What is Britain?
Is it the same as the UK?
What is Briton?
Wtf is up with Canada?
Is it it’s own country?
If yes, then why do they still salute the queen or king?
If no, how are they operating as it’s own country?
Same for Australia I guess, too?
Was there an Australian revolution?
Are all parts of the British island the same country?
Or are Scotland and Ireland seperate countries?
So, Britain is the collective term for the geographic area where the countries of England, Scotland, and Wales reside.
United Kingdom is England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Britons are people. Although just about all will say they are English, Scottish, or Welsh unless they are being weird.
Canada and Australia were colonies which broke away from the British empire at various times and formed independent countries but remain part of the British Commonwealth. And being part of the Commonwealth, we still have the monarch as the head of state but have Governer Generals who perform the monarchs roles when they are not about.
Australia didn’t rebel like those dastardly yanks. We became an independent country in 1901. Not sure about Canada.
Are all parts of the British island the same country?
No.
Or are Scotland and Ireland seperate countries?
Scotland is part of the United Kingdom and has some level of autonomy but is not an independent country. Ireland is an independent country, not be be confused with Northern Ireland which is like Scotland.
Look up “British Commonwealth” on Wikipedia. They rebranded from “Empire” post WW2 or so. It’s a voluntary association now, and some countries have in fact withdrawn. No revolution needed any more. Just some paperwork, more or less.
The British Empire was always a result of the British monarch ruling India, making the British monarch a King/Queen over other kings. When India gained independence from the British monarch after WW2, Britain could no longer claim to be an empire.
So the full name of the UK is ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. As the name suggests, it includes Great Britain, Northern Ireland, plus a bunch of smaller islands nearby.
Great Britain is the main island, and contains three countries: England, Scotland, and Wales. They’re all separate countries governed collectively by the UK government, but they also have their own local governments (kind of like how states in the US can have their own laws but must also adhere to federal law).
A Briton is someone from Britain.
I can’t speak confidently to the stuff about Canada & Australia, but hopefully that covers several of your questions!
Australia is its own country, however we still have ties and the King/Queen can cause a ruckus if they want, however recently we’ve been left to our own devices. I see people over in the UK as ‘Royal Watchers’ and monarchists, and dont see any similar level of affection for the royalty here. Sure when we get a visit, crowds will turn up, but im confident the size relative to the population over time has declined.
Not exactly a historian, so could be a wrong with this. In WW1, When Britain went to war, a lot of the people had the intent to follow and saw it as a duty to ‘defend the empire’ . In WW2 i think we had a bit more independence and remember a story about a troop ship being redirected to fight the Japanese rather than fight the Germans. That was was seen as a lot closer to home with the bombing of Darwin and fighting on the Kokoda track.
Now, i think the population would be totally indifferent.
We have the King and Queen on our coins, and the Queen is on the $5 note, but notable australians are also printed on other notes.
To pass new laws in our Federal Parliament (i think state parliaments are similar but there might be exceptions), it needs to be voted on by the House of Representatives (151 elected politicians from 151 geographically organised electorates with roughly an equal number of voters. e.g. NT has two electorates which is effectively Darwin and the rest of the NT. An electorate in Sydney might only be several suburbs while a country electorate in WA could be a third of the state). it also needs to be voted on in the Senate which consists of 76 Senators ( Each state elects 12 Senators (QLD,NSW,VIC,TAS,SA & WA) while territories each get 2 (ACT & NT).
Once its past both the house and the Senate, it also needs Royal Assent by the Governor General. The Governor General can refuse to give assent but i cannot point to a time when this has happened. The Governor General can also reserve legislation for the Queens Pleasure which defers approval to the Queen.
The Governor General is not elected, and appointed by the Queen/King. I understand that convention recently has been that the Queen meets with the Prime Minister and appoints whoever the Prime Minster recommends. I think the Queen can change who is appointed as Governor General at will, so theoretically could call them to direct them to not give royal assent to particularly controversial legislation.
Right now, the Queen or King could take a seat in the Senate if he or she wished, but not in the House as it was seen as to be for the people. He or She wouldn’t get a vote, but I guess it would only be to give royal assent as soon as a bill has passed. If it happened, it would make national news.
Was there an Australian Revolution ? We floated the idea somewhat recently, and there was a referendum (a vote to change the countries constitution) on whether to become a republic. For it to pass it needed a majority of votes and a majority in the majority of states/territories. I think the wording was that we replace the governor general with a president elected by the people. It didnt get up, and the idea has been left alone since.
I think if you ask most Aussies, the like being in the commonwealth as we get more medals at the commonwealth games than the Olympics and they enjoy thrashing the Poms at Cricket/Rugby / Othersports.
