• Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Residence does not suffice: you’re a Briton if you have British nationality (no matter of which of the 4 nations) so people have to apply for British nationality after at least a certain time as resident (5 years for Indians and a few other nationals, 10 for most foreigners) plus there are other mechanisms to get British nationality (for example, for descendants - resident or otherwise - of people born in Northern Ireland).

    I lived for over a decade in Britain as an EU citizen but I’m not and never was a Briton since I never applied for British nationality.

    • palordrolap@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      Maybe not in any legal sense, no. How people and even news media use it, there’s plenty of wiggle room.

      e.g. allowing the ambiguity of “British home owner” to go unclarified, that is as “home owner who is British” as opposed to “owner of a home in Britain”, and any similarly loose interpretations that go along with or derive from that.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I don’t remember ever hearing “Brit” or “Brits” being used for immigrants in Britain and definitelly heard it used for when Britons are living abroad as immigrants (in fact when living in The Netherlands I had some colleagues who were in their own words “Brits”)…

        Always thought it was just another way of saying British and not going into the specifics of which nation in Britain did people come from (the whole “nations” thing for people abroad is generally irrelevant or even misunderstood).