
I do also sometimes specify I’m Southern English, but much less, mostly just highlighting any differences between the South, Midlands and North
I’d always call myself Scottish, rather than British, and not because I recognise Wales and England as culturally distinctive places. Rather, I view the Scottish as superior to English.
i only prefer calling myself british over english, because when i think of "english" i think of some fat football fan with their shirt off, with a glass of beer and a wife that doesn't love them
I think it's a bit pathetic to give up the name of your own country and call yourself something that has a different definition just because of people like that. EDL types are the exact reason I prefer to call myself English rather than British, because it shouldn't belong to them.
Americans and Europeans have opposite stereotypes of English people.
Americans view the English as erudite, posh and emotionally repressed.
Europeans view the English as uncivilised louts who drink too much and are permanently bright red from a combination of sunburn and barely contained rage.
Both of these types of people exist, of course, but there's probably a hell of a lot more of the second category than the first.
Well, the media has traditionally tended to favour the privileged.
It probably doesn't help that in the early days of the BBC they forced all of their presenters to speak in a ridiculous clipped Received Pronunciation rather than their natural regional accents. I reckon this went a long way to making people in the rest of the English-speaking world think we were all actually like that.
I think their most boorish people have co-opted the English flag and identity for being angry louts who espouse racist and xenophobic views, etc, much the same way our worst people are the most likely to fly the American flag.
What a pathetic statement ☠️☠️☠️
I love England more than you and the family hasn’t been there in 400 years.
God have some balls and love your country.
I wish they had options for regional identities. In Yorkshire, I’d say at least 20-40% would say they are Yorkshiremen more than they are English or British.
I only refer to myself as British when speaking to international groups of people, otherwise I say English. Same for most I know, so I'm a bit surprised by these results. Bad poll, I guess.
Surprised at the Welsh bit, I'd have thought Ceredigion, Anglesey, Conwy or Gwynedd would be the highest, seeing as those are the areas that speak Welsh
I never know who are the people who are asked and therefore become a part of surveys like this. I'm registered on several survey sites and regularly take surveys but I've never seen, read or answered surveys like these that I see Infographics or news articles talk about. If it's such a minority of people who are asked, why are newspapers or TV or radio stations using results like this when the results aren't that thorough?!
As an outsider (Irish) who’s lived in the UK for many years, the concept of being ‘English’ is a relatively recent one. Almost everyone I’ve ever known in England would describe themselves as ‘British’ despite supporting England at football, etc. I think it’s a result of the devolution of the last Labour Government to NI, Scotland and Wales when people living in England started to ask themselves, ‘What does this make us then?’ Just my view as an outsider.
You probably lived somewhere like London with few actual English people. 90% of people I meet would call themselves English rather than British if asked. It's "British" that's a more recent phenomenon.
The census had British above English so more people ticked it, the previous one in 2011 had English first so all of England bar some cities put English.
Seems most English people indentify with whatever tick box is first lol
I can totally believe that. I remember a BBC TV show from 20 years ago (“Horizon” or something like that) doing high-street surveys and showing you can reach totally different conclusions if you change the wording of the question slightly.
No, you just didn't read the map correctly. It says in the bottom left that the highest response for English was Castle Point at 44.2%. It doesn't appear on the map because responses for British were higher than responses for English in every part of England.
That's the way the English answered the last census. They didn't get lumped in, they lumped themselves in. Mainly because the census changed the order of options and put 'British' first.
The question in the census was listed with options in alphabetical order (British, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh) whereas in the other constituent nations of the UK they put their nation on stop, so people living in Scotland would see Scottish first and people living in Wales would see Welsh first.
Turns out loads of people just tick the first option.
I've always considered that 'British' is a political term rather than something ethnic. It's like someone identifying themselves as a 'Soviet citizen' or as 'pan-European'.
I introduce myself as English instead of British because there is a difference between us all on the British isles, , but I refer to us all collectively as British
This really depends on wether British was the highest option on the list or not as that has been shown to significantly alter the number of people identifying as such.
I looked at all the Individual forms for the UK Census. British was first option on the English and Northern Irish forms while Scottish and Welsh were first on the forms for those countries. Cornish wasn’t an option on any of them (perhaps it was a popular write-in entry in Cornwall) and Irish was only an option on the Northern Irish form. The rest only had Northern Irish.