As for our relationship with other commonwealth countries, I wouldnt say theres anything really special there except for New Zealand and this probably dates back to the ANZAC Corps and Gallipoli which is seen as our emergence of a country (i dont want to speak for NZ on this one). We might make fun of our ‘cousins’ across the ditch but i’d like to think that if something seriously went wrong, we’d be ready to lend them a hand in a heartbeat.
Edit: Im not aware of Royalty having any power like the United States presidents Executive Orders, however the Queen can dissolve parliament which ends the term of everyone in the House of Representatives. The parliament still exists, but Australians need to go have an election, and the same people might get re-elected. There was an issue in 1975 where parliament wouldnt pass legislation to fund the government so the Governor General stepped in to cause an election. it has been called ‘The Dismissal’
You are a god amongst men. Thank you this was fucking amazing.
Thank you.
Great Britain is the big island of the UK which contains England, Scotland, and Wales. The United Kingdom is Great Britain plus the six counties of Northern Ireland, The Isle of Man, and (I think) some of the islands in the English Channel.
A Briton is a person from Britain.
IDK, man. Canada be weird sometimes.
Yes, it’s its own country.
Canada, along with Australia and a bunch of other former colonies, belong to what’s known as the Commonwealth, of which the British monarch is the head. It’s basically an association of countries that used to be ruled by Britain, but Britain no longer has a say in their laws or how they’re governed.
Australia didn’t have a revolution. Australian independence was a long process that lasted from 1901 to 1986. You may want to check the “The steps to full sovereignty” section of the “History of Australia” wikipedia article.
No, Britain is not all the same country. As previously stated, the island of the Britain is England, Scotland, and Wales, which are separate countries, but members of the United Kingdom, and are governed by the UK Parliament. The six Irish counties that make up Northern Ireland is still part of the UK. The rest of the Ireland, known as The Republic of Ireland, is very much not part of the UK. They did have a revolution, and won independence in 1922.
Fuck me. My own last name is a spin on the word Wales and I completely forgot to include it😂
I’ll take a cursory stab, but other references exist for the minutiae of how these things came to be.
Britain == United Kingdom
Great Britain == an island wholly within the UK
United Kingdom: a sovereign state (eg USA, Germany) composed of the constituent countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, plus a few overseas territories.
Briton: a British citizen, or someone tracing their ancestry to the UK constituent countries
The short answer for why a country (UK) can have countries (eg Scotland) in it is because the notion of sovereign states (the modern definition of countries) only came into existence in the 18th century or so.
Canada, formerly the Dominion of Canada, formed from the British North American holdings plus the French parts that the British bought (ie Quebec). Granted self governance in the 1860s, independence in the 1930s, and finally full “patriation” in the 1980s to remove all vestiges of the UK from Canadian laws. However, the independent Monarchy of Canada remains, and just happens to coincidentally follow the exact same selection rules as the British Monarch. So the King of Canada will be the same person as the King of the United Kingdom, even though the Government of Canada is no longer controlled by the Government of the United Kingdom. In both sovereign states, the King is a figurehead from where authority and governmental legitimacy emanates, and the current King of Canada continues the tradition since Queen Elizabeth II that the Monarch’s appointed Governor-General of Canada shall represent the Monarch in all Canadian matters, meaning the Monarch will not directly involve themselves. In fact, it’s frowned upon for politicians to involve the Monarch directly, except to kindly ask for a new Governor-General (see 1975 Australia).
Why still keep the Monarchy of Canada? The voters haven’t chosen otherwise, to pursue a republic or any other form of government. The same applies in Australia, although it’s slightly more complicated as each Australian State derives their state-level authority from the Australian Monarch, whereas Canadian provinces exist as a part of the singular Canadian confederation; each Australian State would have to sever their connection to the Monarch, or could do so piece-meal. Nevertheless, with the Monarch delegating power within each of his “realms” to the respective Governor-General, becoming a republic is a matter of passing bills in the parliamentary system. Barbados did exactly this in 2022, replacing Queen Elizabeth II with a republic. Countries formerly part of the British Empire (circa 1930) usually join The Commonwealth of Nations, which just means they’d like to keep trading with each other but without the whole colonialism thing.
The end of the British Empire was basically slow-going, since once some parts (eg Canada) received a measure of devolved powers (like having their own parliament), the door was swung open for other parts to demand the same. Post WW2, with the status of the UK greatly diminished in deference to the USA and USSR, overseas colonies became expensive and untenable. Plus, one of the basic tenets of the United Nations – put in place to avoid yet another world war – was the right to self determination. So the colonies had to go free.
Ironically, the Scottish Parliament was not restored until 1998, having legally stopped existing with the Acts of Union 1707 that merged England and Scotland into the United Kingdom, with a single parliament but otherwise separate institutions and laws. To this day, the English Parliament has not been restored, and thus England affairs are directed by the UK Parliament at large.
