Ethnic Identity is Downstream from Ancestry: The Fallacy of a Taught Englishness, By Richard Miller (Londonistan)

Historian Robert Tombs, a stalwart against the "woke-washing" of British history, has stirred controversy with his claim that English identity is a learned construct, detached from ancestry. Speaking at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation's Now & England conference and doubling down in The Telegraph, Tombs argues that anyone can "become English" through education and cultural adoption, citing Muslim girls in hijabs reciting Kipling as proof. This view, however, unravels under scrutiny, ignoring the deep ancestral roots of ethnic identity. Drawing from historical evidence, demographic realities, and cultural analyses, this blog post argues that ethnic identity, particularly Englishness, is downstream from ancestry, not a blank slate to be programmed. Tombs' vision risks diluting a distinct people's heritage into a civic checklist, paving the way for cultural erosion in an already fracturing Britain.

Ethnic identity, from antiquity to today, flows from shared ancestry, not mere exposure to cultural artifacts. As Larry Siedentop notes, ancient Greek and Roman city-states were "confederations of cults" built on families, tribes, and shared ancestors whose relics tied people to the soil. The Latin natio, rooted in birth and lineage, denotes a people bound by blood and heritage. In England, this is no abstract concept. The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (731 AD) unified Angles, Saxons, and Jutes as one English gens with a shared language and Christian faith, centuries before the Norman Conquest. By 927 AD, Æthelstan's conquest cemented England as a nation named for its people, with 90% of 1927's population tracing ancestry to that era.

This ancestral continuity shaped England's unique culture. Historian Alan Macfarlane highlights how England's nuclear family structure, avoiding cousin marriage, encouraging late marriage for love, and fostering dispersal, birthed individualism, high-trust societies, and free markets. Christianity, embedded by 660 AD, reinforced this with legal traditions like Alfred the Great's Doom Book, blending Saxon law with Biblical principles. These aren't abstract ideals anyone can adopt; they're the product of a specific people's lineage, faith, and practices over centuries.

Tombs' claim that Englishness is a "culture nation" of "shared history, customs, and emotions," ignores who created these. Institutions like the Church or Common Law didn't spring from nowhere, they were built by Anglo-Saxon Christians, whose descendants sustained them. To suggest a "blank slate" where anyone can learn to be English dismisses the ethnic foundation that makes these institutions intuitive to the English and alien to others.

Britain's demographic shift underscores why ancestry matters. In 2024, a third of children born in England and Wales had immigrant mothers, with Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh among top origins. By 2063, Britain will be minority white British, with 20% Muslim. High cousin marriage rates, 46-60% among Pakistanis in Bradford, entrench clannish loyalties, impeding integration. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's concept of "cocooning" describes how British-born Muslims, often more radical than immigrants, form enclaves rejecting Western values. Polls show 52% of British Muslims want to criminalise depictions of Muhammad, and 32% support sharia as national law, strongest among the young and educated.

This isn't assimilation. Tombs' example of hijab-wearing girls reciting Kipling misses the mark: the hijab symbolises values, subordination of women, permissible child marriage, antithetical to England's Christian-derived equality. Tacitus noted Anglo-Saxon tribes valued women's input, a tradition reflected in Common Law's inheritance rights and literature like Austen's. Islam's sharia, with half-weighted female testimony and stoning for apostasy, clashes fundamentally. Ancestry shapes these moral frameworks, English individualism versus Islamic collectivism, making "learning" Englishness a folly for those rooted in opposing traditions.

Tombs' reliance on "technical knowledge," teaching Englishness via Shakespeare or history, ignores Michael Oakeshott's "practical knowledge," passed through families. English identity isn't a curriculum; it's a lived inheritance, intuitive to those whose ancestors built it. Matt Goodwin notes younger generations, raised in a heterogeneous UK, see this clearly: identity is as salient as economics was for Tombs' era. On X, users reject "civic nationalism" as a "soulless" dilution of Englishness.

Tombs' praise for Priti Patel as an assimilated exemplar falls flat, she oversaw record migration while promoting Indian diaspora interests, hardly Churchillian loyalty. His claim that declining pub culture due to Muslim growth is "welcome multiculturalism," ignores Christopher Lasch's point; "third places" like pubs foster social trust, a casualty of clashing values. Robert Putnam's research shows diversity erodes trust, with non-Western behaviours, like littering or anti-social acts, reflecting a lack of shared civic norms.

Tombs' blank-slate view aligns with Enlightenment liberalism, assuming universal malleability. Yet, intelligence, personality, and even political leanings are partly heritable, shaped by ancestral patterns. Cousin marriage, prevalent in immigrant communities, correlates with lower IQ and clannishness, hindering integration. England's ban on consanguinity since 597 AD fostered its unique individualism, Tombs himself acknowledges this, yet denies ancestry's role.

Deracination, stripping natives of pride in their heritage, compounds the issue. Schools teach colonial guilt, framing Englishness as shameful. Without ancestral connection, the English become "stateless idiots," per Siedentop, unable to defend their culture. Meanwhile, immigrants' strong ethnic identities, reinforced by global ties, dominate.

Tombs' solution, teaching Englishness, fails against demographic momentum. By 2063, a minority white Britain faces a 20% Muslim population with divergent values. Integration is faltering: second-generation Muslims at Glastonbury boast of "dispossessing" natives. Without asserting ancestry-based identity, England risks becoming, as Tombs fears, a "tribalised" land of enclaves.

Revival demands reclaiming Englishness as an ethnic, Christian inheritance. Young conservatives, per Goodwin, are waking to this, rejecting civic platitudes. Kipling's "The Beginnings" warns of a clash if this fails. The English must honour their ancestors' sacrifices, through faith, family, and pride, or watch their nation dissolve.

https://courage.media/2025/08/13/no-you-cant-learn-to-be-english/