The New Age Patriots Protecting Indigenous English Society (A.K.A. the NAPPIES) are forever in a lather about foreigners coming in and "diluting" English culture. Which ought be laughable, because Englishness is basically the cultural equivalent of a particularly badly arranged smörgåsbord where everybody's chucked a bit in 'cos chef was off sick.
Where do I start? With the Celts, who wandered over from mainland Europe long before Brexit, bringing hill forts, tribal politics, and the awkward notion that women could be leaders? Boudica, the most famous descendant of those early immigrants, was certainly influential - her attitude to foreigners invading our southern beaches is still popular with some folk.
...the natives were so revolting every town had to be a fortified bloody encampment.
The Romans came despite Boudica's influence though, bringing a mature society with them that was already multicultural, from an empire that stretched from Spain to Syria and from North Africa to the Rhine. They swanned in and named places things like Lancaster, from castra, meaning “camp”, because the natives were so revolting every town had to be a fortified bloody encampment designed to keep them out.
Before they buggered off though they did do some cool things that the locals hadn't yet gotten round to. Like building some straight roads, and popularising central heating, baths, and a taste for wine. Thank goodness we eventually became better at adopting roads and baths than we were at learning to make wine.
England is literally named after immigrants.
Then the Angles and Saxons turned up and parked their boats on the east coast, took one look around, and decided the place ought to be called Angle-land. The name stuck. England is literally named after immigrants. They named a lot of the places that didn't already have Roman names and changed the whole bloody language. Frankly, if that's not successful integration I don't know what is.
It was only another couple of centuries before the Vikings turned up in their boats. They were a mixed bag. Some of them came to trade, some to settle and contribute to the local economy through their farming skills. Others were more entrepenurial, using a more aggressive axe-wielding business strategy to extract quicker returns on their investment. Eventually the 'English' decided it was better to negotiate terms with them than spend glorious summer weekends locked in a constant stream of head-to-sword disputes. In the end, many of them integrated so successfully that half the country still has Viking place names and everyone celebrates the heritage of Jorvik.
...it was down to the bloody Normans to rebrand English civilisation.
Then after a few centuries during which hardly anybody seemed particularly keen to move here, it was down to the bloody Normans to rebrand English civilisation. Basically, in 1066 a different bunch of Vikings with delusions of grandeur, having spent a few generations living it up in France, came across the Channel in small boats to rescue us from ourselves. Suddenly all the peasants were still eating cow, pig, and sheep, but the lords were dining on beef, pork, and mutton. Voilà, the English class system immortalised in the menu. By now the English language had turned into the linguistic equivalent of a kebab shop at 2 a.m.: crowded, messy, and offering a mix of a dozen different cuisines.
Speaking of food, come the 17th century you've got Dutch engineers draining the fens to make some of the best farmland in the world, while the local peasants are revolting again because they want to protect their right to wallow thigh deep in mud and live on eels.
The Jews taught us about finance, and the Muslims would teach us about the evils of usury. The Huguenots taught us to weave silk, the Irish built half the bloody railways and most of the canals, while the West Indians helped us rebuild it all after World War 2 and gave us carnivals and sound systems as a bonus for good measure.
Englishness...was built through integration and adaptation.
As for “pure” English culture? Spare me! Morris dancing probably started as pagan fertility rites, football is a globalised circus of overpriced mercenaries, and even warm beer probably owes something to Belgian monks who hadn't yet perfected "lagering".
The truth is Englishness wasn't preserved through purity, it was built through integration and adaptation.
The Celts arrived, the Romans franchised the place, the Angles renamed it, the Vikings diversified it, the Normans rebranded it, and the Dutch, Jews, Muslims, Huguenots and Irish helped build its modern economy while the West Indians helped rebuild it.
That's how we became English.
So the next time the NAPPIES get their nappies in a twist about migrants "diluting" Englishness, remind them that England is dilution. It's one long cultural cocktail, shaken by Romans, stirred by Normans, garnished by curry houses, and served lukewarm in a pint glass with chips on the side.
Not only that, it is ENGLISHNESS, not Irishness, Welshness or Scottishness, and abso-fucking-lutely not Britishness.
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