On the 25th January 2025, I published this article on the Southport murders. On the 3rd February 2025, Tom Rogers replied to this as follows:
Mr Wang,
You state this:
You allude, I think, to the “Cricket Test” suggested by Norman Tebbit—that immigrants’ loyalty to Britain can be judged by which cricket team they support. Let me be honest: I don’t know which side I would support as a general rule.
Norman Tebbit’s Cricket Test is a load of rubbish. Politicians like Norman Tebbit were part of the problem, not the solution. Like the controversial teacher Ray Honeyford, they believed that mass immigration could work, it was just that immigrants had to be better integrated. Theirs was a critique of mass immigration and the social model it resulted in, not a rejection of it.
The only criterion for whether someone is British or English is racial. Were you to belong to a kindred ethnicity of northern European descent, it would be possible to accept you as an integrated civic Briton and your children as English and British proper. That is not the case with you.
An East Asian cannot be accepted in this way. You belong to an alien race. You can never be British, nor can your children. You may obtain a passport that suggests otherwise, but that only makes you British on paper and there are lots of us who will quietly resent you for it and silently seethe about it and wait for the day when all of this nonsense can be swept aside.
It is nothing personal against you and we have no quarrel with the Chinese. You are very welcome in this country as a guest and visitor and, as far as I am concerned, you can stay as long as you like, but you are not British or English and never will be, nor will any children of yours ever be, and you should not be permitted to vote in our elections or hold prominent positions in fields that could influence the public, such as politics, local government, broadcasting, journalism and law.
Sorry.
I did write a response, but this is rather long, so I will publish it here as a separate blog entry.
Dear Mr Rogers,
Thank you for taking the time to read my article and for expressing your views so clearly. While I do not agree with you, I fully support your right to hold and articulate your opinions. Indeed, I oppose any laws that would seek to restrict your ability to state your beliefs in even stronger terms than you have done here.
That said, I must take issue with your core assertion—that membership of a nation is purely a matter of race. I do not believe that nationality is simply about possessing a passport, nor do I subscribe to the idea that it is defined solely by adherence to a list of abstract values. However, neither do I accept that it is determined exclusively by genetic descent. In reality, membership of a nation is a messy, organic process, involving an interplay of ancestry, culture, language, and historical continuity. I freely acknowledge that much of this balance tilts towards genetic propinquity, but I do not believe it to be the sole or even necessarily the most important factor.
You reject this position, and that is your right. However, we are not dealing with a question of mathematics or science, where propositions can be proven by deduction or empirical verification. We are arguing about national identity, which is not a fixed and immutable law of nature but a matter of what people collectively believe and accept over time. If everyone in Britain were to believe that an unlimited number of outsiders could arrive, go through a bureaucratic process, and immediately become as British as you are, then I agree that the concept of Britishness would be utterly devalued. There would, in effect, be no nation left. However, the reality is more nuanced. Most people are willing to accept that, over time, a small number of outsiders may enter and assimilate. The nation changes, but it does not disappear. Some may see this as an unacceptable dilution, but if enough of the population is willing to tolerate it, and if the newcomers integrate rather than behave as a hostile presence, then the reality is that this process will continue.
You state categorically that I can never be British and that neither I nor my children can ever be accepted as part of the English nation. I must, with respect, point out that you do not speak for all Britons. There are many who would disagree with you, just as there are others who might share your view. I make no special plea for recognition, nor do I seek to persuade you to accept me as something I am not. But I will say this: history provides many examples of outsiders who, through long residence, contribution, and loyalty, have become accepted members of nations that were not originally theirs by birth. This does not happen overnight, and it may not happen in every case, but it is not impossible.
You say that you have nothing against me personally and that I am welcome as a guest in your country. That is a position I can at least understand, though I do not agree with it. But you also state that I, and others like me, should not have the right to vote or to hold any position of influence in public life. This, I would argue, is where your position becomes difficult to sustain. There have been individuals of non-English ancestry who have contributed significantly to British life—whether in the arts, sciences, politics, or military service. Some, you may say, should never have been here in the first place. But the fact remains that they were here and, in many cases, were accepted by their peers and by the public. If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, then British nationality must be denied even to those who have lived in this country all their lives, born of parents and grandparents who have done the same, speak only English, and consider themselves as British as anyone else. You would create a category of permanent outsiders, people who are expected to contribute to the country but denied any say in its governance. This is not an arrangement that has ever been sustainable in the long term.
In the end, these questions are not resolved by abstract theorising but by the slow and often untidy process of national evolution. I do not demand that you change your mind. I ask only that you recognise that your view, while sincerely held, is not the only one, and that the country’s future will not be decided solely by those who share your perspective.
Indeed, I even suggest that this is one of those few issues that can be decided by counting heads. If enough people agree with you, I shall be a metic. If enough people do not agree with you, I shall be something else.
Yours sincerely,
Sebastian Wang
