Some cheeky person commented on an image i made parodying the BNP’s Nick Griffin, suggesting that I should read the UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE RIGHTS OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES and expand my mind.

As a student of archaeology I find the notion of an indigenous British population frankly amusing, so I thought I might offer my thoughts and response on the matter regurgitated here

…since it’s first occupation several millennia ago Britain has been a rich mixture of people featuring a diverse range of origins, races, ethnic backgrounds and beliefs.

So, it all depends on how you define indigenous.

• Do you mean the African hominids that first appeared on the British landmass, long before it was a separated from Europe?
• Perhaps the Germanic hunter-gatherers who settled here after crossing the channel during the last Ice Age?
• The Romans who immersed and bred themselves into Iron Age society after 42AD?
• Maybe the northern-Germanic tribes – the Angles and Saxons from which the term Anglo-Saxon (and ‘England’) derives – that settled Britain in the post-Roman period?
• Possibly the Norse that dominated large parts of northern and eastern Britain in the 9th and 10th centuries?
• Per chance the French Norman invaders who arrived in 1066?
• The Saxe-Coburg and Gotha – sorry – Windsors that currently rule Brittania?
• Or are you referring to the members of the Commonwealth countries that arrived – invited – to help rebuild post-war Britain?
• Maybe our European cousins who have arrived in Britain keen to make a life for themselves by putting in a hard day’s work?

But then again I’m perhaps not entitled to comment. I was born in England the grandson of a German refugee who came here in the Second World War to escape the threats of a nation that feared and had turned against anyone that was different from an artificial ideal manufactured by a mad man.

Britain was a nation that welcomed her, protected her and accepted her. If these qualities ever desist to apply then I’ll be on the first boat out of here.

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