Four Citations and one from before the Union, now, how popular was the usage of British in the vernacular of that period? It wouldn’t sound right in modern times due to its current meaning being a consequence of a Union of the two states for the last 300 years, without that, it becomes an anachronism, it would only really be applicable to the geographical area, which I bet, is what those citations are referring too, and it would be hard to remove the association of Unionism with the term British.
You make so many assumptions. I openly and loudly support England at Rugby and Cricket (and tangentially soccer) and banter over such rivalry between Scotland and England. I openly criticise the Anyone But England culture that goes with romantic faux nationalism. I joke that most Scots support a Premiership club!
What saves me is a vocal support for the Scottish way of doing things, their communality, sense of humour, easy Europeanism, and their view of the lowly in society.
I agree. The way the Westminster Government has approached this- the knocked back vote for devolution, demeaning attitudes (seen clearly here) questioning Scottish competence, and blaming the Scots for doing better than England on similar money in education, health service, local government, prison policy and so on.
If devolution had been treated seriously, that is where we would be.
You may have missed the fact that the SNP has had very adequate policies to run a successful administration four the past four years. Labelling it as a single issue party is to misunderstand current Scottish politics.
It was the standard word, and continues to be used in its original meaning for the Welsh / Cornish / Bretons before they diverged. The OED has tons of citations.
Words change, and it’s not a huge deal, but for the first thousand years of its history, “British” meant “from Britain, but not English or Irish (i.e. not a Gael).” Then it started to mean “person from the UK,” and you’ll survive if it changes again. The Welsh and Cornish did. (Bretons still call themselves “British” in their language, though there have been a few sound changes—Breizhiz.)
And British is tangential to NI- It is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, although Britain has been used by the Government for over fifty years to mean the UK!
Anyway, even after independence it will still be a United Kingdom, just with two independent politico-national entities in it. I cannot see them going back to Scots numeration making Liz Elizabeth the first of Scotland.
I’m not talking as if I won’t survive it, I’m stating that the term Britain will be obsolete as the United Kingdom in the political sense would of been destroyed. Britain as a political entity is associated with Unionism, I doubt highly that any Scot is going to call themselves ‘British’ or ‘From Britain’ if they go independent. And I wouldn’t want to be called British if Scotland leaves, because as I said before, it would of become an anachronism.
Where are your cites for these assumptions? It’s easy to do better when you have a population of 5 million on similar money for a population back in England of around 50 million!
What doesn’t save you is your denigration of your own heritage to accommodate the people you live around. What exactly is this ‘easy Europeanism’ that you speak of? You talk of the Scots as if you’re living with some primitive tribe.
It will be anything but a United Kingdom. That’s like saying England and Canada are a United Kingdom because they share the same Monarch.
There will be a nice difference between Elizabeth II Queen of Canada- a creation less than a century ago as a separate person, and Queen Elizabeth as is and has been for centuries, one person being a joint monarch of a United Kingdom. I doubt that there will be any Act to create a separate Monarchy for Scotland.
At most, the term might become obsolete as an adjective pointing to a political entity, since there will no longer be a political entity including all parts of Britain. But if you see Britain as a cultural or national entity as well as a political entity, then obviously the term will survive as a referent for that cultural or national entity. In the future a Scot may or may not identify as British, just as in the present someone from Northern Ireland may or may not identify as British. That doesn’t mean that the term “British” will have no meaning.
(Besides, it will almost certainly survive as the adjective pointing to the political entity comprising England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There will clearly be a need for such an adjective, and I can’t think of anything which is likely to supplant “British” in that role.)
There will (presumably) be a Scottish constitution which will be the legal foundation for the Scottish state and the Scottish throne. Scotland and England were distinct kingdoms sharing a common monarchy between 1603 and 1707; the were not at that time a “United Kingdom”. Great Britain/the UK and Hanove shared a monarch from 1714 until 1837; they were not a united kingdom. The Irish Free State (head of state: George V) was not considered to form a united kingdom with the UK.
What makes a united kingdom is the fact that it is united, not the fact that it shares a monarch with another state. If Scotland leaves the United Kingdom and we then have two sovereign states, Scotland and rump-UK, both of which have the same person as monarch, they will not be a united kingdom. They will be two kingdoms.
QEII is already the successor to the Scottish descendancy as she is to the English one. When the monarch was created sovereign of the dominions previously it was necessary to have legislation passed in Westminster to authorise this. That will be neither necessary nor correct if the UK splits into two nation states. It will be one Kingdom with two political entities- maybe like Hanover and Britain in the Georgian era. Any suggestion that Westminster could legislate a change to QEII’s position wrt Scotland would be seen as colonialism.
The polls are pretty damned close and moving towards a Yes vote; the feeling up here is that it may well happen.
The latest analysis split groups up into definities, maybes and possible for each side and although the no vote was slightly ahead, the possibles and maybes for the Yes vote were markedly in the majority!
Do you have any cites for this assertion? Considering you have been pro-SNP, and there have been insinuations in this thread that being pro-Unionist is something to be scorned at, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if there was some duplicity in some of the voters outwardly declaring their intentions to vote yes, whilst secretly voting no.
So by your definition, the UK and Canada are one Kingdom.
The debate has yet to turn to consider the many questions that are either unanswered or addressed by dubious assumptions from the SNP. At the moment it is at the superficial stage of…hands up for independence if you like being Scottish!
Before September, I am expecting a very clear statement about how much it will cost and who will pay for it.
That will concentrate peoples attention on both sides of border.:dubious:
“A landmark ICM survey for today’s Scotland on Sunday reveals a decline in the No vote from 46 per cent to 42 per cent over the past month. Over the same period, the Yes vote has remained steady at 39 per cent, resulting in a significant tightening of the gap between the two sides.
**
When the 19 per cent “don’t knows”** are excluded from the equation, the No vote stands at 52 per cent, with 48 per cent in favour of Scotland going it alone. This is the highest level of Yes support to be recorded by an independently commissioned opinion poll.”
thats a lot of dont knows! i reckon they will vote no on the day.
There are not separate Scottish and English “descendancies”. There is just the crown of the United Kingdom.
No, it wasn’t. Where is the legislation which, e.g., authorises the UK monarch to be created sovereign of New Zealand?
Hanover and Britain were not “one Kingdom with two political entities”. They were the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Electorate (later Kingdom) of Hanover. There was never a “Kingdom of Hanover and Great Britain”, any more than there was a “Kingdom of Scotland and England” between 1603 and 1707, or than there is now a “Kingdom of the UK, Canada, Australian, New Zealand . . .” today.
An independent Scotland wishing to retain the UK Queen as its own head of state would presumably become a Commonwealth realm. Changes to the successsion law would only be passed by the UK Parliament with the assent of the Parliament of Scotland, in the same way that at present they are only passed with the assent of the Parliaments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
That makes my point, though. Just as at present “British” can refer either to the island of Great Britain or to the (somewhat larger) political entity of the United Kindgom, so in the hypothetical future “British” could refer either to the island of Great Britain or to the (somewhat smaller) political entity of the UK. In “British and Irish Lions” the reference is plainly the geographical one.