Are you proud to be British ?

Sorry about that - raised a lot of thoughts!

Proud to be from Yorkshire.

My mother was from Co Durham, my dad was of mixed parentage and only came to live in England as a young man. I was born in Surrey.

I am happy to be British but equally happy to have another non-British heritage. GB is not perfect but then nowhere is! I think that because England has always had more 'power' than Scotland/Wales/NI then those areas have held on more strongly to a sense of cultural identity. I am sad that we do not have a day to pick up on traditions: dance/music /food etc. I think that Thanksgiving in US is a good way for all the different communities ( other than the First Americans) to celebrate USA. We need to find that spirit without being nationalistic.

None of us can help where we were born or of what parentage. I was born in London of English parents although I have a Scottish grandmother. My passport describes me as a citizen of the UK born in London and I'm quite happy about that, but I'm also quite happy to be called English. As far as I'm concerned anybody else born in the British Isles can describe themselves as British if they wish, or coming from one of the other constituent nations of the geographic British Isles if they prefer.

As regards the British Empire, I'm satisfied that it reflected the standards of the time reasonably well, and I'm proud of most of its achievements and legacies. I have read that only the Roman and British Empires brought about such long periods of relative peace and prosperity by acting as 'world policemen', very efficiently and robustly I'm sure at times, but that was the way things were. None of us can turn the clock back and it is pointless to try and judge the past by the standards of the present.

Yes, proud to be British (and from the Midlands)

Ditto

Me too!

and papaoscar - I agree. We can't impose todays standards and mores on yesterday.

My grandson tells everybody that he was born in York where the National Railway Museum is.
However, he is not British or English. He is Danish, because that is what his mother is, and his parents are not yet married. However, his sister who is six years old can be called British and have a British passport. Same parents, same circumstances, but different year.
So the nationality you are deemed to be has nothing to do with where you were born. It's to do with the laws of the country you were born in at the time you were born.

Yes, DD1 and DGS both have dual nationality. They can use either passport whichever queue is shortest!

But my grandson does not have dual nationality. He has to have a Danish passport, which costs £100 and another £100 for him and a parent to get to London, which is now the only place he can get one.

There is not a smiley for 'oh I see'

Getting a British passport for an Australian child born to a British parent costs a fortune too.

1971- Stoke-on-Trent- in those days I had to swear my allegiance to the Queen to get British Nationality... not sure I'd do that now either ;)

We had to do that to get into the Brownies and Guides as well!

Yes. I was once a national serviceman, and visited Irak, India, Libya, Sri Lanka, Egypt and Malaysia. It seemed we were generally respected, though not necessarily liked for events in our past,. We are still the islands that most 'foreignors' would prefer to live in, if not their own. But then, I have been to Spain and witnessed the terrible behaviour of some drunken fools who made me feel slightly embarrassed about our countrymen. I think the Scots contributed in so many ways to building of roads and rail, bridges too. Education and orderliness, which fortunately rubs off on to the rest of us. Just a view.

My son's partner, Danish, has been told by her mum that she no longer gets voting papers as she has lived in England for too long, 20+ years.
So she's not sure if that makes her stateless. She'll find out the next time she goes for a passport. If so, does that make my grandson stateless too, as he takes his mother's nationality?

Actually, when I think about it, this is a reason not to be proud to be British, the fact that someone born here, with a British father, cannot be British.

My friend's son is like that. Father British, mother German, and he was born here. BUT his parents weren't married at the time. They got married before his younger brother was born so the younger son has a British passport.

There's nothing sinister about this. It's just an old law that needs changing. That will happen in time.

Meanwhile, when the lad is old enough, he can choose whether to adopt his father's nationality or his mother's. In the meantime, to all other inents and purposes the boy is British. He lives here and speaks English but not German. The only thing affected is his passport. A passport is not really a nationality.

All that is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just a bit of a legal muddle. It will improve.

And that fact that such things improve over time is one of the reasons why I'm glad to be British.

She won't be stateless, DJ, just unable to vote in Danish parliamentary elections because she hasn't lived there for so long. Same happens to many British living outside the UK. It's something Brussels should be doing something about.

I was born in England and though I love to travel, it's always a joy to 'come home'.

Thanks to Poppaoscar for the way you set out your opinions on the British Empire.

I feel it is sad that since 1945 people in these sceptred isles have such a problem and a mental struggle with being British. It is as if we are ashamed of ourselves for our collective national success. I can't imagine, why. As Brits we have prospered while retaining our Welshness, Scottishness and Irishness. I ma not sure what Englishness is as we don't have a national dress etc. For me the path down started with the separation of Ireland. These are only a collection of small islands with few resources beyond the people who live here and to continue to survive in this Gobal economy we must stay as one, not diverge into even small tribes blamimg each other for our failures. Why the further away from London they are people blame everthing on Westminster and believe that as a smaller group or tribe they can do better I fail to understand. I feel just like that and I am only just around the corner from Westminster so to speak, but I know the system we have is still the best and most workable. I think of myself as British one of a band of /sisters that inhabit the British Isles. We must be something special as others from all over keep travelling to come and live here amongst us.

No I'm not particularly proud to be British, and I'm certainly disgusted by the atrocities committed in the name of the British Empire.

British Empire Crimes

Sadly, Aka, the abuses of Empire receive far more coverage than the good things. For whatever reason, the Mau Mau were murdering savages repressed by a harsh colonial regime that was typical of the time. Who do you blame for the much later terrible Rwanda inter-tribal massacres? There is no excuse for any of these horrors, but they still happened. I regard the mis-treatment of Boer prisoners by the British in the Boer war as bad, and the forced repatriation of the Cossacks and White Russians by us after WW2.

But when considering the legacy of the British Empire ask yourself how many black people owed their lives to the determined and successful efforts of the Royal Navy to eliminate the maritime slave trade after it was finally abolished in the nineteenth century. Probably hundreds of thousands, whilst the number of RN sailors who died of disease etc. doing that was appalling. Sadly, history is full of dark and nasty places, but on balance I am still proud to be British.

Aka We can't live our lives on what happened yesterday. There is more than enough nastiness to go around happening now no matter where you chose to set up home. Having made your choice and settled in that place you should do all in your power to make it the best you can and not keep looking over your shoulder at what was. It is the here and now that has the most impact on your life.

What if our children had to stand up and swear allegiance to the flag as they do in the USA? Would that inculcate pride in their nation?