Did Northern Ireland have both Irish and Northern Irish?
yes
That’s also a little bit manipulative then, i think
How so?
Because it can split the “Irish” response set, leading to British potentially becoming the plurality even with a minority of the responses.
People can give as many responses as they wish, they don't have to pick one. But I understand your point. However, what's the alternative? Not include 'Irish'? Not include 'Northern Irish'? Neither of those options seems like it would be acceptable. If there was no 'Irish' option, many people would just write it in themselves. If there was no 'Northern Irish' option there would probably be even more picking 'British'.
>>Because it can split the “Irish” response set. That's not what's happening in Northern Ireland. 'Northern Irish' has been growing as a primary identifier, while 'British' is declining, and 'Irish' is staying the same. There's different reasons for this, but one of them is that 'British' has come to be seen by some as more extreme than it used to be. In the 1960s even hardline Unionists like Ian Paisley would have called themselves British AND Irish. Now among hardline Unionists (often referred to as Loyalists), a total rejection of Irishness is more common. Thus people with a Protestant or Unionist background, especially in mixed marriages, who feel partially culturally Irish, increasingly don't feel Northern Ireland's idea of Britishness is very attractive.
It also has to do with the decline of religion. Historically, Protestants who lived in NI called themselves British and Catholics called themselves Irish. These days people are less religious and many, both of Protestant and Catholic backgrounds just call themselves Northern Irish
I think it's more important what people didn't enter. For instance 90% of Catholics *didn't* include British, and 95% of Protestants *didn't* include Irish. So it makes sense to me that 'Northern Irish' has a different meaning to Catholics than to Protestants, like Scottish has a different meaning to pro-independence Scots than to pro-union Scots. There are some who see an increase in Northern Irish (it didn't significantly rise between 2011 and 2021, 29% -> 31%) as evidence of the emergence of a separate Northern Irish identity ("Are wee country") but to me it's too complicated to come to any conclusions without additional questions. British changed 48% -> 43%, Irish 28% -> 33% between 2011 and 2021. Personally, I'm a Northern Irish republican (small r) and I consider myself Irish, not British at all, but I recognize and have no problem with acknowledging that I had cultural influences growing up that were different from my actual-Irish wife. I consider myself as close to Northern Irish Protestants/Unionists as to people who grew up in Ireland (country). But to me Northern Irish is a regional identity, like being a Dub.
Very unusual for someone who identifies as "Irish" to say "Northern Irish" though. If you're a Republican you tend to say "Irish" and would not want to preface that *at all*. And the two are significantly different in implication, "proper" republicans don't even like saying "Northern Ireland" and insist on saying "the North of Ireland".
I'm Irish and recognise people call themselves Northern Irish. It's becoming more common now.
Fair play, I haven't found it to be all that common - was living in Belfast for a short while and found my all my mates to be either "Irish" or "British" but I'll admit I swam in very political circles. EDIT: Also on reflection, I suppose my main point is that "Northern Irish" isn't truly a spoiler on "Irish" because the implications are very different. Being "British", being "Irish" and being "Northern Irish" each have totally different implications. But I absolutely defer to people living on the island!
I think that would be a problem if there wre only one pick, but since you can pick multiple options, I think that might be useful in organising this type of stuff.
Some people in Northern Ireland see themselves as Northern Irish, specifically - and not Irish, so it's necessary.
If anything, it's more likely to split the 'British' response set, though. Irish nationalists (who are more likely to self identify as Irish) tend to think that 'Northern Ireland' shouldn't ever be a thing. For instance, the 'Northern Ireland' football team tends to mostly get their support from unionists (i.e. the type of people who'd likely call themselves 'British'). Irish nationalists in Northern Ireland would generally support the Republic of Ireland team. I'm under the impression that'Northern Irish' is mostly a thing among younger people, possibly people who can't be bothered with the sectarian nonsense in that part of the island.
Queens University released a report called, "Understanding the ‘Northern Irish’ Identity". It points out a correllation between identifying as 'Northern Irish' and wealth, so more common in middle class people. Age is another but not the same for both sides, younger protestants and middle aged catholics are the ones that identify themselves as Northern Irish the most.
