A worrying headline in the Telegraph, if this kind of thing worries you: ‘White British people will be a minority in 40 years‘. Mercifully hidden behind a paywall, I still managed to access the ‘story’ and it isn’t quite what it seems. The author, the former academic and now far right rabble-rouser, Matt Goodwin take a few liberties with actual facts – who knew? – and somehow came to the conclusion we white British people will soon be in a minority. When I say, ‘we white British people‘ it is worth pointing out that by the mid 2060s I will be long dead, but in terms of Goodwin’s definition of what constitutes a white person, I am not white. How can this be?
One look in the mirror – and it’s one more look than I want to take – suggests to be that I am, indeed white, but Goodwin declares that in his terms: “the white British share of the population – defined as people who do not have an immigrant parent“. My mum was Dutch. My dad’s dad was Norwegian. By his logic, then, we do not count as white British. In which case, we are in good, and some instances not so good, company.
Winston Churchill wouldn’t count because his mother, Jennie Jerome, was American. Queen Victoria’s mum was German. Our current King Charles’s dad, Prince Philip, was born in the Greek holiday island Corfu. And, ironically, Britain’s most successful racist, Nigel Farage, has two sons via his former wife Kirsten Mehr, who is German. Yes, none of these famous Brits are Brits at all, at least according to the Telegraph.
But hang on. Under this definition, some black and Asian British people are actually “white British“. Take the story of Kemi Badenoch, the current Conservative party leader. Her Nigerian mother flew to Britain to ensure Kemi could be born here, after which they returned to Nigeria, before returning here later to settle. Kemi married a white man and they have three “mixed heritage” children, who must be deemed by the Telegraph to be “white British“. I’ll wager that there are thousands of black and Asian British people who would be labelled “white British” in order to fit in with this increasingly unhinged story. But does it matter?
Not to me it doesn’t. I could not care less how the Telegraph seeks to label me. I know what and who I am: a British born man with Dutch and Norwegian heritage. If this squalid and tacky newspaper seeks to rearrange my heritage in order to fit what is clearly a racist agenda, to scare its elderly readers into believing there is a “shifting ethnic dynamic” (their words), like Vienna, this means nothing to me.
I’m English, British, European; a citizen of the world. If Goodwin and his drooping organ (that’s a reference to his ailing newspaper, by the way) see me as somehow ethnically impure and not really British and white, there’s nothing I can do about it, except to feel pity for such a sad and pitiful person with a perverse point of view.
And why is he coming for me? Is it because I is black?
