"United" Kingdom -- How accurate a term is it?

[Martok]

Among the many questions I've had wandering in the back of my mind for some time now is how unified the people of Britain and Northern Ireland really are. Obviously there's at least some resentment and bad feelings in Ulster and Scotland (Wales as well? I honestly have no idea); that goes without saying.

But how deep do these feelings go, and what's their true motivation behind them? Do the Catholics in Belfast and the Scots truly hate being subjects of the Queen and long for nothing more (or less) than their independence, or is it more of a simple & habitual dislike/disdain born from centuries of London government? And in either case, what's the real source of their attitudes & emotions -- that their ancestors came under British rule (however long ago), or more how the government treats them today?

And just as importantly, how do the English feel about all this? For some reason, it seems like almost no one ever solicits their opinion on the matter (perhaps because some consider them descendants of the "oppressors"?).


I'm honestly curious about this.

[caravel]

I haven't the time for a lengthy reply, but you may want to read this to discover what the "united" bit is all about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707

[Reverend Joe]

All depends on who you ask, from what I've heard. But there is indeed something strangely ununited about the United Kingdom; certainly not at first glance, but under the surface there's a lot of strange and complex stuff going on. As a (small) example, I have been told that it is basically impossible to pay with Scottish currency in England as it is assumed to be counterfeit, and vice versa; minor, perhaps, but certainly an indication of some subtle yet strong regionalism going on.

And Ulster is a whole 'nother story.

[Rhyfelwyr]

People here in Scotland look at me like I'm giving them monopoly money when I try to give them Bank of Ulster bank notes which I get at birthdays etc from my relatives over there.

That's one heck of a question to answer properly. To look at Scotland, it in particular is extremely complicated. Much of the nationalism today is fuelled by the Wallace and Bruce era. However, in the time shorty around and after the reformation England resentment was largely irrelevant compared to the divisions within Scotland itself. Since Scotland gained a large Calvinist majority with Catholic and Episcopal minorities, there was constant grief with all of these groups with Anglican English monarchs.

And this is where it gets complicated within the different Scottish religious groupings, as national identity comes into the equation. Today, some Scottish Protestants are associated with being pro-English and strongly Unionist. For this sub-division, you have to really go back to the time of Cromwell and the Commonwealth, where there was Presbyterian support for his plans to annex Scotland to his Protectorate. However, due to conflicts within the various Parliaments of Cromwell's interregnum Scottish support for his cause declined, agains because the English were the middle-ground in another Scottish dispute. Some Presbyterians were more conservative and feared an upheaval of society and so supported the royalists, while on the other extreme some Presbyterians were far too intolerant for Cromwell and kept targeting Anabaptists and other groups within the New Model Army. Cromwell's early opposition to the idea of a national church also didn't appeal to the Presbyterians. And so even the British part of Presbyterian Scotland was split in the part, although it has reconciled since then.

This dispute over national identity would again cause trouble with the Act of Union. Complicated as ever, while some Presbyterians feared for the independence of their Kirk, other less radical Presbyterians were wiling to unite with an Anglican nation, mainly due to the financial crisis caused by the Darian scheme (our little attempt to get a colony) IIRC. And so this was another divide in Scottish society.

Just to confuse things further, Episcopalians, who had traditionally strong ties with the Anglican church, ended up siding with Catholics, and were something like 1/3 of the Jacobite soldiers at Culloden. Oddly, today Episcopalians tend to be more Unionist-orientated, perhaps out of conservatism as much as anything else.

Northern Ireland's views were traditionally very similar to those of Presbyterian Scotland, considering its majority population was of settled Presbyterian Scots (the Ulster Scots). Obviously, with a much larger Catholic population (proportionally) than Scotland, a more sectarian culture remains in Northern Ireland which dominates come election day. However, even Northern Ireland has its own splits within the Protestant community. The Orange Order was traditionally an extremely prominent organisation, however Ian Paisley split from the Order with the formation of the Free Presbyterian Church, which takes a much more evangelical approach. Also, his Democratic Unionist Party has split the Protestant vote in Northern Ireland between the more conservative Ulster Unionist Party, and the more TU-friendly DUP.

Meanwhile, for Catholics in Northern Ireland their national identity has always been Irish, obviously wishing to become part of the Republic of Ireland. Oddly, many Scottish Catholics have also now convinced themselves they are Irish, and even support Ireland over Scotland in football (Aidan McGeady for example chose to play for Ireland because of a grandparent). In fact, the football scene is a good example of this confusion of national identities with religion. Celtic fans (Catholic) will regularly cover their ground with Irish flags, whearas Ranger's fans (Protestant) will tend to wave the Union Jack. Many also take Northern Ireland flag's, although this tends to make you sectarian apparently. Some also take Scotland flags, although it doesn't always go down well with the Unionists.

