Sunak Warns Against Ethnic Definition of Englishness as Identity Debate Resurfaces
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak has argued that national identity should not be reduced to ethnicity, warning that excluding non-white people from Englishness puts the country on a «slippery slope». His intervention follows claims by a prominent podcaster that he was not English because he is a «brown-skinned Hindu».
Rishi Sunak has warned that defining Englishness in exclusively ethnic terms would place the country on a «slippery slope», after the former prime minister was told he was not English because he is a «brown-skinned Hindu». Writing in the Times, Sunak said national identity should not be turned into a DNA test, in his first extended reflection on the question since leaving office.
Sunak, who became the UK's first prime minister of colour in 2022, described the claim as a «reverse Tebbit test» — a reference to the sociological measure that gauged the loyalty of immigrants and their children by which cricket team they supported in international matches. He argued that once people begin to say someone is not really English or British because they are not white, the debate moves onto dangerous ground.
The former Conservative leader also addressed the distinction sometimes drawn between English as an ethnic identity and British as a civic one. He suggested that such nuances are unlikely to be heard by most people, and that those who believe otherwise are being «perhaps even wilfully — naive». His comments amount to a direct challenge to those on the right of British politics who continue to treat whiteness as a condition of Englishness.
Even Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent figure on the right, has pushed back on defining Englishness in exclusively ethnic terms. Yet the endurance of the discourse remains deeply troubling, not least because it keeps resurfacing in mainstream political conversation despite decades of immigration and the emergence of a genuinely multi-ethnic British public.
The intervention comes amid a wider and often heated debate about what it means to be British or English in the twenty-first century. Questions of national identity have become entangled with arguments over immigration, integration and the legacy of empire, and have repeatedly been used by political actors to draw lines around who belongs.
Sunak's own experience illustrates the personal cost of that debate. As the first prime minister of South Asian heritage, he was subjected to claims that his background disqualified him from Englishness — a charge that echoes older, now discredited, notions of racial purity. His decision to speak out reflects a growing willingness among senior figures to confront ethnonationalist assumptions directly.
The Tebbit test, named after the former Conservative cabinet minister Norman Tebbit, was originally proposed as a way of measuring whether immigrants had integrated sufficiently into British life. Its revival by Sunak, in inverted form, highlights how the terms of that debate have shifted: the question is no longer only whether minorities feel British, but whether the majority is prepared to accept them as such.
For many commentators, the persistence of the question «can you be English and non-white?» is itself the problem. The fact that it keeps returning to the political agenda suggests that, for some, the answer remains contested — despite the legal and civic reality that British citizenship carries no racial condition.
Sunak's intervention is unlikely to settle the argument. But by framing the issue as a «slippery slope», he has placed the burden of proof on those who would exclude non-white citizens from the national story. The debate over Englishness, it seems, is far from over.
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