No. I do not think these people are "British". And I will never apologise for thinking this way.
What a lazy hit piece reveals about competing views of Britishness
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It was only a matter of time until I became the subject of a lazy hit job. And it arrived today, in The Guardian of all places, which I take as a compliment.
The initial trigger was my decision to serve as Honorary President of Students for Reform —a new organisation for the countless number of young people in our country who have been failed by Labour and the Tories and want to save Britain.
But the real focus of The Guardian’s attack on me is something else. It’s what I said after a string of terrorist attacks in our country against the British people.
It is about what it means to be British.
As you might recall, after the brutal murders of Rhiannon Whyte, Wayne Broadhurst, and Gurvinder Johal, all of whom were killed by illegal migrants who should never have been in Britain to begin with, and then the mass stabbing on a London-bound train by a Black “British” man, I wrote the following:
“Why is this happening? Because our so-called ‘leaders’ have been importing millions of people from highly violent, conflict-ridden, and, yes, inferior ‘honour cultures’ from the Third World, where settling grievances through violence is standard. As the academic Garrett Jones points out in his book: “When a nation imports people, it imports the average cultural traits of those people”. Mass uncontrolled immigration is not just the importing of people; it is the importing of cultures … migrants do not instantly adopt the host country’s ‘British’ or ‘English’ culture and identity the moment they sign a few papers”.
When somebody then responded on X, pointing out that the man who had committed the mass stabbing was “British”, I responded: “So were all of the 7/7 bombers. It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody ‘British’.”
Which prompted The Guardian, predictably, to accuse me of that thing that has been expanded to such an extent it now means nothing at all — “racism”.
And prompted the Liberal Democrats to pile in, too, calling this “blatant racism” —presumably because the Liberal Democrats, like the Left, view terrorists, mass murderers, rape gang members and Islamists as being just as “British” as you or I.
Well, here is something you don’t hear much these days in our new culture of victimhood and cancellations.
I stand by every word.
I stand by every single word.
Because while the “men” who blew up British children and their parents at a pop concert in Manchester, who blew up British commuters on the London Tube, who launched a mass stabbing of British people on a train, who beheaded one of our soldiers on Britain’s streets, who systematically rape our children on an industrial scale, and who killed those poor little girls in Southport might have a British passport, they are not one of us, sorry.
A nation, as conservative philosopher Sir Roger Scruton once said, is not just a contract —it is not just a set of legal documents.
A nation is our home.
It is a community of attachment, defined by a strong emotional, moral, and cultural bond to the country and its people.
This is what the Left and liberal centrists, who insist that anybody can become British or English the moment they sign a piece of paper, have never understood, of course.
To be British, to be English, is to identify emotionally with us, and our people, not just hold a passport. Citizenship is not the same thing as belonging; and belonging requires more than just a piece of paper.
To belong is to feel what Scruton called “oikophilia”, a love of our home —to become part of our shared cultural inheritance, our moral bond to the country, and to feel a loyalty to our country and civilisation that transcends loyalties to anything else.
Belonging is not a series of rights that can be weaponised; true belonging, real belonging, involves embracing our cultural legacy and inheritance.
It means entering into what Edmund Burke called the “partnership across generations” —a strong bond between our ancestors who are no longer with us, those who are here today, and those who are yet to be born.
It is a burden of loyalty, a commitment to continue the obligations and culture that have we inherited from our ancestors, and a duty to preserve this inheritance so that it can be passed on to those who are yet to arrive —our children and their children.
You do not have to be white to feel this way about Britain, which is a nationality, though it is also true that Englishness is an ethnicity.
Many people from minority ethnic backgrounds, who have been here for generations, do feel this way about Britain. I know many of them.
They are as outraged as I am about the horrors of the rape gangs, our open borders, and the extreme policy of mass uncontrolled immigration.
But the people I am pointing to —the terrorists, the murderers, the rape gangs, the Islamists, the people who very clearly hate who we are—do not feel this way.
Far from it.
They refuse to integrate into our home. They refuse to assimilate. They certainly do not feel any emotional attachment to our people.