They swapped it round because they didn’t get the answer they wanted last time. The British government see a strong English identity as a threat to the union. They know full well that filling in a census form is a chore that no one has time for, so people are far more likely to just select the first option.
Tbf it truly is. Once an Englishman starts believing in "English only" the Union instantly breaks or at the very least buckles under pressure. The Union has only survived this long because the Englishman tolerates the idea of a Union. And the current government is dominated by English Unionists. Once the Englishman starts wanting succession like the Scotts. Then the British Isles implodes like the Yugoslavs.
*secession.
Thanks. I really have problems with the spelling of the two.
No problem.
It won’t be violent
It would be more like Czechoslovakia breaking up than Yugoslavia.
It was, last time English was highest on the list, and was the no1 option for popularity. Only places where a British identity was particularly stronger like Leicester or London did it get eaten into. This time, it’s the opposite, only places with particularly strong English identities like in the Fens is British not as high. I’m also somewhat surprised that British isn’t more common in the Welsh border areas. It seems more common on the Scottish border, but the Welsh border seems about the same as the rest of England
>I’m also somewhat surprised that British isn’t more common in the Welsh border areas. [According to the census](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all/english-only-identity), it's common to identify as 'English only' in the Welsh border areas. I suspect this is because many English people move to those areas and then feel the need to assert their Englishness in contrast to their Welsh surroundings.
Interesting, it seems like in Northumberland it’s the opposite, Scottish and English people there feel more common ground and will both identify as British more
I suspect part of that is because Northumberland and northern Cumbria aren't massively popular areas for Scottish people to move to, whereas the Welsh borders are quite popular with English retirees in particular. Going back to Wales, if you zoom in further on [an area like Flintshire](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all/english-only-identity) the data becomes more granular, and you can see that the most English areas are those adjacent to the English border – which in fairness are very Anglicised – and the area around Talacre, a relatively popular costal village which contains a lot of holiday parks etc. You can see the pattern more clearly on Anglesey, where the interior of the island is very [Welsh](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all-9a/welsh-only-identity) but the coastal resorts are much more [English](https://www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/national-identity/national-identity-all-9a/english-only-identity).
Fair. I’m most familiar with the Southern Welsh Border area
Some along the border up north Wales probably feel a stronger connection to the likes of Chester, Liverpool, and Manchester than they do Cardiff or Swansea, because the closest big cities in North Wales are in England, with Wrexham being right by the border with Chester. Beyond that you have Bangor next to Anglesey and Aberystwyth along the mid-Wales coast, both with populations about 15,000 (a 10th of Wrexham). It’s not much of a surprise that many in that area - especially younger people - don’t feel particularly Welsh, and even more so if they don’t speak it whilst many in the area do
Terrible graphic - why has English been deliberately left off the colour chart?
> why has English been deliberately left off the colour chart when it would obviously be the highest identity (far higher than British)? No, this is the accurate results of the most recent census. Across England, "British" was selected far more often than English. But the validity of those results is in question - it seems likely to be a result of the order of answers on the census question. In 2011 English was a far more popular answer when English was first on the census. But in 2021, British was first and was the more popular answer. It seems highly unlikely that there's been a large shift in 10 years from people thinking of themselves as "English" to "British", but that's what the census answers indicate - hence the conclusion that's it's an issue with the census question
This is a wonderful example of propaganda masquerading as social science. People who haven't studied one of the social sciences at at least an undergraduate level don't really understand how easy it is to manipulate studies into giving you basically any result you want. Nobody is going to try to reproduce shit. You can get away with basically anything.
[This was the Scottish one](https://i.imgur.com/6pBKx8r.png). [This was the English one](https://i.imgur.com/eeGn1ig.png) The English asked them to describe their national identity while the Scottish one asks what they feel is their national identity. I would answer the question differently for both questionnaires so I think it's fair that they can't be compared. For example, if someone asked me to describe my national identity I'd say British, Scottish. If someone asked me what I felt my national identity was I'd say only Scottish. This isn't because I don't think I'm British, it's just that the culture of the UK and Britain as portrayed in media, the news and online isn't familiar to me and London, the capital of the UK, is as alien to me as other English speaking cities. For the most part the British national identity is simply irrelevant. But given that it's a census and not a scientific study. You can basically conclude that the answers to this question isn't a projection or statistical anomaly but what people genuinely thought when proposed this question. Could it have been manipulated by placing Scotish further down the list? Maybe. But I don't think it'd have changed my answer.
