a statement of fact · ife adebisi

Am I English?

It’s a question that never crossed my mind until earlier this week.

I’ve lived in England for 23 years. I have a British passport. But can I claim to be English? Do I even have the right to?

It started with a clip I saw of Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, saying she didn’t want to live in a country where people “debate whether my mixed-race children are English”. The comments were quick to disagree. They litigated her children’s ancestry, pointing out that their father’s parents are Irish and Scottish, so they could be British, but never English. They claimed that the English are a white people. They called it a “statement of fact”.

Whether you’re born here or naturalise, the citizenship you hold is British. Legally, there’s no such thing as being English. So if Englishness isn’t on the paperwork, where does it live?

For some, the answer is straightforward. If you were born here and raised here, you’re English. If it’s the only land you’ve known, then it’s yours to claim.

For others, it’s about heritage. A people with a shared history that goes back generations.

But how many lifetimes are required for a lineage to lay claim to a land?

It’s funny. When I was younger, I would always roll my eyes at white Americans who claimed to be Irish, Italian or Scottish just because their grandparents or great-grandparents were European. To me, it felt like a stretch. You’ve never set foot in Dublin, but you’ll wear green on St Patrick’s Day and tell me about your roots? Sure.

But this question of identity now has me wondering: isn’t that going to be my children? My grandchildren? A few generations from now, someone in my family could be born in England, raised in England, never set foot in Nigeria, and still call themselves Nigerian. Maybe out of pride. But maybe because no one ever let them call themselves anything else.

That’s where the comparison breaks down. For those Americans, heritage is something they choose to hold on to. They can be Irish on St Patrick’s Day and simply American the rest of the year, and nobody questions either.

For others, heritage isn’t a choice.

Melanin is a marker, a visual distinction from the “native” population. As long as they are visibly other, they can still be asked where they’re “really from”. Their ancestry follows them, whether they want to claim it or not.

So maybe the question isn’t only how many lifetimes it takes. It’s who gets to decide when heritage becomes history.

If there’s one place Englishness seems to be handed out freely, it’s sport. Football, especially.

When a tournament comes around, the St George’s crosses go up in windows and the players in the Three Lions shirt become our boys. People stop paying attention to where their parents are from, or whether they can even pronounce their names. For those 90 minutes on the pitch, they are English. How long that identity sticks after the final whistle depends on how they perform.

And even then, not everyone hands it out. For some, minority players are never English. They’re simply representing England. A small distinction that says a lot. You can wear the shirt, sing the anthem and carry a nation’s hopes onto the pitch, and still not be counted as one of its people. Represent, but don’t belong.

Maybe that’s where Britishness comes in. Those who draw that line would say they’re not denying anyone’s citizenship: you’re British, and English is something else. On paper, it’s a tidy distinction. On the pitch, it’s harder to see the difference between playing for a people and being one of them.

In the summer of 2021, England lost the Euro 2020 final on penalties. The three players who missed, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, were young, Black and born in England. Within hours, they were facing racist abuse online.

A mural of Rashford in Manchester was defaced. Then, almost as quickly, that same mural was covered in messages of support, from people who very much saw those three young men as theirs.

Belonging, it seems, can be granted by the crowd and withdrawn by the crowd. English when you score. A monkey when you miss.

But does any of this actually matter?

In one sense, not really. The paperwork is the paperwork. I have two passports, one Nigerian and one British. Between them, they decide which countries I can visit, where I can vote and what I’m entitled to. No border officer has ever asked whether I feel English before letting me through.

To some, that’s the end of the story. Citizenship is the contract; everything else is sentiment. In theory, the law treats you the same.

But identity isn’t only lived at the border. It’s lived in every “where are you really from?” In the crowd that cheers you one week and turns on you the next. In the quiet calculation of which word to reach for when someone asks what you are. In the assumptions people make before you’ve said a word.

Your passport can say one thing while daily life says another, and a lot of us live somewhere in the gap.

Maybe that’s the most honest answer I have. The paperwork decides how you move through the world. The question decides whether you feel at home in it. Neither cancels the other out.

So, am I English?

I still don’t know. By some people’s definition, I never will be. By others’, I have been for years. Do I actually care to be English? Maybe that’s the better question.

But I do know this much: it isn’t a statement of fact. It’s a question. And for some of us, it’s one that never quite stops being asked.