What defines a White Briton?

Is King Charles a White Briton? What about Nigel Farage’s children? Is Boris Johnson a White Briton despite being born in New York? What defines a White Briton?

The context

On 2 August 2026, Rupert Lowe released a 12-minute video and outlined five principles whereby Restore Britain and Reform UK could agree and work together; one of these principles is that of ‘demographic security’:

It is projected that White Britons will become a minority by 2063. Nothing demonstrates the demographic vandalism of mass immigration more than that. Importing millions of people from Third World nations is changing our population in a way none of us ever wanted or voted to support.

Lowe was referring to the findings of a report by Professor Matt Goodwin of the University of Buckingham, which was released on 29 May 2025. The report projects that if recent fertility rates and levels of migration continue, White Britons will become a minority by 2063. If you expand this to include ‘White Other’, that date is pushed back 16 years, to 2079. The report also includes projections on religious identity and country of birth, projecting the foreign-born population and their descendants (second-generation migrants).

This has sparked debate on what it means to be ‘White British’.

Nick Robinson interviewed Rupert Lowe on BBC Radio 4 Today and asked:

Are you aware that, by the definitions used in that particular report, King Charles is not a white Briton? Do you think he is a white Briton?

What I was putting to you is that the basis of that forecast, which is widely disputed and based on a whole series of assumptions that none of us know whether they’ll be true or not, is that you’re only called a White Briton if both of your parents were born in this country. So, because Prince Philip was born in Greece, King Charles is not under your definition treated as a White Briton.

Rupert Lowe did not say whether he thought King Charles was a White Briton.

Fraser Nelson joined in and quoted the interview, stating:

This makes a serious point.

The ‘white Brits will be in a minority by 2065’ is a trope designed to go viral on social, to be repeated uncritically by shysters who know how it misleads.

All based on a definition of “White British” that would exclude the King. Or Nigel Farage’s kids.

The Telegraph published an article; Restore Britain is beyond the pale. The article states:

What was the cause of this bizarre evasion? Mr Lowe often quotes a prediction that white Britons will be a minority in the UK by 2063. This is based on a definition of the group that excludes anyone with a parent who was not born in the UK. So absurdly, His Majesty is left out, given that his father was born in Greece. By this logic, Winston Churchill, one of the greatest Britons, would also not make the cut.

LBC published an article; All Royals not considered ‘white British’ by Restore definition, as Princess Eugenie’s daughter born out of UK. The article states:

Restore has championed a study by Reform supporter Matt Goodwin, which has said “white Britons will become a minority by 2063”. It contains a definition that means King Charles III would also not be a “white Briton”.

Rupert Lowe, the leader of Restore Britain, has cited a report by Reform candidate Matt Goodwin, that to be a “white Briton”, both of your parents must be UK-born.

Some commentators in response to this debate have even suggested that under this definition of a White Briton, someone born on a military base to two White British parents would not be White British by virtue of not being born in the UK.

What these examples share is that they are all wrong. There is no strict definition of what defines someone as ‘White British’ — it has nothing to do with needing to have two White British parents, be born in a particular part of the UK, be born outside a military base or any other set of criteria.

Matt Goodwin, the author of the report, has stated so on X:

It is clear that neither @bbcnickrobinson (in questioning @RupertLowe10 this morning), and @FraserNelson in his tweets have not read our report properly.

Our definition of “white British” is what somebody ticked in the 2021 census. If the King filled out the census I assume he ticked white British and so is thus.

What Nick, Fraser & others are doing is conflating the ‘foreign-born’ and their descendants with self-identified status.

The discussion about white British is what people ticked in the census.

And if you use exactly the same modelling and projections as the ONS you will see that the white British will become a minority by 2063 while it will happen as early as 2050 among the under-40s.

If we take evidence seriously then Rupert not Nick was right. And as it’s my report I felt the need to get it straight! Full report below

As stated before, the Goodwin report also projects the population of the UK to 2122 by religion and country of birth. So where does this misunderstanding come from? Perhaps Fraser Nelson, Nick Robinson, The Telegraph and LBC have confused the ethnicity part of this projection with the country-of-birth projection for those who are second-generation immigrants.

However, if you read the Goodwin report in full, on page 7 it states:

Between the years 2025 and 2100, our projections suggest that the share of the population that is UK-born (i.e. who are not second-generation migrants in the projection period) will fall dramatically, from 81% to 39%, while the share of the population that is comprised of people born overseas will increase from just above 18% to almost 26%.

When the foreign-born population is combined numerically with their offspring, the combined proportion of the projected foreign born and second-generation population will rise to 33.5% of the overall UK population in 2050, 47.5% by 2075 and 60.6% by 2100.

These figures exclude any UK-born second (or later) generation migrants who were born before 2022 and any third (or later) generation migrants who were born after 2022.