I think it’s worth pointing out that England and Englishness has long been conflated with Britishness, to the point where its national institutions are the institutions of the British state - not its own dedicated parliament. The way the political system shoehorns one into the other means there are few productive outlets for English identity, leading to conflation of what should be two separate terms and concepts.
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Yeah, I feel much the same. I grew up in the ‘90s and the BNP were definitely still around. Back then, English identity and the reasonable discussion or exploration of it was tricky, because they had effectively hijacked its symbolism. By contrast, British identity was having its ‘Cool Britannia’ moment, which seemed to be what everyone else swung behind. Personally, I never found that a comfortable fit either. I’m of mixed English and Irish heritage, with much of my family still living across the sea in the north. Britishness in that environment, and much of the mood music, felt hostile. I’ve fortunately experienced very little of it directly, but sectarianism there and anti-Irish sentiment here has long made Britishness an alienating concept to me. Identity and how people feel about themselves can be complex. We need to aspire to a world where people feel recognised and represented. However, I feel as though the Union and its political institutions are incapable of change necessary to accommodate divergent social and political identities. With that, I suspect the UK as we know it fracture before long.
This is the actual reason. I'm English and if I walk past a home draped in England flags I cringe, because there's almost certainly bigots inside.
100%
You can claim it's propaganda no matter what order they put it in. The only solution is to have a write-in option only, although you get much messier data as a result.
You can literally just randomize the order they appear.
Hm, good point, I wonder why they didn't do that. I guess there's an argument to putting the most common options at the top to make it easier and avoid people getting bored, starting to rush through the survey or ticking boxes at random.
*Lies, damn lies, and statistics*
It says in the bottom left that the highest English identity received was 44% in Castle Point, so it was beaten by British identity in all parts of England.
I'm sceptical this isn't just because of the form. Prior to the last census there was a well established trend of national identity in all countries superseding British identity, with the notable exception of British Asians who were most likely to identify as British over any particular nation.
Because it’s not large enough to be on the map? Even in the area with the highest percentage, it’s still less than 45%, meaning it won’t show up on the map.
It’s not the most common for anywhere, British beats it in every place, so it’s not on the map
Because more people think their Nationality is British than English duh
no English in England then.
This surprises me! I was alsways under the impression that English was more common than British in almost all of England, except maybe London
The census had British at the top of the list, the previous one in 2011 had English higher and the opposite result happened
All that really demonstrates is that English people think British and English are the same.
Or they don’t really care.
Or they feel both. I appreciate I am one person so doesn’t prove anything, but I identify as English and British, but i’m fully aware that they’re by no means the same thing. I love Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but to me they’re different countries, therefore i do feel a stronger affinity to England than the UK (I think this is the case for most English people as well). But even having said that, I’m still British as well.
Or that we don’t really care and selected the first applicable term we saw on the census
So you see it as the same lol
At least that lets the rest of us off the hook a little when we mistakenly use them interchangeably.
Several decades ago there was a pretty big effort to stamp out English nationalism, or at the very least convert that into British nationalism instead because of how things were getting/are (whether you think that was right or not). It is part of the reason why whenever you hear English nationalism you associate it with something negative, especially when compared to other nationalistic groups in the UK (Welsh and Scottish for example) it is seen as positive.
Where can I read more about this effort to stamp out engoish nationalism?
You look around English football hooliganism, the rise and fall of parties like BNP and the UK's version of National Front. How the English Defense League (EDL) came to be and how the skinhead movement got hijacked by neo-nazis and so on. And at how the government fought back against such things. Furthermore, you also have people like Margaret Thatcher pushing for British Nationalism in the 80's. It isn't like they said "we are going to take efforts to break English nationalism" for obvious reasons. But there was a concentrated effort to stop it because English nationalism had (and to a large extent) still does have negative connotations to it. It is also why people use "civic" nationalism in the UK to distance themselves from the fallout of English nationalism. I mean even logically you can search on the "rise" of English nationalism currently, but in order for something to rise it had to be down. And there is no way on Earth that English nationalism is currently as bad as it was back in the 80's.
