White People In The United Kingdom

White people in the United Kingdom are a multi-ethnic group of UK residents who identify as and are perceived to be white people. White people constitute the historical and current majority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with 87.2% of the population identifying as white in the 2011 United Kingdom census. This represented a national white demographic decline from a 92.1% share of the UK's population in 2001.

The Office for National Statistics designates white people into several subgroups, with small terminology variations between the administrative jurisdictions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These are local: White British, White Irish, White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, and immigrant descended Other White, and in Scotland; White Polish. In Northern Ireland ethnic group data is collected differently, where only the term 'White' is used, and with National Identity ('British', 'Irish', 'Northern Irish', or combinations) collected separately.

British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, and can influence who may be defined, whether informally, in media and academia, or UK Government statistics, as white Britons or white British people. Millions of white people in the United Kingdom, who hold British citizenship, do not identify with the White British ethnicity classification (or its subgroups, such as 'White English', 'White Welsh' or 'White Scottish') at censuses.

Outside of the census, white people in Great Britain are the subject of academic research, public discourse in international and British media, and are widely identified as a broad racial or social class within the country.

Terminology and background

White people in the United Kingdom are studied, polled, and analyzed as a demographic, anthropological, economic, and social grouping. The scope of the definition often exceeds categorisation by the Office for National Statistics, and its ethnicity or nation-defined subcategories, such as White British or White Polish.

Census

Within the Census in the United Kingdom, the Office for National Statistics collects information on white people who are resident in the United Kingdom, regardless of citizenship status. As censuses have progressed each decade, further categories have been included to accommodate subgroupings of white people in the country. As of the 2011 census, these subgroups are White British, White Irish, White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, White Polish (in Scotland), and Other White. There are small variations between the phrasing or terminology of these categories across the administrative regions of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Use in academia and government

A multitude of scholars, academics, statisticians, and scientists, as well as government departments, think tanks, trade unions, and charities, have identified white people in the United Kingdom as an observable demographic, historical, anthropological, economic, social and racial grouping.

In governmental terms, the UK Government uses the category of white people to help define and understand demography in the country. The Office for National Statistics collects census information on white people. Devolved administrations, such as the Scottish Government and Welsh Government make use of the racial category for social and equality impacts. Ministerial departments such as the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, non-ministerial, such as the Cabinet Office and office for Mayor of London, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, and public bodies such as the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and UK Statistics Authority, have produced research and analysis on, what they have defined as, white persons within the country.

Academic, research and statistical organisations, such as British Election Study, NatCen Social Research and ICM Research, Savanta ComRes, define and categorise whites living in the UK, in order to study and poll respondents of all backgrounds. Think tanks, including the Policy Studies Institute, Resolution Foundation, Smith Institute and Social Issues Research Centre, utilise the grouping of white people in the United Kingdom, along with Stroke Association and Trades Union Congress.

Sociologists, social scientists, and academics of race and ethnicity, such as Peter J. Aspinall, Richard Dyer and Mary J. Hickman identify whites in Britain as an intersecting social and racial category.

Homogeneity myths and exclusions

Anthropologists Jeanette Edwards, Gillian Evans and Katherine Smith published in 2012:

Anthropological studies that have focused on white people in Britain have, however, undermined the imagined homogeneity of white Britishness, particularly with respect to differences of class and territorial affiliation. For example, Ronnie Frankenberg’s (1957) ethnography of a mining village in North Wales in the 1950s showed sharp divisions, made locally, between insiders and outsiders, and this division is repeated over again in subsequent ethnographic examples from Britain (e.g., Edwards 2000; Rapport 1993; Strathern 1981).

University of the West of Scotland's Chris Gilligan argues that; "The idea that White people in the United Kingdom constitute a race or ethnic group is based on racialised thinking. It works with the logic of the race relations framework, it does not challenge it." In her 2015 research, University of Southampton fellow Rosalind Willis studied the intersection of the White Irish category in England, where there have been examples of distinctions made against the White British which are culturally rejected or ignored. In this regard, professor Mary J. Hickman has written how a combination of othering the ethnic Irish, and a presupposition of the positivity of integration, has provided "tacit support for the 'myth of homogeneity' of white people in Britain".

Demographics

White people are the current and historical majority of the United Kingdom's population. The 2011 United Kingdom census recorded 51,736,290 of White British, 585,087 of White Irish, 63,193 of White Gypsy or Irish Traveller, 61,201 of White Polish (in Scotland only), and 2,107,195 of Other White ethnicity, making a total white population of 55,073,552 or 87.2 per cent of the total population. These figures did not include self-reported people of mixed ethnicity.

