National identity / Introduction

National identity

Exploring Britishness

  • Do you have to be born British, or can Britishness be acquired
    over time? This chapter explores how people think about ‘Britishness’ and the importance of factors like language, ancestry and residence and what people think about Britain’s relationship with the rest of the world.

    BSA31 KF Intro

    Highlights

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    In a number of cases the threshold to being considered ‘truly British’ has got higher.

    95% think that being able to speak English is important for being ‘truly British’, up from 85% in 1995.

    BSA31 NI1

    Highlights

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    There’s been a decline in the number of people who think being Christian is important to being British, no doubt reflecting Britain’s declining religious faith.

    24% think being Christian is important to being ‘truly British’, down from 32% in 1995.

    BSA31 NI2

    Highlights

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    The way people think about Britishness is linked to what they think about Britain’s relationship with the rest
    of the world.

    25% of people who see Britishness as depending on civic and ethnic factors are very 'Britain-focused' when it comes to how the country should deal with international organisations and trade, compared with just 4% of those who think Britishness is down to civic factors alone.

    BSA31 NI3

    Highlights

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    The way people think about Britishness is linked to what they think about Britain’s membership of Europe.

    36% of people who see Britishness as depending on civic and ethnic factors are very Eurosceptic, compared with 15% of those who think Britishness is down to civic factors alone.

    BSA31 NI4

    Highlights

Introduction

Earlier this year NatCen released initial findings from the 2013 British Social Attitudes survey that showed a decline in people’s pride in being British, with a particular fall in the proportion who say they are “very proud”, from 43 per cent in 2003 to 35 per cent now (Young, 2014). This change has taken place across much of British society and it is only those who were the most fiercely proud in 2003, the over 65s and the least well educated, whose views remain unchanged. In this chapter we develop this discussion by focusing on the very concept of ‘Britishness’ and what people think it means. Is it a question of language, ancestry or residence? Do you have to be born British, or can Britishness be acquired over time? 

We last tackled this issue in our 21st Report which included a chapter about British national identity, based on findings from the 2003 survey (Tilley et al., 2004). The authors examined whether it was helpful to classify people in Britain according to whether they saw national identity as being based on ‘civic’ factors (such as residence or citizenship) or ‘ethnic’ ones (such as ancestry). They found that people’s views fell into different camps, but that the largest group was those who think both ethnic and civic factors matter when thinking about whether a person can be considered “truly British”. 

Of course, much has changed since 2003. We might expect views about Britishness to have been affected by events as diverse as the Iraq war, the 2012 Olympics, immigration from Eastern Europe (following the accession of eight countries to the EU in 2004), the global financial crisis that began in 2007 and debates about increasing foreign ownership of previously British organisations and assets (for example, the takeover bid by Pfizer for UK drugs firm AstraZeneca). 

So, ten years later, this chapter starts by revisiting how Britain thinks about national identity and how this has changed since 2003. It then investigates attitudes to immigration and Britain’s relationship both with the outside world in general, and with the EU in particular, to see how these issues relate to the way we think about what it means to be British. To do this we use data from a set of questions developed as part of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and included on the British Social Attitudes surveys in 1995, 2003 and 2013. 

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Notes
  1. To obtain each score we added up (summed) the values of the respective variables and then divided the resulting number by the number of questions, to produce a scale from 1 to 5.
  2. Caution should be taken when comparing the 1995 results with those for subsequent years as the construction of the national identity variable in that year was slightly different to the formulation used in 2003 and 2013. Specifically, it did not include “being Christian” but did include “feeling British”. 
  3. The scaled variable was obtained by adding up (summing) the values of the six questions for each respondent, having first reversed the order of the second and fourth questions in Table 4.6 so that for each question agreement indicated an anti-immigration position. The results were divided by 6 to obtain a scale which varies between 1 and 5.
  4. The summary variable was computed in the same way as is described in note 3 above. 
  5. Intriguingly, those whose conception of national identity is neither civic nor ethnic are even more likely to be internationally minded, supporting the conclusion that it is indeed seeing the ethnic component of Britishness as important that is more closely linked to being British-focused.
  6. The summary variable was computed in the same way as is described in note 3 above.
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  • Authors
  • Notes
    1. To obtain each score we added up (summed) the values of the respective variables and then divided the resulting number by the number of questions, to produce a scale from 1 to 5.
    2. Caution should be taken when comparing the 1995 results with those for subsequent years as the construction of the national identity variable in that year was slightly different to the formulation used in 2003 and 2013. Specifically, it did not include “being Christian” but did include “feeling British”. 
    3. The scaled variable was obtained by adding up (summing) the values of the six questions for each respondent, having first reversed the order of the second and fourth questions in Table 4.6 so that for each question agreement indicated an anti-immigration position. The results were divided by 6 to obtain a scale which varies between 1 and 5.
    4. The summary variable was computed in the same way as is described in note 3 above. 
    5. Intriguingly, those whose conception of national identity is neither civic nor ethnic are even more likely to be internationally minded, supporting the conclusion that it is indeed seeing the ethnic component of Britishness as important that is more closely linked to being British-focused.
    6. The summary variable was computed in the same way as is described in note 3 above.
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