They despise our country and our people and so instead of “oikophilia”, the love of home, they display “oikophobia”, a deep hatred of who we are.
By murdering our own people, by declaring war on our country, they are literally telling us their first loyalty lies elsewhere, not with us.
They might be formally British. They might be administratively British. They might hold a passport, but they are no longer part of our nation.
They have removed themselves from our moral community and our shared life. They have repudiated, they have rejected, the conditions that make somebody British.
The Left might call them “British citizens”, but they are not fulfilling the obligations of citizenship; they have declared war against those obligations.
They do not belong because they do not want to belong.
Indeed, were Aristotle here today, an ancient thinker who stressed the importance of contributing to the common good and showing loyalty to the political community, then nor would he consider these people to be true citizens.
Why?
Because they have openly severed the bond of citizenship.
And so too, by the way, have significant numbers of other “British” nationals in our country who openly choose another identity over our own —who openly say, in the census, they prefer not to identify with a British, English, or UK identity.
If you feel no emotional bond to a country, its people, and its identity then you do not truly belong to that community.
While you might have a passport, a few bits of paper, and while the ruling class might call you “British”, if you do not emotionally identify with us, if you do not share our identity, if you do not assimilate into our culture, if you do not speak our language, then you are not truly one of us.
I will simply never stop thinking this way —no matter how many lazy hit jobs and attacks come my way. I will never apologise for my views.
And I will certainly never apologise to the Left —which has spent the last 30 years trying to bully, harass and intimidate anybody who refuses to embrace this incredibly warped and self-destructive view of who we are.
A worldview that would happily reduce Britishness and Englishness so they mean nothing at all. A worldview that tells you the only thing that defines who we are is ‘diversity’, which is the same thing as saying we have no identity of our own.
A worldview that would have you believe there is no difference between that “British” national and “nice boy from Cardiff”, Axel Rudakubana, and the British people.
That there is no difference between the “British” suicide bombers of Pakistani descent who blew themselves up in London, and the British people they murdered.
That there is no difference between the “British” national Jihad Al-Shamie, who went on a murderous rampage at a synagogue in Manchester, and the two British people he murdered and the many more British people he hoped to kill.
And that there is no difference between the “British nationals of Nigerian descent”", Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, who murdered and beheaded Lee Rigby on the streets of Woolwich, and the British people who watched on in absolute horror.
The Left, the Liberal Democrats, the liberal centrists, and much of the ruling class consider these people to be just as British as you and I. They believe that a nation, a country, is merely a set of administrative rules —not a living community.
They think a nation is a Human Resources department; that the moment somebody steps onto our soil and is given the right piece of paper they immediately become just as “British” as everybody else —no matter how much chaos and carnage they unleash on the country and their fellow citizens around them.
And so they want to build a country that will destroy itself from within; that will, over time, become defenceless against people who reject its norms, despise its culture, repudiate its identity, and refuse to integrate. They want outsiders to enjoy the same rights as us while rejecting the responsibilities we have to our country.
I reject this —completely.
I refuse to accept that Islamist extremists like Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale are just as “British” as the soldiers who fight for Britain, like Lee Rigby.
And so too, I bet, judging from the reaction to my statement, do the vast majority of British and English people who are utterly sick and tired of being told by the left-wing and liberal centrists that they must tolerate people who do not tolerate them.
So, make no mistake. I will always stand up for the British and the English people. I will always speak up for them. I will never apologise. I will never back down.
No matter how many lazy hit jobs come my way.
I think you need to look on the condemnation of the Guardianistas and the usual low lifes who inhabit the same tiny bubble, as a badge of honour. And in fact, the more they speak, the more they show themselves up for the narrow minded bigots they are. I wonder if they’ll be saying the same if a migrant hotel is put next door to them.
Well said Matt, the vast majority of people who actually inhabit the real world and can see the damage that is being done, are with you. Keep speaking, you speak for us all.
It’s refreshing to see you not apologise and instead stand by your convictions. From JD Vance to Rupert Lowe and even Sydney Sweeny! This is the way. Please tell Nigel. He should have backed Pochin as she just said what everyone is thinking and he looks weak to constantly genuflecting to the MSM who hate him any way.