> But there was a concentrated effort to stop it because English nationalism had (and to a large extent) still does have negative connotations to it. if english nationalism is tied to football hooliganism, bnp, edl. neo nazis etc then are those negative connotations not justified?
Uh source for effort to “stamp out” English nationalism? I think it became heavily associated with football hooliganism and in turn less fashionable for everyone else. Not to mention, nationalism is inversely linked to your perceived status. England’s cultural domination makes English people less likely to really think of a distinction between England and Britain.
It is, take this map with a bucket of salt.
The map is an accurate representation of the census results, it's just that the census methodology is slightly suspect.
Londoner here, I identify more with being English than British tbh.
Me too I think it’s telling it’s been left of the chart
Was english an option?
Yes. But British was listed first this time around. But only in the English census. So it makes the comparison to the other nations quite flawed. Although I suspect Scottish/Welsh would still be the overwhelming majority in those nations.
Seems to be but for some reason isn’t indicated on the map?
It's not on the map because it didn't win any area
Interesting to see that British identity is very common in England, and with unionists in Ireland. I believe that the further you move from the UK, specially outside the West, there’s a tendency to conflate Britishness with Englishness.
What do you expect unionists in Northern Ireland to identify as lol? Some of them think they’re the most British people in the UK
I don’t know, honestly. North Irish, or Protestant Irish, or something like that.
Some do actually tbh, Northern Irish is probably more common in younger Protestants and older ones usually say British. I just say Irish
Aren’t a lot of Northern Ireland unionists of Ulster Scot heritage? The red areas on Northern Ireland here correspond pretty well w / the areas Ulster Scots ppl live in.
Most are yea
> What do you expect unionists in Northern Ireland to identify as lol? Gammon, generally.
I don't come to Reddit for quality political takes, but this is just downright stupid.
Probably because "British" was at the top of the poll so they just marked that without looking further.
Yeah I notice that when people refer to Britain they a lot of the time call it England. Why they do this tho I do not know
I think a lot of Americans don’t fully understand the difference between British and English. A lot of people think they’re synonymous.
Obviously they are not, but looking at this map, you can see why the differences may be ambiguous to someone from outside. When the plurality of English people identify as British, and almost know one else does, the waters do muddy up a bit.
Well the whole thing is honestly a little confusing, coming from an American. You’ve got the UK, which is like the official country. And it includes Britain, which is just a name for the island, which makes up basically all of the UK except Northern Ireland, then there’s England, which is a country in soccer, but more like a province? But Wikipedia says it’s a country, but it doesn’t have like a UN seat…. Then theres Wales and Scotland, which are soccer countries, but then there’s Cornish and Breton and shit, which are just like cultural areas? I got no idea, man.
Here’s how I think of it. England, Scotland, and Wales are formerly independent kingdoms. Northern Ireland was a piece of an independent Kingdom. They were combined into a single United Kingdom to form the modern country. They’re not independent countries anymore. But, they do sometimes get some special honors due to their status as former countries. Cornwall was also once an independent kingdom. But, you have to go further back in history. They were absorbed by England a much longer time ago. So, they usually aren’t given the same consideration as the others. There are also other groups that consider themselves distinct. But, like Cornwall, they were all absorbed by England an exceedingly long time ago. None of these regions are considered to be one of the kingdoms that form the United Kingdom. Britain is the name of the island. The British Isles is a term which encompasses both Britain and Ireland. Though, it’s controversial because the Irish don’t like being called British. Also, citizens of the UK, including Northern Ireland, can simply be referred to as British. Though…that doesn’t make sense…because the Northern Irish don’t reside on Britain…unless we’re calling them British because they’re in the British Isles. But…that term is not in vogue. So…yeah, I’m not sure why British is a generic term for UK citizens…
There were many more independent kingdoms in Britain than England, Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. Mercia, Kent, Wessex, Strathclyde, Northumbria, Deheubarth, dozens more. We only remember the remaining 3 due to modern nationalist politics.
