Key facts
- The bill would require England's census ethnic group question to offer an English option in every category.
- About 11% of the UK-born population in England and Wales, about 5 million people, are from a minority ethnic background.
- Scotland and Wales censuses offer options such as Scottish Asian and Black Welsh; England offers English only under White.
- Babarinde said 60% of England's World Cup squad would not technically be classified as English on the census.
- Braverman said Englishness is an ethnicity and that it is not racist to say so.
- Zia Yusuf said the argument that Ashley Cole is not English does not hold water with him.
Liberal Democrat president Josh Babarinde is launching a cross-party push to broaden the ethnicity options in England's census so that Britons can define themselves as both Black and English, with MPs set to back a 10-minute rule bill on November 10, 2026.
The bill would require the ethnic group question in future censuses in England to give respondents in every category the option to identify as English. In England, the ethnic group question offers English only within the White category, although about 11% of the UK-born population in England and Wales, about 5 million people, are from a minority ethnic background. Asian, Black, mixed and other respondents can describe themselves as British, for example Asian or Asian British, but have no option to describe themselves as English. The census in Scotland and Wales offers options such as Scottish Asian and Black Welsh.
Babarinde said: "I'm a proud Englishman and Englishness is about more than the colour of your skin." He added: "Most people in this country already agree that you don't have to be White to be English. Just look at the England football team. But our census hasn't properly caught up." The MPs say the current definition means 60% of England's World Cup squad would not technically be classified as English on the census.
The bill has backing from the former deputy prime minister David Lammy, the former foreign secretary James Cleverly, the Conservative Mark Pritchard, the Lib Dem chair of the health select committee Layla Moran, Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, Labour's Adam Jogee and the Lib Dems' Munira Wilson. Ten-minute rule bills rarely become law but are used by MPs to raise particular matters of policy.
MPs backing the change have been critical of comments from the Reform UK MP Suella Braverman, a former Conservative home secretary, who said she did not consider herself ethnically English because of her south Asian heritage. Braverman said she did not take "a 'laissez-faire, anything-goes' attitude to ethnicity, citizenship and identity" and that "Englishness is an ethnicity." She added: "And no, it's not racist to say this."
Braverman's comments have drawn criticism even within Reform UK. The party's chair, Zia Yusuf, distanced himself from her view, saying: "I'm a Chelsea fan and in my view Ashley Cole is the best English fullback in history, and I won't take any other position. So in my view, Ashley Cole is English. The argument that he's not English doesn't hold water with me."