Go back to your own country!!

Ever since I was a kid, i’ve always been interested in this phrase, ‘go back to your own country’ and have thought, what does it actually mean? As the United Kingdom historically is a nation full of foreigners and has been since the country’s inception, this blog post will show how at the heart of the UK other cultures have incorporated themselves into the British Isles.

 

If most of the people were, in fact, to go back to their countries, there would be a shortage of people to do jobs such as hospitality, cleaning, or even people working in fast food chains. Immigrants have been part of the British makeup since this country began. With various battles, occupations such as the Roman empire, the UK is what it is today because of all the foreign influences and people who flock to its green and pleasant shores.

The Queen and the royal family themselves are not 100%’British’ and they rule the country, albeit constitutionally. Prince Phillip was a Prince of Greece, and the royal family only changed their surnames to Windsor after World War One, due to fighting with their German cousins they thought it wouldn’t be patriotic to keep their Saxe-Coburg Gotha title. The house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha shows the German origins of the British royal family.

Another treasured British institution would also be threatened with deportation of sorts. Alexander Boris Johnson, whose paternal great grandfather was Turkish.

Shirley Bassey, another UK treasure being brought up in Tiger Bay, Wales; her father is rumored to be of either Caribbean or West African heritage, so should she disappear too?

After watching the BBCs Mixed Race season this October, I realised how complex the idea of British cultural identity is. Mixed race people are the fastest-growing ethnic minority group in the UK, if we were all meant to go back to their own countries, where would they go?

In short, what I’m trying to say is that the obsession of some people of people going back to their country of supposed origin should be reduced, simply because its not helpful and it doesn’t really make sense. I’m British, Sir Trevor McDonald is British, James Caan is British and lastly and lastly Diane Abbot is too. A preoccupation with ‘pure blood’ and ‘whiteness’ is counterproductive and needs to be dropped in order for us to move on as a nation.