"the leaders of all the devolved UK governments"

Hmmm I seem to recall from my history lessons at school that the English, for centuries, p*ssed all over the Scots, Welsh and Irish, so I don’t think any of us should be surprised if they want a little revenge.

I think it’s called ‘payback time’.

Would this independent England include Cornwall? That might not go down well west of the Tamar. Cornwall IS part of the UK, like Scotland and Wales, but has never officially been incorporated into ENGLAND by any act of union!

Furthermore, if Scotland ever leaves the UK, should it take responsibility for Northern Ireland since the majority of Ulster loyalists are of Scottish ‘plantation’ ancestry?

Britain, geographically, is an island. Great Britain includes this island and numerous small islands around its coast (excluding the Isle of Man, which is an independent country).
You can’t break Britain up physically and we shouldn’t be trying to do it politically either. Devolution, regionalisation, whatever, are fine but going te whole hog and splitting Britain into independent nations is a bad idea. Once the political map of Great Britain is up for grabs anything could happen. Who’s to say that nationalist causes won’t emerge in Wessex, Mercia, Northumbria, East Anglia? Yugoslavia is a classic example of what happens when a nation splits apart.

I have an interesting 4-volume set of books called Hutchinson’s Beautiful Britain, published in the early part of the 20th century. It is a county by county tour through the nation, with photos. The counties are listed alphabetically, with no division into Scotland, Wales or England. But what is most interesting is that counties of Ireland are included in the sequence too, as it was part of the UK too then, before the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922. At that time Northern Ireland didn’t exist and Ulster was just the name of one of the ancient Irish provinces and it included not just the ‘6 counties’ but 3 more counties that are now in the republic.

While we are into nation-building fantasies, I’ll describe my own one. This is the Federal Republic of the British Isles. This would include all of Britain and Ireland and it would be devolved into regions. The UK monarchy would go, the Anglican church would be disestablished, Ireland would loosen its ties with the Pope and the Isle of Man would have to join the EU. The Euro would be the currency.

Snowball’s chance in Hell? Chocolate teapot? Both, probably, but I like nailing my colurs to the mast even if there’s no ship.

The Isle of Man IS an independent country in the way that Canada, Australia and New Zealand are. It is a crown dependency, you are right, but it is not part of the UK in the way that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are. It has its own parliament and passes its own laws. It is not a member of the EU. In practice the IOM passes laws similar to English laws but that is only out of practicality and it doesn’t have to.

As an aside, while we are talking about odd states of sovereignty, Andorra in the Pyrenees must be one of the strangest. It is a monarchy with two princes as joint heads of state. These two ‘princes’ are the Bishop of Seu d’Urgell in Spain and the president of France. While these thrones are not genetically hereditary any more, they are unelected and automatic in that whoever is president of France or Bishop od Seu D’Urgell automatically becomes a prince of Andorra.

@bassingbourne55 wrote:

The Isle of Man IS an independent country in the way that Canada, Australia and New Zealand are. It is a crown dependency, you are right, but it is not part of the UK in the way that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are. It has its own parliament and passes its own laws. It is not a member of the EU. In practice the IOM passes laws similar to English laws but that is only out of practicality and it doesn’t have to.

But unlike the NZ, Oz etc, The IoM foriegn policy and defence are the responsibility of the United Kingdom and hence as such it can’t be fully independent either as it has no control over its own defence or foreign policy.