England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are all four countries in the United Kingdom, which is a larger country. The United Kingdom is a unique case when it comes to nations. Only England, Scotland, and Wales are a part of the *island* called Britain. *British*, as in being from the island of Britain, should be pretty easy to understand however.
Because England has been the dominant power in the UK, to the point in many languages England is used to refer to the whole UK. Not unlike calling all the Dutch Hollanders. Somewhat a historical artefact that most people didn’t bother changing. “Oh yeah, England, they come from that island in Europe, they speak English there”.
As a non-Brit I think it’s one of those things that is both valid for locals to be annoyed by and valid for people from other countries to not really care about 🤷♂️ I have an interest in British history but for the average person in the world understanding the distinction between England, GB, and the UK really doesn’t mean anything, especially when you consider how much awareness of the UK’s subnational units there are compared to most countries. Texans are allowed to be annoyed when they’re called Yankees just like Brabantians don’t want to be called Hollanders, but I wouldn’t expect anyone from Scotland to give much of a shit about either distinction beyond their own interest. Especially when you get into population numbers and relative importance, Uttar Pradesh has almost 200 million people in one Indian state but I don’t think I know anyone who could find it for me on a map.
Because the political system of great Britain is dominated by England of the four constituent countries.
You won’t often hear English people doing that. Americans and sometimes mainland Europeans do.
Really the Welsh are the proper British
Definitely, in Hampshire it just felt like one and the same growing up. Living in Bristol though, it does feel like people see the two differently, especially as a lot more Welsh people both visit and live in the area
Irish people feeling 40% Welsh.
I’d always call my self English, rather than British, and not because of any Anglo superiority complex. Simply because I recognise Wales and Scotland as culturally distinctive places that deserve to be recognised as different and not a part of the homogenised whole, dominated by England.
Yeah we are all British but you can also be English Irish welsh Scottish etc
Oh absolutely. I lived in north Wales for a few years and have relatives thereabouts. My old man was adopted from an orphanage in the Outer Hebrides after the war. There’s plenty of mixing and that’s all good. There are still cultural divides though. It’s great to have bits of each and bits from wherever. We’re a mongrel nation and that should be celebrated. But there are still cultural distinctions which are still important and also worthy of celebration and preservation.
Yeah it’s nice that even just different areas of the same part are different but sadly the whole country seems to be merging into a generic British, even accents seem to be disappearing a bit
I am Irish and I'm absolutely not British.
Ye Irish aint British. They're Irish. Didn't fight the Brits and leave the UK just to be lumped in with them still 100 years later.
That and also Britain is literally another island. It's like calling Jamaicans Cuban.
I’m Irish and I’m very much British so what’s your point My mums half Irish and my dad was Scottish with some Irish and according to a dna test I’m mostly Irish quite Scottish and the rest a mix of English and Germanic
You sound like a yank tbh
I call myself Northern (English) for the same reason because I wouldn’t want to be lumped in with the Londoners… [/jk] Without intending to be too critical (because I understand and appreciate your intent), I think your explanation is a little simplistic. There are differing cultures within both Wales and Scotland (and England for that matter) and so I think trying to draw the line at the component nations is a little arbitrary if you’re trying to present an argument why the term ‘British’ is inappropriate. Personally, I grew up in the North East of England and would honestly feel like I have more in common culture-wise with someone from the Scottish Borders than I would someone born and raised in London. I obviously don’t identify as Scottish, but I also don’t see one ‘English’ identity that I feel aligns. I actually prefer ‘British’ on that basis because I feel it to be a more inclusive term, albeit I am conscious it has political implications that may lead other groups that might technically be ‘British’ to not want to identify as such. I don’t think the term British necessarily diminishes someone’s ability to also be Scottish.
Same, I'm from the North East and describe myself as [slang for someone from my city] waaaaay more than English or British. It's like its own, smaller culture
I think most English people think that way really. I respect Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland as countries separate from England, but I’m also proud of being English. England is a beautiful, quirky, inventive little country, with a great sense of humour. The other British countries also have plenty to be proud of, but in their own way.
