I'm sorry you were disappointed that I asked for the quote to be removed, so let me explain. I'm sure that most of your members are good, tolerant people (well, I hope they are, even if I'm not sure), but there were a few words on the group's website that made me wish not to be associated. I'm English (well, half Canadian) and proud of it, and love England and her ways, but one of the things I like most about England is her tolerance, and when I read 'Ethnicity is a matter of biological and historical fact and is not changed by the culture in which a person grows up' I have to say it struck me as prejudicial against folk of a different colour (indeed the website makes a point of saying that 'physical appearance' is a marker of English ethnicity) and I'm fairly sure that folk of a different colour can be as English as I am. Now, plainly, some people would disagree, and I'd advert you (a favourite phrase of the Duke of Wellington) to Daniel Defoe's poem 'The True-Born Englishman' - here's an excerpt:
The Romans first with Julius Cæsar came,
Including all the nations of that name,
Gauls, Greeks, and Lombards, and, by computation,
Auxiliaries or slaves of every nation.
With Hengist, Saxons; Danes with Sueno came,
In search of plunder, not in search of fame.
Scots, Picts, and Irish from the Hibernian shore,
And conquering William brought the Normans o'er.
All these their barbarous offspring left behind,
The dregs of armies, they of all mankind;
Blended with Britons, who before were here,
Of whom the Welsh ha' blessed the character.
From this amphibious ill-born mob began
That vain ill-natured thing, an Englishman.
We're a mongrel nation, and our character comes, I hope, not from the colour of our skin, or even necessarily from our birthplace, but an adherence to those values which have been fostered and nurtured by the inhabitants of England, and chief among those virtues (for me) is tolerance. There's a wonderful man whose name, to my shame, I've forgotten - but he's a black man and he hunts with the Quorn, or maybe another of the posh packs, and dresses in a pink coat, and one day a group of hunt saboteurs faced him and said 'two hundred years ago these people would have made you a slave, so why are you joining them?', to which he answered, 'two hundred years ago my people would have eaten you. Good morning!' Now, that's a good Englishman! Wit, good manners and mind your own business.
I agree with many of your thoughts. I do believe immigrants should adapt to the society into which they come, and that England's political identity is in need of definition, though whether that requires leaving the EU is a matter on which I don’t have a particular view, but I truly believe there is a racist undercurrent to the group's website, and that is why I did not want to be associated with it.