It has been 10 days since newly-elected Jamaican PM, Portia Simpson-Miller, called last order on Queen Elizabeth's reign as Jamaica's head of state. In the 50th anniversary year since Jamaica gained independence, the 66-year-old declared "time a come" using the Anglo-Jamaican patois of my grandmother.
Her complete quote: "I love the queen, she is a beautiful lady, a wise lady but time a come" was typical of the Jamaican middle class - defiant yet polite and betrayed Jamaica's desire for republicanism by revealing a deep-rooted identification with British monarchy and pageantry.
Jamaica is a powerhouse whose cultural product - sport, music, literature, food and style - far exceeds its population of just 2.7 million.
There are few places where Jamaica's influence has been felt greater than England where the Jamaican diaspora has defined the local spaces it settled in from Notting Hill, in London, to Handsworth, Birmingham. According to a 2007 Runnymede Research Paper forecasting the population's demographic till 2051 - the small island of Jamaica is the fifth most common country of birth for people outside of the UK in Britain's two largest cities.
Although the Jamaican diaspora in the UK appears to be declining, Jamaican migrants alongside their counterparts from Britain's former colonies in the Commonwealth including India, Pakistan, Ghana et al, have not only defined their local spaces but also the very essence of British identity.
In annexing large regions of the world and forging new nation-states into existence through imperial force Britain created a British identity that although unequal was multilingual, multicultural and multiracial.
The 1948 British Nationality Act consolidated that the British identity was not qualified by a single race, ethnicity or language but by the citizenship that came from being a colonial subject. The act gave full British citizenship rights to those in the Commonwealth.
By definition British citizenship has always been diverse - however, British society has not always been the tolerant space for diversity it now praises itself for. The inclusive 1948 act was effectively repealed by the 1962 commonwealth immigrants act, 1971 immigration act and 1981 British Nationality Act after calls that to be British was to be white.
In response to the attempt to rewrite Britishness as being organically mono-ethnic and mono-lingual - anti-racism campaigns in various forms from the Notting Hill Carnival, Rock Against Racism to the Stephen Lawrence Campaign fighting for racial tolerance and equality, fairness and a multicultural agenda.
Tolerance, fairness and multiculturalism are now often considered quintessential British attributes, migrant communities with and as equality campaigners have been central to realising these. The pioneers have been numerous - Ansel Wong, Doreen Lawrence, Lord Herman Ousely are only a few.
This process of widening the franchise of Britishness to celebrate and recognise its racial diversity creates a dilemma for European citizenship. We celebrate Britain for its diversity but in Europe does this celebration or even recognition exist?
EU countries now have the full citizenship rights that Commonwealth countries once shared and are now envious of - between 2010-2011 there was a drop in non-EU migration to the UK of 18% according to the Office for National Statistics(ONS). Prior to this, in 2007/08, 97% of all UK citizenship applications from Nigeria were rejected.
The EU mission is more than a political union - 2012 is the penultimate year of the EU's 'Europe for citizens' programme and this years work programmes aim to "develop a sense of European identity based on history and culture."
A central part of this is given to historical remembrance in Europe particularly of forced migration, movement and rightfully created a €2,414, 000 pot of operating grants for "preserving the main sites and archives associated with deportations and at commemorating the victims of Nazism and Stalinism".
In Britain we pride ourselves on being years ahead of our European neighbours on race relations and inclusion, however the 2012 EU work programme for citizenship aims of "enhancing tolerance and mutual understanding between European citizens" - must also qualify the story of African, Caribbean and Asian's in Europe as equally European.
In 2012, the new Black Cultural Archives that also holds the papers of leading equality think-tank, Runnymede Trust -preserving the Black-British experience in Britain opens in London, according to criteria it is unclear and unlikely that the BCA would be eligible to one of the operating grants of £100k for archives preserving stories of European forced migration and movement - despite doing just that.
Surely remembrance of the slave trade, European colonialism, the expelling of Asians from Uganda are also huge defining narratives of forced migration and understanding movement in Europe?
Racism in Europe is far worst into the continent and rising. Far right groups are growing particularly amongst young men according to a Demos study last year - in which far-right activist, Anders Brieivik shot dead 69 due to a conviction Europe was being contaminated by multiculturalism and Islam.
The response of European leaders including David Cameron and Angela Murkel was to declare that 'multi-culturalism had failed' - isolating multi-cutural agenda in Europe rather than highlighting how Europe had been built by it to 'enhance tolerance and understanding between European citizens'. Where does this leave British identity?
Even if Jamaica realised their republican ambitions the queen would still be sovereign in 15 countries with the Commonwealth despite this Jamaica's declaration is a reminder of how far the Commonwealth is part of Britain's past.
It is Europe that represents Britain's present and future but Europe has a long way to go to ensure that European citizenship represents and is inclusive of the racial diversity that is wholly part of Britishness.