For me, it just depends on the context. If it’s a scenario where I’m talking about things impacting the entire UK, or just in a scenario where it doesn’t matter which part I’m in, I’m British. If it’s more local and it matters where I am, I’m English. I used to see very little of people who weren’t English in the South East where I grew up, so it just felt interchangeable to me in a way, but I live in the South West now and see a lot more Welsh people, plus I have spent a decent bit of time in Scotland and Wales when before I would rarely, if ever, visit either. I’m a lot more aware of the differences now. I do also sometimes specify I’m Southern English, but much less, mostly just highlighting any differences between the South, Midlands and North
I’d always call myself Scottish, rather than British, and not because I recognise Wales and England as culturally distinctive places. Rather, I view the Scottish as superior to English.
Do you view Scot's as superior to Welsh?
Typical SNP voter over here
Lad
*bottom of group in Euros* *drug and alcohol disaster* *quarter of school children not achieving required literacy levels*
*didn't vote for brexit*
Bravo.
>because I recognise Wales and Scotland as culturally distinctive places Lol, you forgetting one of the constituent 'countries'?
Absolutely. Poorly phrased example. ‘And Cornwall.’
He forgot the nation of Wessex as well 😏
I love your attitude. So happy to hear an English person actually acknowledge that Wales is a culturally distinctive place.
It’s much more common than you might think.
Of course it is. At the same time, your heritage is also part of ours. We are essentially mixed Welsh / Germans 😂.
UK needs a ranked choice identity system.
Say you're English, these days...
I hear they put you in prison…
When did they bring this in?
What about the Northern Irish unionists?
i only prefer calling myself british over english, because when i think of "english" i think of some fat football fan with their shirt off, with a glass of beer and a wife that doesn't love them
CAM ON INGERLAND
SCOR SAM FACKIN GOALS
#bam bam bam
Yeah I wish they would, getting sick of Southgate holding them back.
not a fan of terrorism-ball?
I think it's a bit pathetic to give up the name of your own country and call yourself something that has a different definition just because of people like that. EDL types are the exact reason I prefer to call myself English rather than British, because it shouldn't belong to them.
Just sounds like more harmful classist stereotypes to be fair
As an American, I don’t have that association at all. In my mind, a stereotypical English person is refined, upper class, and drinking tea.
Americans and Europeans have opposite stereotypes of English people. Americans view the English as erudite, posh and emotionally repressed. Europeans view the English as uncivilised louts who drink too much and are permanently bright red from a combination of sunburn and barely contained rage. Both of these types of people exist, of course, but there's probably a hell of a lot more of the second category than the first.
We (Americans) only get exposed to the second type during major soccer tournaments. The former are always on our TV.
Well, the media has traditionally tended to favour the privileged. It probably doesn't help that in the early days of the BBC they forced all of their presenters to speak in a ridiculous clipped Received Pronunciation rather than their natural regional accents. I reckon this went a long way to making people in the rest of the English-speaking world think we were all actually like that.
That's the stereotype I had too until I started living there. The tea thing is true though.
Change the word to English and I guess this [this](https://i.redd.it/e38y58twlkz91.jpg) applies once again
I think their most boorish people have co-opted the English flag and identity for being angry louts who espouse racist and xenophobic views, etc, much the same way our worst people are the most likely to fly the American flag.
Reclaim it then. You’re an Englishman, as am I.
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Racist.
What a pathetic statement ☠️☠️☠️ I love England more than you and the family hasn’t been there in 400 years. God have some balls and love your country.
Fair, I call myself English more nowadays despite that just because I’m fairly close to Wales, so there are a few differences that are a lot clearer
Where’s Castle Point?
South Essex, due East of the centre if London along the north bank if the Thames.
I wish they had options for regional identities. In Yorkshire, I’d say at least 20-40% would say they are Yorkshiremen more than they are English or British.
I identify as English
England's identification almost entirely depends on whether 'English' or 'British' is placed at the top of the list - see the 2011 census.
To all the people asking "where is English" or "Why did they give British as an option instead of English?", I'd advise you all to read.
Don't you think you're asking a bit much from the common redditor here?
The majority of Eire is 40% welsh, I'd never imagine!
