In recent months, various public figures on the British Right have attempted to dissect the meaning of Britishness and Englishness, and what political significance these identities ought to have.
Beneath the disagreement lies a surprisingly difficult question: are these identities primarily matters of citizenship, ancestry, culture, history, or some combination of all four?
At one extreme, nationhood is treated as a form of voluntary association: a shared commitment to institutions, laws and values that can, in principle, be adopted by almost anyone.
At the other, nationhood is reduced to ancestry alone.
Of course, I find both views unsatisfactory.
Ethnicity matters.
Citizenship matters.
History matters.
Culture matters.
None is sufficient on its own.
Most important things in human life have fuzzy edges. Families do. Cultures do. Languages do. Traditions do.
Their blurred boundaries do not make them unreal.
The same is true of peoples and nations.
Ethnicity is largely a matter of ancestry, though never entirely so. Culture matters. Memory matters. Place matters. Participation matters.
This inevitably produces grey areas: people of mixed heritage, emigrants, long-established minorities, exceptional newcomers.
Reality is often untidier than theory.
The most stable structures are seldom either completely open or completely closed.
Families work this way.
Institutions work this way.
Healthy ecosystems work this way.
They preserve continuity while remaining capable of adaptation.
Their boundaries are neither walls nor voids. They are semi-permeable.
Nations seem to be much the same.
A nation incapable of change becomes brittle.
A nation incapable of continuity ceases to be itself.
This is broadly how I think about immigration.
Some immigration is both desirable and necessary. Britain has benefited from it throughout much of its history.
But it does not follow that all levels of immigration are equally desirable.
Nations are more than markets.
The question is not whether immigration should exist.
The question is one of scale, pace and sustainability.
I think about immigration rather as I think about cake.
Cake is a good thing.
The fact that cake is a good thing does not imply that more cake is always better.
Most good things involve questions of proportion.
For that reason, I support sustainable immigration and oppose mass migration.
The distinction seems important.
1. Nations are not administrative conveniences.
They are historical communities carried through time.
2. History did not begin with us.
Every generation inherits more than it creates.
3. Human beings live within layers of belonging.
Family, locality, culture, nation and humanity all matter.
4. Not everything real has sharp boundaries.
Many important realities possess gradients rather than edges.
5. Fuzzy does not mean fictional.
Imprecision is not the same thing as unreality.
6. Ethnicity is largely about ancestry, but never entirely so.
Culture, memory, attachment and participation matter as well.
7. Belonging is rarely binary.
Most identities overlap and interact.
8. Exceptions do not abolish patterns.
9. The ethnos and the polis are not identical.
Citizenship and peoplehood overlap without coinciding.
10. A passport alone cannot create a nation.
Law can recognise belonging. It cannot manufacture it.
11. Equally, nations are not bloodlines.
Living communities adapt as well as endure.
12. Continuity is a legitimate human good.
13. Healthy societies require both continuity and change.
14. Stable structures tend to have semi-permeable boundaries.
They regulate exchange without preventing it.
15. Complete openness is no more sustainable than complete closure.
16. Immigration can be beneficial while remaining limited.
17. Demography is not everything.
But neither is it nothing.
18. Citizenship should be meaningful and equal.
Once acquired, it should command equal legal status.
19. A strong in-group is not a pathology.
Shared loyalties and mutual obligations are among the foundations of social life.
20. Nations are real, but not ultimate.
They deserve loyalty, not worship.
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