The last bit was more about making the point that it can mean different things. That person tried to define it (clearly in a way that they thought would keep them in it, but exclude others).Fair point in the first paragraph.
However as you explain yourself later, you ask this question and people do tend to trip themselves up depending on their own viewpoint or perhaps prejudices.
I’m genuinely not trying to be obstreperous in a British forum but it’s something I’ve never got my head around.
I mean, were my grandparents British because they were born in a pre Republic Ireland. Were they considered so by English people. Did they consider themselves so.?
My own father was born pre the Republic, my mother just after it.
Britishness never entered the conversation over here. It’s something we don’t consider, we see ourselves as very different but 100 years ago were we considered so by mainland Britain.
I'd suggest we give leeway to the person defining themselves, but they don't get to define everyone's right to feel that this is there home. Who knows what your parents felt. There are levels of complexity with Ireland that go way beyond the Irish Mancunians I went to school with :)
I myself really don't care what people's answers are about themselves. I do understand it's importance to many immigrants, or recent descendants of immigrants as there are obviously people who would try to tell them this isn't where they belong, so being British takes on added importance.