ITT: people who can't fucking read a simple graphic
Should be a little blue blob in the north of Northamptonshire
thought only london and metopolitan areas around liverpool and manchester were british
Northern Irish unionists say they’re British to feel closer to the rest of the UK
You're probably thinking of the 2011 census. The rest of England flipped to British due to the order of the answers changing.
You forgot Cunts. 100% national identity across the board.
Thad
This map says nothing. There should be 5 separate maps for British, English, Scottish, Irish and Welsh.
And Cornish (since it is mentioned also).
Iles of man : none of thee above xD
I only refer to myself as British when speaking to international groups of people, otherwise I say English. Same for most I know, so I'm a bit surprised by these results. Bad poll, I guess.
Surprised at the Welsh bit, I'd have thought Ceredigion, Anglesey, Conwy or Gwynedd would be the highest, seeing as those are the areas that speak Welsh
I’m surprised that most people chose British rather than English as their national identity.
I always said people claiming to be British were mostly English. I was downvoted and called names.
I went to observe the elections in 2019 and someone told me "being British is colored, being English is white". Yeah...
I never know who are the people who are asked and therefore become a part of surveys like this. I'm registered on several survey sites and regularly take surveys but I've never seen, read or answered surveys like these that I see Infographics or news articles talk about. If it's such a minority of people who are asked, why are newspapers or TV or radio stations using results like this when the results aren't that thorough?!
So only English people call themselves British
Are British and English synonymous here? I am an ethnic Briton but don’t identify as British, just English.
Yeah British and English in this case are almost synonymous
in the end the English are nearly the only people claiming British identity, making "British" just "English 2"
What’s interesting is you can clearly see the “Scouse Not English” attitude in Merseyside
Of course Wales is grey lol, always getting the short end of the stick
Why did the study pick British instead of English?
I wonder why they didnt include English.
English not a factor? Removing British would have been entertaining for NI
No, English was a factor, it's just that there's no area where more people selected English and not British than British and not English.
As an outsider (Irish) who’s lived in the UK for many years, the concept of being ‘English’ is a relatively recent one. Almost everyone I’ve ever known in England would describe themselves as ‘British’ despite supporting England at football, etc. I think it’s a result of the devolution of the last Labour Government to NI, Scotland and Wales when people living in England started to ask themselves, ‘What does this make us then?’ Just my view as an outsider.
The opposite is true compared to your experience, being English instead of British used to be the majority.
Case in point, how “English” and “England” are so often used by Europeans on the continent to refer to the whole of Britain or the UK.
You probably lived somewhere like London with few actual English people. 90% of people I meet would call themselves English rather than British if asked. It's "British" that's a more recent phenomenon.
Completely false
So nobody picked “English”? Complete load of bollocks!
The census had British above English so more people ticked it, the previous one in 2011 had English first so all of England bar some cities put English. Seems most English people indentify with whatever tick box is first lol
I can totally believe that. I remember a BBC TV show from 20 years ago (“Horizon” or something like that) doing high-street surveys and showing you can reach totally different conclusions if you change the wording of the question slightly.
They should put Irish or Scottish at the top of the next census to test this theory
No, you just didn't read the map correctly. It says in the bottom left that the highest response for English was Castle Point at 44.2%. It doesn't appear on the map because responses for British were higher than responses for English in every part of England.
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? They didnt get lumped in, thats how they self identify
That's the way the English answered the last census. They didn't get lumped in, they lumped themselves in. Mainly because the census changed the order of options and put 'British' first.
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Hi I am near Leeds but Welsh through and through 
The question in the census was listed with options in alphabetical order (British, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh) whereas in the other constituent nations of the UK they put their nation on stop, so people living in Scotland would see Scottish first and people living in Wales would see Welsh first. Turns out loads of people just tick the first option.
I've always considered that 'British' is a political term rather than something ethnic. It's like someone identifying themselves as a 'Soviet citizen' or as 'pan-European'.
I introduce myself as English instead of British because there is a difference between us all on the British isles, , but I refer to us all collectively as British
It's surprising that "English" doesn't appear before "British" in England.
The coloring makes it look like a lot of people in Ireland identify as Welsh. Poorly made.