Make Britain a country?

Standardisation?

Do you want to ask wikipedia or people in Ireland? I thought I lived in a democracy here? I know it's difficult for some of you with your form and everything. Ain't a case of giving things up, more like realising t'wasn't yours to begin with horse.

It really depends. It's largely a historical question - there's very little we could do about it at the moment.

However, realistically, the UK Government could have eliminated subnational identities within the UK to some degree if it had made the effort. It chose not to, instead being relatively comfortable with the differences and distinctions. Indeed, modern Scottish identity was largely invented by the Victorians who were, of course, heavily pro-UK but also romanticised Scottish history and culture.

Would things have been easier to govern? Historically, no, probably not. In modern times, yes. Let's say you had tried to chisel away at Scotland as a country - would you have tried to merge the Church of Scotland into an Anglican UK-wide church? That would have been necessary to align the education systems, which are largely divergent because they grew out of the church.

Too many variables really.

Technically yes, but I couldn't count the amount of times a commentator for the olympics or world championships has called the team "GB" for short. "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is rather long winded for common use don't you think? Besides the point is, if England, Scotland and Wales were made into one country, what would happen to Northern Ireland?

In and ideal world, am I not the only person that would think Britain would function if there was simply just one country, not Wales, Scotland and England?

With my form? I have no idea what you mean. I think you think that I am stiffly loyal to the "crown" or something. I know my history. I have an education and I know what happened in these islands in the past. I don't think anyone in Britain could change the term "British Isles" and I don't think anyone except some hardcore patriotic english people would be bothered if the rest of the world stopped calling it that. It's simply a phrase! Tell you what, you call it what you like but it will only cause confusion.
As for apologies and all that, we'd be here for ever if we wanted all governments to apologize for all the errors of their country in the past.
To be frank there are bigger things to worry about. Try globalisation and neo-colonialism for starters. People are suffering exploitation now and I and many other people my age care more about that than grumbling over the past and waiting for an apology from a man who had no role in what happened in the past.

Scottish people 1'000 years ago all spoke Irish and up until the 14th,15th century and even as recently as Elizabethan times in the late 16th century when Britons ancestors were busy stealing, killing and pillaging, they were closer to Ireland than Britain militarily, linguistically, culturally and I remember reading both countries had a similar population around then too.

Britain claiming to own Scotland would be like Ireland claiming to own Scotland or the Isle of Man. Scottish Gaelic and Manx are like Donegal Irish. Why can't you just let them make up their own minds? If they say no, nothing will change. If they say yes, very little will actually change. You really think there'll be an international border on your island? Cop on. The only difference will be the Scots get to move on and live their own lives, you might have to shift those nuclear weapons somewhere else, and maybe Scotland will need its' own punt like Ireland did(and does). I think some people in Britain sometimes have a serious superiority complex about them.

It is right though that all of this is pretty irrelevant unless the EU can be reformed or replaced or even done away with.

Scottish people 1'000 years ago all spoke Irish and up until the 14th,15th century and even as recently as Elizabethan times in the late 16th century when Britons ancestors were busy stealing, killing and pillaging, they were closer to Ireland than Britain militarily, linguistically, culturally and I remember reading both countries had a similar population around then too.

Britain claiming to own Scotland would be like Ireland claiming to own Scotland or the Isle of Man. Scottish Gaelic and Manx are like Donegal Irish. Why can't you just let them make up their own minds? If they say no, nothing will change. If they say yes, very little will actually change. You really think there'll be an international border on your island? Cop on. The only difference will be the Scots get to move on and live their own lives, you might have to shift those nuclear weapons somewhere else, and maybe Scotland will need its' own punt like Ireland did(and does). I think some people in Britain sometimes have a serious superiority complex about them.

It is right though that all of this is pretty irrelevant unless the EU can be reformed or replaced or even done away with.

Why would the South care because it's not being recognised as part of Britain?

WTF is this thread

The UK is a country.

It has a shared government, currency and army.

Yes there are devolved powers to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales but its the same in the USA where a lot of powers are devolved down to state level.

The UK works well as it is and people should treat NI with the same respect as any other part of the country.

It's all very well and I'm with you all the way on that last paragraph but bottom line is it ain't upto you what it's called and I've never heard any English speaker from somewhere outside of England, the BBC weather studio(which calls it the British isles but doesn't do weather south of the border for the auld rascals) or maybe East Belfast call it 'The British Isles' and I would include Scottish people, Americans, South Africans and Canadians in that. It's very simple to call it Ireland and Northern Ireland even if you think Ireland should remain as it is, which I'm sure most people on a British forum do.

Alex Salmond to be fair to him always refers to it as 'These islands' which is the right way to go about it. People ain't gonna have no interest in international co-operation if you go around calling them what they aren't.

Do you mean England when you say Britain? Of course Scotland is part of Britain. Britain as a state didn't exist until England and Scotland joined together. Scotland is as much Britain as England is. So of course Britain claims to own Scotland, because Scotland is and always has been part of Britain. Obviously if Scotland becomes independent, we'll probably have to redefine what "Britain" is, but for now Scotland is a fundamental part of it.

I wasn't talking about language, but even so, we've got so much in common that there is no distinction between the cultures of Britain other then the "less touched" areas like outer Hebrides or Gwnyedd.
Everyone is so far detached from London outside of the South-east, yet there is the general view in Scotland/Wales we have lots in common with it.

That my friend is colonialism. You know it better as Nazism.

I prefer the term "British and Irish isles". Or just "Britain and Ireland", "UK and Ireland", etc. "These isles" is pretty vague, and doesn't make sense if you're talking about them from the outside. Terms like "Island Of the North Atlantic" are a bit silly really, since by rights they should include Iceland and a load of other islands.

You might want to re-read what he wrote. Britain didn't usually attempt to eradicate national identity. So if you're saying that's what colonialism is, then that implies that the British weren't colonialists. Which is of course completely absurd because they were the biggest colonialists in history.

Either way colonialism and Nazism are distinctly different concepts. They refer to completely orthogonal things.

OP this is a great idea. I can't believe that nobody has ever thought of this before. We could call it the Kingdom of Britain. While we are at it we could unite Ireland and call it the Kingdom of Ireland. Then another genius plan after that would be to unite these two kingdoms and call them the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland.

I can't believe this hasn't been suggested before 2013...



That's because it is a menial part of the UK that was born out of bigotry and hatred.

Yeah but he said they SHOULD have which is a colonial attitude, the point I was making.

Besides we know they did in Ireland and Scotland anyways and even in Wales linguistically speaking which is enough to merit that label. I won't go any further as I genuinely don't know all the history of India or South Africa or Egypt but hard to believe it would be a whole lot different. What I do know is some of the first concentration camps were for the Afrikaans people during the Boer war, not during world war two.

In fairness to Lloyd George the partitioning of Ireland was like what the Belgians tried in the Congo. It was largely to do with monetary and economic as well as imperial interests, from land to shipbuilding to military bases. The British elite never really hated us, they just exploited us and saw us as dogs.

Speaking of dogs, the Orange State was just a useful attack dog to scare the Paddies back into line as the argument was partition at gun to the head. By the time Irish people were asked about it in 1998, the damage was done and sectarianism was institutionalised more as a tactic than as hatred, and people were shepherded into voting for something most of them hadn't read, which is the norm when Ireland's constitution tries to protect its' citizens rights.