What is ‘identity’? How does it help in the construction of ‘Britishness’? Why is the ‘identity of Britishness problematic’? The recent past has witnessed an array of humanists and social science scholars embroiled in the effort of deducing the notion of ‘identity’. New endeavours have been devoted by eminent scholars, who have radically questioned the ‘identity politics’ of race, gender and sexuality. In the arena of nationalism the notion of ‘identity’ is treated with utmost importance(Korostelina, 2008). The concept of ‘state identity’ plays a pivotal role in the field of state sovereignty(Morgan, 2008). In fact in the sphere of politics ‘identity’ instigates the scholars to critically approach the arguments, concerning gender, nationality, sexuality and ethnicity (Taylor, 1989). However, the paradox lies in the fact that despite this vast ranging curiosity, concerning ‘identity’, the notion has always been successful in remaining an enigma in itself. Perhaps Philip Gleason’s (1983) observations can be considered as a truth till date. ‘Identity’ is a recent construction and complexities lie at its core. Thus, it is immensely difficult to arrive at an answer to the question ‘what is identity?’ Therefore, given the centrality of the problem; especially in the social science, where ‘identity’ is regarded both as an explanatory force and a thing in itself; the ontological search of the character of ‘identity’ almost tantamount to a scandal! To minimize the problems one would like to simply focus on the venture of arriving at a concise meaning of the term, in simple language (Hall, 1989). This effort will, to certain extent, provide justice to our present intention. Let us assume that ‘identity’ can be broken down in to two broad categories. The first being ‘social’ and the second one can be stated as ‘personal’. What does one mean by ‘social identity’? By ‘social identity’ one is attempting to link ‘identity’ with a ‘social category’, which can be referred as a group of persons, who are guided by rules and distinguished by characteristics attributes. By ‘personal identity’ one means the unchangeable distinguishing characteristics, which marks a person as different in a particular social group (Jenkins, 1996). Therefore, the present incarnation of ‘identity’ has a double layer of meaning attached to its garb. It can both be referred as a characteristic feature of a social category and also to uniqueness of an individual person, residing in a social group. However, ‘social identity’ and ‘personal identity’ is not always necessarily linked to each other and can be treated as two different independent categories. Nonetheless, at times it has been observed that the ‘identity’ of the social category is interspersed with the characteristics of an individual (Jenkins, 1996). In fact sometimes it is the ‘social identity’ which aids in the construction of the ‘personal identity’. Thus, at times it becomes intensely difficult to segregate and compartmentalize these two categories in to two separate parts. Consequently, at times it becomes difficult to compartmentalize this notion of ‘identity’ into different parts. This paper commences with the question of ‘identity’ and one has already discussed how difficult it is to segregate ‘personal identity’ from ‘social identity’. However, the chief issue, which forms the crux of this paper, is the problematic ‘identity of Britishness’. When we talk of ‘Britishness’ are we simple referring to a ‘social identity’? The term ‘Britishness’ evokes a picture of geo-political space along with social space and that is why it will be quite wrong on our part to regard ‘Britishness’ simply as a case of ‘social identity’. Rather, ‘Britishness’ is created out of the interspersion of ‘social’ as well as ‘national identity’. What is ‘national identity’? Perhaps one of the simplest ways to define ‘national identity’ is a sense of a shared culture among people, inhabiting within a particular geo-political space. However, is this definition equally lucid in reality? Before we delve into the problematic ‘identity of Britishness’ let us look into the different characteristics which help in the construction of ‘identity’(Andreouli and Howarth, 2012). The above paragraphs have dealt with the ramification of the attempt to segregate ‘identity’ into different categories. However, it is essential to consider the characteristics, which construct ‘identity’, as the characteristic features help in cognition of a particular notion. What are chief characteristics, which construct ‘identity’? The followings can be considered as the chief characteristic features on which ‘identity’ has thrived: Geography People Language National Symbol Values and Attributes Cultural Habitats Citizenship A close speculation can