What better way to highlight the dangerously racist political climate we are living through in Britain than to kick off Black History Month by having the former Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, state live on television that non-white people could not be English?
Braverman, now a Reform UK MP, came under fresh fire after saying (and defending) that she couldn’t be English because she is of “Asian origin” but is British. Even her former Conservative colleagues criticised her for making that assertion.
Now, these comments are hardly out of character for someone who infamously stated that grooming gangs were “almost all British-Pakistani”, called migrants arriving onto UK shores an “invasion”, oversaw increasingly harmful and dehumanising immigration policies, and has pledged to scrap the Equality Act. And this is but a very short list of her political legacy so far.
Whilst we know all too well that the rhetoric Braverman and her ilk are peddling is meant to feed the flames of far-right politics, there is some truth in what she is saying.
In this climate, amidst rising fascist mass mobilisations in Britain and across Europe, where far-right politicians are also gaining ground, brown and black communities, migrants and Muslims are being told loud and clear that they do not belong in the West.
As the daughter of a white British mother and a Muslim, North African father, my own life trajectory has shown me the harsh way that English is, all too often, synonymous with whiteness.
As a child, I innocently never questioned whether I belonged. I was born here, grew up here. All my cultural references, my education, my way of thinking were moulded by this country - one that I believed I was a part of.
However, that facade collapsed around me in what felt like an instant when I decided to wear the hijab as a teenager. Suddenly, I was visibly foreign. People asked me where I was from - no, where I was really from.
People looked at me strangely when I was with my white grandparents, as though I was some sort of brown exchange student visiting them from abroad. I faced racism for the first time in my life in my small white town, where overnight teachers would ask me if I was going to have an arranged marriage instead of going to sixth form, and people would mutter Islamophobic comments in the street.
My Englishness was being rescinded. I had committed the ultimate crime, which was to make myself visibly Muslim, and so whatever place I had in this exclusive club was reversed immediately.
Englishness and being visibly Muslim could not, and would not, go hand in hand.
But I quickly learned that Englishness was an exclusive club with fickle, superficial rules. And ironically, amidst this resurging ‘Englishness’, it is unclear what it actually means to be English. Even the most supposedly proud patriots can’t seem to define it; they rely instead on what for them this identity is not: being non-white, migrant and Muslim.
It feels as though we have passed a tipping point in Britain. Gone are the days of so-called diversity, equality and inclusion, and multiculturalism being seen as aspirational is well and truly over. Instead, we’re offered a dangerous nationalism that feeds a Great Replacement hysteria that means immigration is no longer seen as a productive element of globalisation, but as a hostile act of war designed to bring about the end of true Englishness.
Ultimately, Braverman’s words will have a far more sinister and long-lasting impact than a controversial soundbite dominating the news cycle. Comments like these have serious consequences for already marginalised people facing even more acute discrimination in the wake of this wave of far-right fascism taking over British politics.
Whilst we can argue that no politician can dictate how we define ourselves, and certainly not gatekeep entry to an entire nationality based on skin colour, Braverman’s words shouldn’t be dismissed as marginal personal reflections about identity. We have to take seriously the fact that they are being expressed on a massive national platform that feeds a political agenda seeking to sanction the dehumanisation and criminalisation of anyone who fails to fit into an increasingly narrow definition of what it means to belong in Britain.
As Reform continues to achieve electoral success, and as fear grows that they may even end up at Number 10, charged statements by the likes of Braverman could soon form the foundation of actual policy. This means the very real threat of material harm to thousands whose right to be in this country is suddenly rescinded due to something as fickle as the colour of their skin or their parents’ ethnic origins.
Nadeine Asbali is a freelance writer and secondary school teacher based in London. She is the author of Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain.
Follow Nadeine on X: @nadeinewrites
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.
