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Most people are more than one thing, I'd say I'm English, British, European, a Manc, northern and a soft southerner.
That's sort of my point though. I identify as most of those things to some extent (Manchester is the only place other than London I've lived) but not English.
To me 'English' is toxic.
jellybaby-
To me 'English' is toxic.
Really? That seems a bit harsh. You can be English without the tattoos and flags.
Like @snottyotter said, it's really just an ethnicity/origin that's true, whether you want it to be or not. That doesn't mean you can't also identify with a specific area (Cornwall, Yorkshire, London, whatever). The thing is with Englishness that it's inherently a bit of a European ethnic mashup if you go far enough back. Angles, Jutes, Celts, Normans, Vikings, Hugenots, etc. all of us are going to have a fair blend of that so "English" is a pretty broad church anyway.
"Real Londoner" on the other hand is a totally toxic identification.
ffm
I also forgot to rant about the person writing Londoner on their forms like a petulant GCSE student. Of course you're a fucking Londoner but that's not what it's asking you, thinking that you're one thing and one thing only, and others can't be that thing is where nationalism digs it's exclusionary claws in. You may identify as a Londoner because you like the inclusive mix of the place but you're excluding a generally quite nice country full of mostly alright (but plenty of cuntish) people by trying to make it the only thing you are like some daft Freeman of the land bollocks, in fact was it airhead who said it, despite not having time for theories and only dealing in real life but seemingly with a lived experience sample size of one. Most people are more than one thing, I'd say I'm English, British, European, a Manc, northern and a soft southerner. Identifying with more things and more people and not being precious about others identifying with them seems to me to be the right way of doing things, claiming not to be something because of dislike a prejudiced view of petty little Englanders or racist northerners is being the problem rather than being a nice Brit or whatever. The whole country is full of decent people and awful cunts, connect with the decent ones, most of them outside of the South East will talk to you if you look at them making it far easier.