We Are Not YOU.

I had been Christmas shopping, a mighty marathon trip that took me to Peterborough then backtracking to Leicester, before finally home.

Leicester had a great vibe. It's a vibrant multi-cultural city, as this Wiki entry attests:

"Leicester has a large ethnic minority population, mainly from China, Hong Kong and the Indian subcontinent. There are many Hindu mandirs, Sikh gurudwaras and Muslim mosques around the city, mostly converted from existing buildings. The Jain Temple in Leicester is near the city centre (The Jain Centre). The area around Belgrave Road is known as the Golden Mile, and contains many Indian restaurants, jewellery shops, and other shops catering to the large Indian community in the neighbourhood. Many people travel to the area specifically for the restaurants, which serve authentic Indian cuisine. The annual Diwali celebrations are also held here and at the nearby Abbey Park, and are the biggest outside of India. There are also many of Afro-Caribbean descent (mainly from Antigua & Barbuda, Montserrat and Jamaica), the community being centred around Highfields to the south-east of the city centre, and Leicester plays host to the second largest Caribbean Carnival in the UK after Notting Hill. Since 2004, a large number of eastern Europeans and Africans have also moved here."

It was lovely, mingling in the market, with all the food smells wafting over. I was most surprised at one point to stumble across a small demonstration taking place. A small number of white people were standing by the clock tower holding placards which had just one message. One message only.

"We Are The English"

Some were draped in the flag of St. George. And that was it, more or less. They didn't seem to be canvassing for anything in particular and I didn't much care to ask what they were doing. It seemed provocative to me, given the location. When I got home, I googled around to see what it was all about. I found this:

"What is the purpose of the 'We Are The English' demo?The purpose of the demonstration is to gather some members of the Indigenous English community who reside in Leicester together, who all feel that they are being ignored by the authorities in Leicester and so want to make it known that we are here with a little show of hands and for me to post a protest letter addressed to the Leader of the Leicester City Council - Ross Willmot, at the Leicester City Council buildings. 5 or 10 years ago you would be hard pressed to find one English person to assert their Indigenous English identity in Leicester due to the sickening PC brain washing climate in which the English are demonised for doing so, but times are changing.
What will be the content of the protest letter?It will state that the indigenous English are here and have wishes, needs and sensitivities to be addressed, we don't wish to live in fear of asserting our identity and asking for our wishes and needs to be addressed any longer.A copy of the Test census 2007 form, in which you can tick a box for being ethnic English, will accompany this letter.(Ethnic English = indigenous English - English race.)
Where and when is the ‘WE WE ARE THE ENGLISH’ demo?Leicester’s City Centre Clock Tower, at 2pm on Sunday the 21st of December.at 4.00pm (Or sooner if all want to due to the cold English winter weather!) the demonstration will walk from the Clock Tower, up Gallowtree Gate, turning off at a right turn onto Belvoir St, proceeding up to stop at the New Walk Leicester City Council buildings where the demonstration ends."

I was disgusted, as an Englishman, that they felt they needed to do this. It wasn't a particularly articulate demonstration. They appeared self-conscious as they stood in the German market, which was selling pancakes and sausages, spicy and plain. They shuffled from foot to foot, obviously keeping it low key as an assertion of their democratic right to demonstrate and to appease the small police presence around the place.
I mused for a while on why I felt so much distaste for the event. Is this a true mark of my Englishness? For would I feel so chastened if it was any other ethnic group holding such a demonstration? Are we, the English, really under threat? Do we, the English, really need to reclaim our national identity? Personally speaking, I do not think so, one jot. I felt ashamed as I watched the cornucopia of nationalities pass by, looking quizzically at this display of English ethnicity.

How the irony wasn't lost on me when if I turned my head to the left I could see Asian families smiling with admiration, taking pictures of their children enjoying the fairground rides and if I turned my head to the right I saw my countrymen standing for their rights, imposing their Englishness, stood in the entrance to the festive German bier garden, drinking bier, shrouded in the cross of St. George, proclaiming "We are the English".

Of that, there was no doubt.