In the 2021 Census in England, English ethnic identity appeared only as part of a combined response option in the White ethnic-group category. Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde, the party’s president, plans a bill that would let people record an English ethnic identity across the census’s ethnic-group categories, The Guardian reported.
The proposal concerns the ethnic-group question, which the Office for National Statistics (ONS) treats as separate from the national-identity question. That distinction means the bill concerns how ethnicity is recorded, rather than the national-identity response. In the 2021 classification, the White category included the combined label “English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British.” The ONS says census ethnicity data informs policy, equality monitoring, resource allocation and public-service delivery.
The Guardian named former Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Conservative MP Mark Pritchard and Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran, chair of the health select committee, among the proposal’s supporters. The 10-minute rule procedure gives Babarinde a chance to make the case for the change; bills introduced through it seldom become law, The Guardian reported.
The Guardian said the campaign responded to Reform UK politicians’ claims that people from minority ethnic backgrounds could not be English by ethnicity. It cited Reform UK MP Suella Braverman, who has said her South Asian background means she does not identify as ethnically English. Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf rejected excluding footballer Ashley Cole from English identity, saying, “Ashley Cole is English.”
The Guardian also pointed to census choices in Scotland and Wales, including examples such as “Scottish Asian” and “Black Welsh.” Babarinde’s motion is listed for Tuesday, Nov. 10, on the House of Commons Order Paper.