Then on pages 22 – 23 in the appendix, it states:

We also need to make a few points regarding UK-born second-generation migrants.

Pre-2022 second-generation migrants, defined as UK-born individuals with at least one foreign-born parent, are not included in this analysis due to significant data limitations.

Historical birth records and census data lack consistent tracking of parental country of birth over time, with usable data only available post-1997 and restricted to foreign-born mothers until 2008, alongside absent mortality and migration details for this group.

Consequently, pre-2022 second-generation migrants may be embedded within the UK-born base population.

For post-2022 projections, second-generation UK-born migrants are estimated using births data from the foreign-born population in the UK from 2022 onward. These cohorts are aged forward with age- and sex-specific mortality rates (converted to lx values) from the ONS 2022-based NPP Principal Projection and UK-born age- and sex specific migration rates (adjustment factor -0.011) applied. The resulting second-generation population is then subtracted from the foreign-born projection annually, isolating the true size of the foreign-born population attributable solely to net migration.

This would exclude King Charles from the second-generation category, as while his father, Prince Philip, was born outside the UK, King Charles was born prior to 2022 and, as such, would not be counted as a second-generation immigrant. This also explains why the population pyramid looks so wonky, as second-generation migrants are only counted from 2022 onwards.

Nick Robinson, Fraser Nelson and countless others have misread the report or, more likely, not read it at all. Nowhere does the Goodwin report define a ‘White Briton’ as someone with two UK-born parents, or a given number of UK-born ancestors, nor does it require that the individual be born in the UK.

The Goodwin report is not the only projection showing significant White British decline in the decades ahead. David Coleman published a paper in 2010 that projected White Britons (with White Irish included) would become a minority in 2066. Coleman assumed net migration of 180,000 per year.

Lomax et al. published a paper in 2019 projecting the ethnic makeup of the UK to 2061 under three Brexit scenarios. They also merge White British and White Irish into a single group called WBI, which falls from 82.4% in 2011 to:

• 57.9% under no Brexit (net migration of 252,000 a year)

• 59.6% under soft Brexit (net migration of 185,000 a year)

• 64.5% under hard Brexit (net migration of 100,000 a year)

So, what is White British?

‘White British’ is an ethnicity classification used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and various Government departments for any individual who identifies as being ‘White’ and has an ‘English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British’ background.

The 2021 census for England and Wales was administered by the ONS, with the 2021 census for Northern Ireland administered by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and the 2022 census for Scotland administered by National Records of Scotland (NRS). For simplicity, I will focus purely on the 2021 census for England, as this is where the bulk of readers will be from and where the bulk of demographic change has occurred and will continue to occur in future.

Below is the page from the individual questionnaire form for the 2021 census for England, which contains the ethnic group question. The wording is identical in the household questionnaire, except the latter contains questions for up to five household members, rather than a single individual.

Note that the wording of the question is “What is your ethnic group?”

According to the ONS, 89% of households completed the 2021 census online. The online version of the ethnicity question differed slightly.

If completing the 2021 census online, the first question asks, “What is your ethnic group?” and displays the following options.

If you were to select “White”, the second question asks, “Which one best describes your White ethnic group or background?” and displays the following options.

Example screenshots for the 2021 census can be found here and for information on how the ethnicity questions for the 2021 census for England and Wales were developed and categorised, that can be found here.

This is all to say that ‘White British’ is an entirely self-ascribed category and always has been. If King Charles, Nigel Farage’s children and Boris Johnson identify as being ‘White’ and ‘English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British’, then they are classed as ‘White British’. If they tick something else, they will go under that respective classification.

It is incorrect for Nick Robinson, Fraser Nelson or any other journalist or commentator to state or imply otherwise.

Over 1.1 million residents in England and Wales who identified as ‘White British’ were born outside the UK. The 2021 census recorded 59,597,490 residents in England and Wales, of whom 44,355,028 (74.4%) identified as ‘White British’, with 43,198,418 (97.4%) being born in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland — leaving 1,156,610 born elsewhere. The top five countries of birth were Germany (149,838), South Africa (101,425), Poland (73,685), Romania (63,101) and the United States (59,036).

Why are they using a false definition?

There are two main reasons. The first is that these individuals do not understand how the census works or how population projections work and have not read the Goodwin report — they have honestly misunderstood what ‘White British’ refers to and relayed inaccurate information.

The second would be that this is an intentional misrepresentation to try and derail any mainstreaming of ‘White British’ decline going further. If White Britons have some stricter definition that isn’t applied to other ethnic groups and such a definition would exclude people like King Charles, Winston Churchill, Harry Kane and Farage’s own children, then who can truly define a White Briton, and if no-one can define a White Briton, how can they become a minority?