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Notes -
As a descriptive comment about how British people use language, we don't consider "British" to be an ethnicity. Self-identifying as "British" is a marker for civic nationalism, and self-identifying as "English" is a marker for ethno-nationalism. Everyone agrees that "English", "Scottish", "Welsh" and "Irish" are ethnicities and nations, but it isn't clear how they relate to Britishness. Scottish ethno-nationalism is (again, descriptively) explicitly anti-English and is increasingly linked to a left-aligned secessionist movement, Welsh ethno-nationalism is implicitly anti-English because it is tied to preserving a non-English language, and Irish ethno-nationalism is basically anti-Britishness boiled down to tar.
Reform don't run candidates in Northern Ireland, and do badly in Scotland. Welsh Reform do very well indeed, but they do so by being the only party in Wales to uncomplicatedly oppose Welsh language policy, not by running the same messages they do in England. "Monoglot English speakers shouldn't be second-class citizens in parts of the UK" is the kind of position which blurs the distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism.
I suspect "I meant that British identity (specifically as opposed to English, Scottish or Welsh identity) is civic" is the motte Phillips was planning to retreat to if her comments got her into enough trouble.
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