The 2011 population represented a 919,654 increase on the 2001 United Kingdom census figures. Two of the three subcategories (White British and White Irish), which had existed in 2001, rose in their own right, representing outright population growth for those ethnic groups. The Other White population fell by 508,227. The overall share of the population constituted a national white demographic decline, with a falling share of the UK's white populace from 92.1% to 87.2%.
File:White total percentage of UK in 1991.svg, 1991 (94.65%)
File:2001 White population in local authorities.svg, 2001 (92.12%)
File:White percentage UK wide.svg, 2011 (87.17%)

Population in constituent nations of the United Kingdom

Population in metropolitan areas

File:White Coventry 2011 census.png, alt=, Coventry
File:White Bristol 2011 census.png, alt=, Bristol
File:White Glasgow 2011 census.png, alt=, Glasgow
File:White Leeds 2011 census.png, alt=, Leeds
File:White Sheffield 2011 census.png, alt=, Sheffield
File:White Slough 2011 census.png, alt=, Slough
File:White Bradford 2011 census.png, alt=, Bradford
File:White Luton 2011 census.png, alt=, Luton
File:White Nottingham 2011 census.png, alt=, Nottingham
File:White Leicester 2011 census.png, alt=, Leicester
File:White Birmingham 2011 census.png, alt=, Birmingham
File:White Greater Manchester 2011 census.png, alt=, Greater Manchester
File:White Greater London 2011 census.png, alt=, Greater London

Population in counties

File:White West Yorkshire 2011 census.png, alt=, West Yorkshire
File:White West Midlands 2011 census.png, alt=, West Midlands

Education

In the 1991 census, white people were recorded as the most likely group to have tertiary education. By the 2001 census, this had changed, with British African-Caribbean females, and British Indian men and women, becoming more likely to be qualified to that level.

Based on the 1994 Policy Studies Institute's NSEM survey, an International Migration Review-published study determined a factor of this shift, finding that between the ages of 21–64, 13.8% of British Hindus held a higher education, versus what the study defined as 11.3% of "White Christians" in Britain. The Welsh Government's 2007 ''Minority Ethnic Youth Forum Report'' found that, based on 2005 ONS data; "Interestingly, Chinese, Black African, Indian and Other Asian groups are more likely to have degrees than white people in the UK."

History

British Empire

The history of the racial classification of white people has its roots in the establishment of European colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas, where they encountered and lived alongside people of colour. The United Kingdom Historian Marika Sherwood writes that while there is no implication that "all whites in Britain were or became imbued with racism"; the classification of the "white race" rose in the nineteenth century due in part to the increasing rise of the eugenics and scientific racism movements of thought, with anthropologists classifying whites as distinct and separate race from other races such as Africans and Asians.

After physician John Fothergill disparagingly referred to them as "nabobs"; in 1767, the ''Daily Gazetteer'', within the context of their return to England, made the accusation that West Indian planters (such as those involved with the East India Company) were corrupting Britain's political system, and who "being bred the tyrants of their slavish blacks, may endeavour to reduce the white n Britainto the same condition by an aristocracy".

Interwar and post-WWII periods

Social scientist Peter J. Aspinall has analyzed how interracial marriage in the UK, as a phenomenon, caused societal reactions from whites in the interwar, and post-World War II periods. These included violence and racism against African-American GIs, Chinese seamen, and towards children from their relationships with white women. Aspinall, an expert in ethnicity, wrote:

Such experiences were shared by interracial people, couples and families throughout the twentieth century with their mere presence provoking or exacerbating the violence of white people in Britain, as evidenced during the numerous ‘race riots’, disturbances and attacks that occurred throughout the period.

This post-war period of history was recognised by Mill Hill School's marking of Black History Month, when the London school published a short history of the Windrush generation, including the abuse received by arrivals such as Floella Benjamin, exploring how; "Unfortunately, many white people in Britain did not welcome the new arrivals and Floella, and many like her were faced with hatred and cruelty." Politician Enoch Powell, who became known for his anti-immigrant Rivers of Blood speech, has been identified by some media as an early source of defining white people as a racial interest group within Britain. In 1971, Powell had argued that “whites are being held back to accommodate the Asiatics and blacks".

Late 20th century

According to the ONS's quarterly ''Labour Force Survey'', in 1993-1994 white people undertook more employer‐funded training per capita than minority groups in the UK. Analysis by economists, Michael Shields and Stephen Wheatley Price, suggested that the situation may represent a failure in United Kingdom employment equality laws. Anthony Lester, a key contributor to such legislation, stated in 1991 that "White people in Britain don't have the legacy of guilt about the past as there is in America about the period of slavery, even though there is plenty to be guilty about".

In another comparison of the two nations, while accepting that "any portrait of Britain as a haven of multicultural understanding and friendship among different groups is an exaggeration"; University of Maryland professor Eric Uslaner has observed that "the effect of segregation on civic norms is far more pronounced for whites in the United States compared to whites in Britain." Scholar Ron Walters also stressed the significance of correlation between white majorities and their behavioural patterns in the UK and US. Lecturer Clarence Lusane has written of Walter's use of themes, such as the "cultural similarity with regard to racial attitudes of Whites in Britain and the United States" and also, "the reception by the White host societies" towards black communities.

21st century

The 2008 BBC
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