Except that the UK isn’t a true federal state, either. If it was, there would be an Assembly or Parliament for England as well as for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The UK Parliament would handle national affairs. There would have to be some kind of agreement setting out which powers went to which level of government, though–and then the system would look a lot like Canada or Australia. As it is, things are fuzzy, ill-defined, and asymmetrical.
This is quite amusing: I took a look at Google News’ results for today’s headline-grab, about 6-month fast-track teacher training, which only applies to England, with devolved assemblies able to make their own decisions. Not only does Reuters get it wrong (‘Britain’), but the Guardian and Telegraph don’t say which it is, and nor does at least one Welsh paper!
The Channel Islands are geographically part of the British Isles? I would have thought that they were geographically part of mainland Europe (even though they are politically British Islands).
It isn’t a federal state at all. It’s a unitary one.
One of the necessary characteristics of a federal state is that devolved powers cannot be taken away, which is not the case in the UK. See the US Constitution’s separation of powers schtick. Parliament can dissolve the other assemblies tomorrow, if it likes.
Wikipedia explains it like this: “The British Isles also includes the Crown Dependencies of the Isle of Man and, by tradition, the Channel Islands, although the latter are not physically a part of the island group.” I suppose one extra problem is that if you insist on a purely geographical designation, then the Faroe Islands have as much right to be included as Shetland does…
I should have clearer: you hear this in occasionally usage, but not in formal contexts. I heard it once on BBC radio one, from newsreader who ought to have known better, and I’ve heard it from English people living in Wales. But no, it’s by no means common or accepted.
As for the historical usage, check your OED. And yes, I know that hasn’t been the case for hundreds of years, but it was used as such up until Tudor times, so it’s not exactly a leftover pedantry from people who read too much Caesar.
There’s also the case of ‘Brits’ being used disparagingly by Irish people (particularly as in ‘Brits out’), when really it’s animosity directed more towards the English than what are perceived to be ‘fellow Celts’.
Except at the time Ireland obtained its independence, the formal title of the UK was the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”
The UK has had three different names:
[ul]
[li]from 1707 until 1800, it was simply Great Britain, composed of the union of Egland and Wales with Scotland, by the Acts of Union, although the term “United Kingdom of Great Britain” was also used;[/li]
[li]from 1801 to 1927, it was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, based on the Acts of Union 1800; [/li]
[li] from 1927 onwards, it’s been the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, based on the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 (although as the wiki page indiicates, there is some uncertainty about exactly when the change occurred). [/li][/ul]
I never said it was a federal state; I was just commenting that the idea of smaller political units forming a larger sovereign state is actually fairly common.
Canada was still a subordinate Dominion subject to British control upon its formation in 1867. It gained its independence sometime between 1867 and 1926, when the Balfour Declaration recognized the existing autonomy and co-ordinate status of the Dominions with the United Kingdom.
Not that anyone called it ‘the English Civil War’ at the time.
And technally there was more than one war.
In fact there were three:- 1642–1646, 1648–1649 and 1649–1651.
The way I had always heard it explained was that England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland are each countries, but not nations. The three countries on the island of Great Britain and a portion of the country of Ireland together form the nation of the United Kingdom, while the rest of the country of Ireland is the nation the Republic of Ireland.
Interestingly the BBC has it the other way around, and describes Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as “nations” :-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/keyfacts/stories/nationsregions.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/10_october/18/reform_nations.shtml
Maybe you’d hear people using it accidentally (but perhaps arrogantly), like the example someone gave of a news site announcing, ‘Britain introduces new law on teachers’ when in fact it was only England that introduced it. Your second example makes sense purely because of the context: if someone is in a Welsh village, where everyone is Welsh, and says, ‘a bus of British tourists came in earlier’ then they’re obviously using the term British to distinguish themselves from tourists who may be from various parts of England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
But I’ve never heard someone use the term British to deliberately exclude the Welsh in an objective context: ‘most of our group is British, but some of us are Welsh too’, that kind of thing. The word simply doesn’t accommodate that implication; it doesn’t make sense. It would be taken as a joke, like saying, ‘most of us are Americans, but this guy here’s from Utah…’
D’oh! I hadn’t thought of that. They did, however, often use “England” to cover both England and Wales in the sixteenth century after the 1536 Act of Union. Of course, that was not done out of ignorance, and there was no confusion involved.
The newsreader example was in 2002 or 2003. He was talking about a ship in the Persian gulf with “Welsh and British” sailors. What else could he have meant? He obviously misspoke, but he did say it. That’s the single example I have. I see in my first post that I said “often,” but I can’t tell you why I wrote that. It was six a.m. in this time zone, pre-caffeine, and a stupid thing to write. I’ve only ever heard that usage once that I can specifically recall. That glib inaccuracy has probably colored my other posts in this thread. I’m sorry.
I have heard “England” used in casual speech to mean “England and Wales.” I assume this is what my landlord in Aberystwyth meant when he asked, “How long have you lived in England?” I can’t think of other examples right now, but I have heard England used metonymously for the U.K. by both Welsh and English. I remember because it surprised me: before moving there, I had thought only Americans did that.
Just to expand a little on the somewhat confusing overlaps, let me describe myself:
Political
Nationality: British
Passport issued by: United Kingdom (shown as part of the European Union)
Self-identified as: English
Native language: English
Ancestry: 75% English, 25% Scottish
Sport
National Soccer team: England (who play Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland)
National Rugby team: England (who play Scotland, Wales and Ireland)
National Olympic team: Great Britain
Elizabeth II is “Queen of England” only in the sense that she is “Queen of the Australian Capital Territory” or “Queen of Nunavut.” The last person with the style "Queen of England* died in 1714 – and she hadn’t used it for seven years.
Great Britain is a physical entity, the large island that contains most of England, Scotland, and Wales (all of which have smaller offshore islands as part of their territory too). But “Great Britain” was two things: after 1603, the name adopted by James VI of Scotland when he became James I of England to describe his two realms in a single term, used on an off by the other Stuarts in the century following, then the name adopted by Queen Anne (and later used by the first three Georges) to identify the unified kingdom resulting from the union of Scotland and England. (In both cases, ‘England’ as a political term includes Wales.) When Ireland was united with Great Britain in 1800, almost the present usage (but without “…Northern…”) was adopted, modified in 1922 by inserting the “Northern” before “Ireland.”
In the true sense of those terms, they are countries AND nations. Generally speaking, “country” refers (or should refer) a geographically distinct entity, and “nation” refers to a distinct population. That’s not universally used but it’s probably the most advisable use. People in Canada, for instance, often refer to Quebec as a “Nation” - in fact, Quebec calls itself that, and the federal government formally recognizes it as fact. Quebec could also be said to be a country, though I don’t usually hear that usage. Quite similar, Scotland is both a country and a nation.
What Scotland and Quebec are not is states, e,g, a fully sovereign entity uncontrolled by any foreign state, distinct from other states. Sometimes it’s called a “Nation-state,” especially in North America to distinguish it from the American and Mexican “states” as subordinate entitites in a federal government.