Yasmin Alibhai Brown: Stuff your 'British test'

A week has passed and, in spite of mollifying words from the Home Secretary, many black and brown Britons remain in a state of high upset about the humiliating debates over demands that they adhere to British "norms". The otherwise excellent report by Ted Cantle, written after the flare-ups in our northern cities this summer, recommends the establishment of an oath of allegiance for immigrants to create a cohesive society. In other words, we darkies must prove again that we are worthy of equal respect because, after all, as David Blunkett said to this paper, we are in someone else's "home". Presumably it truly belongs to the poor natives who have so long had to suffer our presence.

This is how the message has been received and it does not matter a toss what Mr Blunkett's intention may have been.

I would rather be stateless than succumb to this kind of pressure. I love London and would go to battle for it and for the country too if there was a genuine threat. But I would do that willingly and not because otherwise I might lose my right to be treated as an equal citizen.

Such fitness tests will not, I imagine, be demanded of immigrants such as Germaine Greer, Clive James, Janet Suzman, Peter Hain, Barry Humphries, Loyd Grossman, Madonna, Antonio Carluccio, Barbara Amiel, Conrad Black, Elisabeth Murdoch, and all those other white South Africans, white Zimbabweans, Australians and Americans who have magically managed to enter every one of our institutions, often doing jobs that somehow still elude black and Asian Britons. Will the people of the "four nations" be asked to sign their hearts over to the idea of Britain? If so, James Naughtie, Gordon Brown and Alun Michael had better sharpen their pencils. I can't see the good people of Glasgow being too happy about the prospect.

It's all very odd when you consider that more of our black and Asian islanders think of themselves as British than do the Scots, the Welsh or even the English. And then what about the dissenters? Will all those who are against globalisation have to sign up and agree to the exam? What will happen to republicans and those of us who loathe class deference – that defining British norm? Will our holiday hooligans have to re-take the test of what it means to be British or do they think they represent true Britishness in the way they behave? And will our government encourage Zimbabwe to ask their white citizens to live according to black "norms"?

Just before he died in 1994, Dennis Potter confessed: "I find the word 'British' harder and harder to use as time passes." The term had lost its old meanings and symbols. It is time to bury that version and plant a new vision which brings together all the tribes of Britain. That is going to be much harder to do after last week when so many of us have been made to feel like interlopers once again. The more I think about this, the more my head overheats with the absurdity of it all. Vast numbers of black and Asian Britons are more immersed in British traditions and culture than some home-grown natives.

My father, who looked like Jeremy Thorpe, loved his British passport so much he kept it in a safe in the bank and whenever he could – once between the time I was conceived and when I was 15 months old – he would run away from the family in Kampala, Uganda and come to England, where he lived like an English eccentric until the money ran out and he had to return.

I have read almost all the authors in the traditional literary canon. I can make the most wonderful Victoria sponge in the world. The vote, parliamentary democracy, the idea (if not the reality these days) of probity in public life , these are all profoundly important to me and always associated with Britishness. I am pleased, too, that I have learnt, since living here, to treat domestic pets with kindness and to give my children greater autonomy than I ever had as a child.

One of my neighbours, on the other hand, a rough chap from Yorkshire, has never read an English writer, has never voted, hates this "bloody country", eats shop-bought curries and Chinese food, has convictions for violent behaviour and a basic vocabulary of about two hundred words plus "fucking" and "shit" which he uses a lot. Just who should take Mr Blunkett's test?