In the end, many people (of either identity/religion) are branding both these groups as sectarian loonatics. Because in the end, the more liberal minded people nowadays are happy to watch Braveheart, put on bonnet, have a haggis and sings songs about Bonnie Prince Charlie. This tartan-nationalism is largely what fuels the SNP.

I've ended up ranting now and so I've only really talked about religion but I need to go now. Basically, Scotland is also generally far more left-wing than England (at least the south), and this is another reason for resentment of Westminster. Equally, in England there is now resentment of Scotland because the bizarrities of the parliamentery system mean Scottish MP's can vote on issues affecting England but not even Scotland (look up the West Lothian Question)!

Oh yes, there were also traditional cultural splits within Scotland. Traditionally, the Gaelic culture of the Highlands was associated with Catholicism (hence the Jacobites), as opposed to the Protestant lowlands, the area where industrialisation would be felt dramatically (hence the Red Clydeside, another entire issue). However, there was also a huge rise in evangelical and calvinist followers in the Highlands from the 19th Century, just for some extra confusion.

To cause ultra-confusion, Celtic romanticists (often of the tartan nationalist brigade) see the Gaelic culture as Scotland's true culture (even though it was imported from Ireland little over a millenia ago), and St.Patrick is a hero for many of them, being a Catholic saint and the Patron Saint of Ireland. However, there is also a division within the Gaelic romanticists who look to the Culdees as defenders of a true Celtic church against the corruptions of Rome, and who claim that St. Patrick was not even Catholic (and to be fair he was around before the Synod of Whitby).

Its just such a difficult question to explain in the OP that I've only really succeeded in explaining divisions within Scotland and to an extent Northern Ireland. Oh well, that's all I can do for now.

[Tribesman]

People here in Scotland look at me like I'm giving them monopoly money when I try to give them Bank of Ulster bank notes which I get at birthdays etc from my relatives over there.

It could be worse , I had lots of grief trying to get rid of notes from the Northern Bank .
People thought they were stolen .

[Louis VI the Fat]

I am enjoying my new, cynical posting style. So here's a long and pretty exhaustive history of Scottish sentiment regarding the Union:

They loved it when their wealth was based on the British Empire. They resent it now that they have lots of North Sea Oil.

[LittleGrizzly]

They loved it when their wealth was based on the British Empire. They resent it now that they have lots of North Sea Oil.

I think this is true of some, they seem to forget also that the UK invested all the money to extract north sea oil, it kind of annoys me as well as over the last hundred odd years or so welsh resources such as coal (and mass amounts of sheep, where would the uk be without welsh sheep!) has been used by the UK, now the coal isn't so useful as there are plenty of other places where it is much easier to extract, but scotland wants to run away with wales fair share of oil profits.... Braveheart was really unhelpful in this respect, i have seen speeches i think by the SNP where they mention william wallace and his cry of freedom (so corny) i think the same tv programme also mentioned the SNP handing out leaflets and such in the ques in scotland to watch braveheart.... damn you mel!

The welsh, or to be more precise in my experience the young welsh "hate" the english, or so i am told, being half welsh and half english i think has allowed me to rise above such petty nationalism, i think when my friends say they hate the english its more in terms of annoyance at being conquered some hundreds of years ago, i think theres some extra animosity because the welsh never really pulled off a sucsessful rebellion, the fact is they entered the union as a possession of england rather than an equal partner. I think mixed in with all that is a bit of small nation envy (or smaller than england envy) and there seems to be some kind of slight victim mentality there as well, my one friend keeps telling me of a non-existant event that (didn't) happen recently where Wales didn't qualify for the world cup despite having same points goal difference ect. as a team that did not qaulify, he says they kept wales out of the world cup because of alphabetical order and that england would have never let that happen to them but because it was only wales it was allowed to happen....

All that being said i think almost all welsh people are happy to be part of the United Kingdom and insulting thier previous conquerers is just letting off a bit of steam, i think the hating the english mentality is more of a youthful thing that most people grow out of, they occasionally tell me they don't really hate england they just do it to wind me up, but the way they speak about it, and the football example show some lingering animosity i think...

[macsen rufus]

Speaking as a thoroughbred Englishman (ie biggest mongrel mess of genes in Europe ~D) the Union is not really something that affects my daily perusings, and generally we can get by on a few outdated, condescending and wildy irrational national stereotypes to keep the colonials under the boot. (Hey, we're English, that's what we do :clown:).

Caledonian Rhyfelwyr's post really sums up the Scots as a bunch of religious zealots on a par with anything Iran has to offer, (England doesn't really do religion which is why we invented Anglicanism and cricket) and by the way, the North Sea oil has peaked and is in 5% per annum production decline. Did you really think we'd let them off the leash if there was much of that left??? And Hadrian was no fool.....