The British Isles includes both the Island of Great Britain (where Wales, Scotland, and England are) plus the Island of Ireland (where the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland are), and a few smaller islands. So yes, every part of Great Britain is a part of the UK sovereign state, but the UK also includes the Isle of Mann and the upper part of the Island of Ireland, and some others.
In all circumstances, “Ireland” means the Republic of Ireland; that republic is almost never called “southern Ireland”. The whole history of British colonialism in Ireland is long, sordid, and full of misery, culminating with The Troubles of the 1960s and still causing concern post-Brexit due to the EU border basically dividing the Island of Ireland.
TL;DR: everything about British history is messy. Even their former colonies have messy history, despite some being at most a few hundred years old.
Awesome breakdown, thank you!
The more you drill down into UK history the messier it becomes. Scotland’s history alone is crazy. My favourite yarn is the Darien scheme, which pretty much wrecked the country’s economy in the late 1690s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
Oh, and if you think corporations are out of control today, check out the East India Company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company Their trading shenanigans brought on the Opium Wars and the American Revolution.
Ah, the Darien Scheme. How to basically go all-in on the New World colonialism thing but fail miserably.
For people unfamiliar, here’s a 3 minute video mentioning the topic in the context of 17th Century Scotland, leading to the merger with England: https://youtu.be/ld1GJ0zvsas
For other examples of countries-in-countries, we can look to Switzerland, Germany, and the USA. A casual observation of all three are that their first-level political subdivision is known as a “state” and not “province” or “territory”.
Swiss history – which I admit I’m not that clear on – shows that the modern sovereign state formed as a loose confederation of smaller kingdoms unifying together. Indeed, the foundational document of the modern Swiss Confederation in 1848 directly drew inspiration from the USA Constitution of 1789. However, they made some modifications, such as having a 7-person Federal Council, which together fulfill the role akin to the American President. That is, the role of Head of State and also Head of Government (aka a Prime Minister). This style of executive governance hews more closely to the rich Swiss traditional of direct democracy, rather than that of a purely representative republic.
Germany, specifically the successor state of West Germany post-WW2, and then the unified state of Germany post reunification, is a federal republic. A republic to restore the functions of the earlier Weimar Republic, and a federation of states because of USA influence in drafting the Basic Law – Germany’s Constitution – following WW2. But unlike the USA federal system, the German system would mimic the parliamentary system of Westminster, being that of the United Kingdom. So while governmental power is distributed amongst the several states and the federation, the governance would be through indirect election of the Prime Minister. The idea is that by dividing power this way, no mustached fellow with fascist ideas could take control of the organs of power again.
Finally, examining the oldest continually-operating example, the USA currently is composed of a strong federal entity and 50 US States that wield all remaining power not reserved to the federal government. But initially, this is not what the American Founding Fathers had in mind at all. The late 1700s envisioned the original 13 colonies of the early United States of America to be independent countries that confederated for common causes, like defense and foreign policy. The precursor to the US Constitution – the Articles of Confederation (1777) – tried this, but problems quickly arose because each State had their own currency, debt levels, legal systems, and often undermined each other to advance their own position, such as favoring in-state citizens in lawsuits filed by out-of-state citizens. This made trade difficult and the federal government had little power to do anything about this.
Even with the revised US Constitution document, the whole weak federal government thing continued until the 1860s during the American Civil War, with the aftermath being a federal government that fully asserted its powers under the US Constitution. Any notion of US States being country-like would have fully evaporated by then, especially during Reconstruction when the Guarantee Clause was used to install military governance in the defeated southern states until reintegration into the Union. Such a thing would be impossible for a modern country/sovereign state.
Fun fact: the Guarantee Clause is why a US State cannot convert itself into a hereditary monarchy. The Constitution does not allow for a Monarchy of South Carolina, and we’re probably all better off for it anyway. Although if the role was an elected position – like with the Co-Prince of Andorra – then that might be permissible.
To that end, the modern US State is still a sovereign entity, in that certain things are wholly within their domain and not of the federal government’s. But US States are still beholden to the US Constitution, use the same money as the Union, and must honor interstate commerce and contracts from in- and out-of-state, as well as judicial rulings from the federal court system. But this dual sovereignty system post 1860s continues to evolve, with some states encroaching on federal authority, such as with border control.
Aspects of these three example countries find their way into most of the modern governments of Western countries, so hopefully this was a useful explainer.
I can’t answer most of your questions, but one is easy:
The UK is a country. None of Northern Ireland, England, or Scotland are countries - they’re all a part of the UK.
You may or may not notice an outlier here: Ireland, which is not part of the UK and is its own country. Note that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and is not a part of Ireland (despite being on the island of Ireland). The UK and the Irish have a… strained relationship.
Britain is the big island, not a country itself.
So to recap:
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The UK and Ireland are both countries.
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The UK is (primarily) made up of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
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Britain and Ireland are both islands. The Island of Ireland consists of Ireland (the country) and Northern Ireland (part of the UK).
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