Are you proud to be British ?

How is one supposed to be proud of being born somewhere? It's not as though you have any say in it!

It's just a fact of life. At the same time I am reasonably happy that UK was the land of my birth - things could have been so much worse!

'Fewer people' - not less.

I am proud to be fortunate enough to have be born British. Love Britain, it's history and how that history has made us the nation we are now. But I find increasingly that as the Scots become more Scottish and less British I'm feeling more and more English.
I used to feel united with all of Britain in objecting to the way Parliament and London ruled us without having any idea what life is like outside the South East. But now we've been divided by Assemblies (except England doesn't have one). I think it's a cunning plan from Whitehall to divide and rule.

Yes.

Like Feetle I think proud is the wrong word as it is an accident of birth but I am very glad and happy to be British. I also value my Irish ancestry from the maternal side of my family.

It is the lovely ladies and gents on here who make me doubt my answer to this, but on the whole I have to say I am proud to be English. It is Alex Salmond who has pushed me over the edge on this!

Have never thought of myself as British, I am Welsh. I don't think this is caused by the assemblies though, before the assemblies we had a representative in Westminster, Minister of State for Wales/ N Ireland/Scotland , not for England.

I am not proud of the history of the British Empire

I do not think I am proud to be anything in particular. I was born in England, and I continue to live here, though on the very border with Wales.

I am very happy to stay here and love the countryside. I guess I would probably say something similar if I had been born in another country.

I suppose the question really is whether I am proud of what Britain has done/does. I am not proud of its imperial past - that simply seems gruesome. I am pleased about the inventiveness of Britons, who have been in the forefront of technology; and I love our countryside with its characteristic greenness. I am pleased that we have welcomed immigrants for all parts of the globe and done a pretty good job of creating a multi-cultural society without too much trauma.

I am unimpressed with our record of tagging onto the coat-tails of the US. And I am glad that we live in a democracy - however imperfect.

Whilst Britain is certainly not a utopia, I certainly feel fortunate to be British, thankfully we are a democracy, albeit a flawed one. There are many repressive regimes around the world as indeed there are many sectarian ones. I like to think that we wouldn't fall into either of those categories. I think on the whole we are fairly tolerant of others and we have a good record on assimilating the many waves of foreigners who have settled here.

I agree we have an imperial past that leaves a lot to be desired, but then a large part of Europe carved up the known world between them, all behaving equally badly. However, having said all that I don't feel the need to continually express mea culpas for past times, it was often a dog eat dog world and the little person had absolutely no say in their government's foreign strategies, they were merely pawns. I would rather any government would concentrate on, say modern day slavery, people trafficking etc. than make meaningless hand wringing gestures about our imperial past, as unfortunately it can't be changed.

I love our countryside, the older I get the more beautiful it seems, I love our history and the historical buildings that still remain. I think we punch above our weight in many areas we have given the world great writers and innovators in a lot of fields. We have a great legacy as far as music is concerned. Yes as Mishap said it's unfortunate that we are at times the US's little lap dog that never does us any good and it would be good if successive governments would come to terms with the fact that we are a small country and many of us do not wish to be dragged into foreign conflicts with the US as their number one ally.

Yes despite many many flaws I am glad I was born in this wonderful country.

I have lived in Wales for nearly 30 years and I must say I think the nations of the United Kingdom seem to be more diverse than they were.

I always thought of myself as British, but find myself, if asked, saying 'I'm English and I live in Wales. Well, actually I'm British'.

When visiting overseas I find that people say 'oh, you're from England!' And I answer, 'Well, no, I live in Wales'.

Whereupon they look at me strangely as if saying 'Same thing, isn't it?'

rosequartz, not as bad as when George W Bush asked a very young Charlotte Church where she was from and she replied "Wales" to which Dubbya responded "what part of the US is that in?" Allegedly!

Occasionally someone in Australia will think I mean New South Wales ....

NO! Old South Wales. The real one.

Apologies to any Aussies. I do like NSW

I'm very pleased to be British, although these days, because of Alex Salmond and his ambitions, I find myself thinking more and more that I am English.
There are so many much worse countries to have been born in, and in spite of our problems, I give thanks daily for living where I do.

Not sure what 'proud' means- as said, how can you be proud of where you happen to be born? So I am pleased to be Swiss, rather than proud- and I suppose I can be proud of being British, as I chose to live there as young adult and chose to adopt British nationality. Now, would I have done so if it meant giving up my nationality of birth- I do not know. It's nice to have both- I love both my native and my adoptive countries- which does not mean I do not have serious misgivings about some aspects of both too.

I feel very fortunate to have been born in Britain.

I am very happy to have dual British/Maltese citizenship, but not proud of it

I am proud to be Scottish.

I am fighting shy of the word proud, as many of us seem to be saying. For me it smacks of nationalism with all the dangers implicit in that.

I agree with the long and well put answer from BAnanas. I think of myself as English though, not British as I supect most of us do [or Welsh/Scottish /Irish.]It's still a good place to live, even if not quite as good as say, 40 years ago.

Where do you say you were born? I always say that I was born in England, come from England, am English. However DBH's family who are Forces people are always horrified by that, and say that they are British.

If I came from Cornwall, I would say that I am Cornish. It's an identity thing, that's all. After all, I refer to the Irish girl, the Scottish bloke.

My Scottish friend always said she was British.

I have always referred to myself as English (even though I've lived amongst the Manx for the past 20+ years) and I tend not to use the term 'British'. The locals (the Manx) never refer to themselves as British, it is always 'Manx'.

I don't judge my ancestors for their actions that would have been considered 'appropriate behaviour' of those times - all previous empires behaved exactly the same (and some a darned sight worse); I would wish it had been different but it doesn't single us out in any way, shape or form. I think there are quite a lot of things to be proud of being English and England has contributed a lot to the world (even if it is rarely mentioned): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_inventions_and_discoveries

I am English, DH is Scottish. It's where we happened to be born, though he would prefer to be Scottish than British, I feel.

As children of an Army family, my lot can tell you where they were born, but not necessarily where they come from! They do reflect a lot on where, i.e. in which posting, they were happiest (they were all at school in Yorkshire) They have lived in England, N.Ireland, and Scotland:

DS2 - Yorkshire. (Lives in Gloucestershire)
DS1. - Hampshire. (Lives there)
DD - London, but actually anywhere but not Yorkshire (Lives in Devon)

The "boys" would say they were English but DS2 played rugby for Scotland U21s, so would claim his Scottish heritage.

DD and I have no doubts - we are English, and this is reinforced, as some of you have said, by the whole Scottish referendum bit.

But really, it is where we happened to be, I suppose. Me? Born in Nottingham, lived there for 20 years. Enough said. Live in Devon, love every bit of it.