Wales is small and earns about 90% of the UK's annual rainfall income, and the national character reflects both these facts... Owain Glendwr was as big a failure as William Wallace, but he did manage to escape being hung, drawn and quartered, so hangs around in the mist as some sort of Welsh OBL insurgency myth. It'll never happen. Oh, sure they'll burn a few cottages (during the occasional spell of dry weather), but their spirit is mostly broken. We keep them as pets because of their quaint accents, unlike the incomprehensible Scots. In fact when a few of the Welsh actually remember they have a language of their own, they're still easier to understand than the Scots who persist in mangling ours instead.

And of course, we step back carefully from Northern Ireland / Ulster / Ulaidh / The Six Counties, and try to express as few opinions as possible, working on the assumption that so long as the Irish (the Scots are of course originally Irish who have been shuttling across the Irish sea never sure which side they'd rather be on...) are fighting each other they won't be bothering the rest of us too much. Given that inter-Irish fights are much older than the English nation, this should leave us in our traditional role of holding the coats well into the foreseeable future, and exploiting the survivors' assets whilst their backs are turned. C'mon, we've been doing it since our ancestors were Danes and Normans....

And this of course leaves England as the shining epitome of Western culture - obese, binge-drinking slobs obsessed with celebrity drivel and a deep resentment of any foreigners with enough work ethic to do any jobs we can't be bothered with except to moan that some foreigners are doing them. There is a culture of entitlement to the good life that would make the average Texan look humble and unassuming. As a nation, we are at the stage of denial and decline usually characterised in movies by the whining drunk who's muttering "I coulda been someone, I coulda been a contender...." We had it all, and pissed it up the wall. Now we're as punch-drunk as we are booze drunk.

In short, it's not so much a Union as a divorce that hasn't happened due to inertia and a lack of the imagination and hope required to escape a dysfunctional and abusive relationship.

and if you take any of that seriously..... don't :clown:

[Rhyfelwyr]

As much as my post made Scotland look like a Christian Iran, that's because I didn't have time to properly talk about the other stuff. There is the cultural divide, not just between the Gaelic Highlands and the Norman-influenced lowlands, but traditionally Scotland was one of the most culturally diverse places in the world, regardless of what Braveheart depicts.

Also there is the issue of Scotland's central belt being heavily industrialised and historically very much left wing, it was the heart of the origins of the Labour Party after all. Incidentally, Labour just lost for the first time IIRC their history their historic seat in Glasgow East to the SNP, that's what Labour get for becoming New Labour/Conservatives.

In short, there's just too much to post about here. Well I've showed you how divided Scotland is, you can guess what the rest of the UK is like.

[InsaneApache]

Things have certainly changed in the last 10 years or so. I've lived in two of the Kingdoms that form part of the UK and I frequently visit the Principality. ( I like to worry the sheep by shouting "mint sauce" at them. :yes:) Alas I've never been to the Province (or Eire) but I'd love to.

I think it's fair to mention at this point that there are many different layers of identities amongst the subjects of the UK. I am a Mancunian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancunian), first and foremost, then a Lancastrian. I'm also a northener. (very important this one as it ensures that I don't prefer members of my own genital group for sexual relief. :laugh4:)

Then I'm English and lastly British. Depending which part of the world I'm in, I can be one or all of them.

I say this to illustrate a point. Scots and the Welsh also have this 'laminate' type of identity. Often the biggest rivalries are between local towns/counties.

Oh the fun I've had being a missionary here in Yorkshire. Bringing clean water and medicine to the local tribes! :laugh4:...and they're rubbish at cricket! :laugh4:

Anyway, what has happened in the last decade is New Labours' constant fiddling with the Union. Very cynically Blair calculated that devolution would quench the flames of nationalsm. It didn't. It fanned them. Lynton was hoping to continue with Labours hedgemony in Scotland and Wales, however that has backfired on New Labour dramatically. As demonstrated in Glasgae east.

I now fear for the continuation of my country. All rivalries aside, we are stronger together than we would be as a federation or seperate states. Another reason why I hate the miscreant Blair.

[CountArach]

I am enjoying my new, cynical posting style. So here's a long and pretty exhaustive history of Scottish sentiment regarding the Union:

They loved it when their wealth was based on the British Empire. They resent it now that they have lots of North Sea Oil.
:laugh4: I love the new cynical postings of Louis as well :laugh4:

[Omanes Alexandrapolites]

I wouldn't say we are too disunited. Yes we have our separatists (Sein Fein, Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru), and I do understand their dislike for us English controlling them. In an ideological world each individual person would be a dictator over their own state and would control as far as their hands could reach out from their central position. Sadly, that would be anarchy - a nice idea that doesn't really work. I can see it now "I declare war on the republic of James because the republic of Mark formed a friendship with the kingdom of Sandra without the dukedom of Dad's and the socialist republic of Mum's permission". That was a mouthful, anyway:

I do think the key motivation behind all this nationalism is that traditionally (lets say at the start of the middle ages) the UK was essentially four kingdoms - England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Wales was conquered by England, Ireland was (I think) also captured by England (although I don't think that is the reason for Irish want of independence) and Scotland was embraced through their royal family being related to our royal family, resulting in a common head of state, resulting in eventually the act of union.

Cornwall also has a few minor secessionist movement (some of them militaristic), but this dates back to when England was just a bunch of warring kingdoms (think the M:TW VI campaign).

Nationalism is at its strongest in Scotland. This somehow is because, I think, for them its still within relatively close memory (300 years isn't exactly close, but y'know). It also isn't helped by the brilliance of Alex Salmond and the failures of Labour under Brown.

It's much weaker in Wales because that took place in the 1300s (or was it 1400s). In any case, it's over 600 years ago making the memory much weaker.

In Ireland, things are a little hotter. The south has already seceded, but it's reasons are different. The North was mainly protestant (the UK was protestant so they chose to stay with the UK) while the south was militantly Catholic (so they wanted to get away from the UK). This isn't really a memory of annexation, but more memories of tensions between the two groups, with protestants throwing Catholics off bridges, Catholics making friends with royal family splinters, protestants burning down Catholic houses e.c.t. (why do religions do such non-religious things BTW - crusades when the bible says no killing, looting Constantinople when the bible says no thieving or something like that. I don't really know why they can't turn that negative interpretation to a positive one, promoting rights for all and taking a less judgemental/"you are a heretic" stance. Anyway, I digress.)

This probably makes absolutely no sense (I rarely do in this regard - probably would make me a good politician since 90% of them don't know what they're talking about either), but it's my (probably wrong) take on things.

I consider myself pro-union and don't really like the idea of Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish or whatever independence from the UK. Less so Northern Irish and Welsh, but anyhow. Of course they should retain their autonomy, which should, in my opinion, be expanded to cover pretty much everything internal that Westminster covers for the UK (applied locally of course). Think Hong Kong and PR China, just without a some evil guy with 1980s glasses saying what the autonomous government can and cannot do. Also without the bloke with the dodgy dress sense (having said that I do think we could do with more colour in politics - Gordon Brown in a deckchair suit FTW!). Westminster should really only dictate foreign policy, with a separate English parliament to deal with us tea drinkers. Also a US style regulatory constitution to make sure that freedoms are preserved.

Regardless of this, I take the stance of "if they want it, give it to them" (of course with unviable exceptions) so if the people approve of independence (in a referendum or similar), then, although I wouldn't like it, I wouldn't oppose it if you know what I mean. I would, however, want them to have an option to come back to us for help if it doesn't go too well.

Writing that post seriously hurt my head :dizzy2:

[Rhyfelwyr]

Well, things aren't that simple in Scotland, as I said. I think Scotland is the last real bastion of Britishness, kept strong due to concerns over Irish nationalism and tartan nationalism, which are both growing.

Tartan nationalism is the new fashionable thing to do, very middle class and liberal, just like it was in Italy and Germany in the late 19th Century. To me it seems a bit concerning. These people ridicule any Protestants or Catholics for their identites for believing in such silly things as religion, when they themselves hearken back to some mythical Celtic past of Wallace and the Jacobites because they read it on the back of a shortbread tin.

These people get pretty annoying. :furious3:

[Sigurd]

Scottish Protestants are associated with being pro-English and strongly Unionist.
I thought they were associated with Rangers F.C. :smartass2:

[InsaneApache]

I thought they were associated with Rangers F.C. :smartass2:

They are. Have a look at the Rangers fans next time you watch a match of theirs, there's a awful lot of union flags displayed.

[naut]

All rivalries aside, we are stronger together than we would be as a federation or seperate states. Another reason why I hate the miscreant Blair.
:yes:

[Duke of Gloucester]

They are. Have a look at the Rangers fans next time you watch a match of theirs, there's a awful lot of union flags displayed.

Yes, but it is the 1801 union they are celebrating, not the 1707 one.

[rory_20_uk]

Those that wish to break away need to have a taste of what this would be like. No net movement of money to them whatsoever, and out the MPs go from Westminster.

Considering that scial benefits are better in the areas that want independence - yet also want England to pay for these perks. It's rather like a teenager who wants their freedom - yet also wants their free bed / board / and allowance.

If the provinces are OK with the altered standard of living, fair enough. But there's a reasonable chance that they'd decide to return, seeing what they in fact gain.

~:smoking:

[Rhyfelwyr]

I said some Scottish Protestants are associated with being pro-English and strongly Unionist. I did write a pretty massive post exlaining all the historical divisions within the Presbyterian population that forms the support base of Rangers nowadays.