Only one problem - Britain isn't a nation
And this is being promoted by the Department for Education?
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buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 12:57,
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Kindly explain to this simple minded foreigner
How Britain, with its singular national government with singular foreign and defense policy, singular head of state, singular currency, singular seat at the UN and recognized by all other nations as a nation is not a nation?
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Tusk knows where you live, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 14:41,
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Britain is the union of three nations; England, Wales and Scotland.
Wales governs itself in the Welsh Assembly. Scotland governs itself in the Scottish Parliament. England has no parliament of its own, but essentially rules over the other nations from the Palace of Westminster.
The UK is GB + Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is a nation that ideally governs itself in the Northern Irish Assembly/Stormont, but in reality Westminster constantly needs to step in and break up the fighting toddlers, or impose civilisation upon the superstitious morons who are afraid of gays and love their guns.
So what you think of as Britain is in fact UKoGBaNI.
Oh and the Welsh, Scots, English and Irish all tend to hate each other just a little bit.
If you're still struggling, just check our sport teams out. We don't have a UKoGBaNI football team (except during the Olympics, possibly, when we inexplicably become Team GB, which, I think, inexplicably includes NI).
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 14:53,
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the sports teams are just as complicated as the political nomenclature
Team GB for example
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:08, Reply)
Nope, sorry.
Having mildly autonomous regional government does not a nation make. As I understand it, None of the devolved 'governments' have any real power when it comes to defense, raising taxes, the economy or foreign diplomacy. Calling them countries is a nice touch, but meaningless. Nobody in their right mind would consider Wales or Scotland as a sovereign nation.
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Tusk knows where you live, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:08,
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Nobody in their right mind, unless they were using or writing a dictionary.
Sorry, but a nation is a nebulous concept. A sovereign nation is a different concept to a nation.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:10,
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So we basically agree
that Britain is a nation.
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Tusk knows where you live, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:39,
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Kind of, in context, but I'm not sure you get it.
Think of UKoGBaNI as a kind of mini EU, but with more unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and more centralised control.
Edited to add this from the bbc news site:
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 16:51,
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CGP Grey has quite a good video on this
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10
although it was created when we were in the EU, so it's a little outdated.
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 19:56, Reply)
I don't think you get it.
I'm just unwilling to admit that my definition of a 'nation' is wrong.
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Tusk knows where you live, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 13:10,
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to get pedantic about it, Britain is a geographical term which excludes northern Ireland
The name of the political entity that has a seat on the security council for example is 'the UK'.
The term 'Britain' can usually be used interchangeably with 'the UK' however. Yes it is stupid
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:23, Reply)
To be even more pedantic: the geographical term is Great Britain.
But yes, you are correct. Anyone refering to 'Britain' probably means the UK, in the same way that non north American people refering to 'football' are referring to association football, and not, for example, the Eton wall game.
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Tusk knows where you live, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:37,
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Like how 'America' is understood to be that one country in the two American continents.
The one made up of 50 'states' (NB, not all states, Kentucky is a commonwealth, etc,) plus a number of 'territories,' any of which could be argued is a nation.
And that's not even considering the various native American 'nations' which exist within the USA.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 17:03,
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a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language
so very much nations.
Countries on the other hand...
Do you know many Scots?
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 16:59, Reply)
"Inexplicably includes NI"
Should be "excludes NI" sort of, kind of ...
Anyone from NI can compete as Ireland if they want.
Those NI folk who want to compete as Ireland tend to see themselves as Irish first. Those NI folk who want to compete as GB tend to see themselves as British first.
So NI isn't represented at the Olympics at all, in effect.
Oversimplifying, of course.
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Invisible Wizard - 12th Level Errorer, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 16:27,
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Or to put it another way, the UK is represented by GB in the Olympics
and by the individual nations in other things.
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brb Monkhouse Stampede, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 16:54,
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it is a united kingdom
of great Britain (the separate countries England, Wales and Scotland) and Northern Ireland
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 18:13, Reply)
so are a lot countries that seem to have got over it
Spain was a union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, but you don't see Aragon competing in the Euros. Germany is an amalgamation of the crown of Prussia, the Archduchy of Austria, and a bunch of kingdoms, principalities and free cities besides, and this happened well after Britain became a single country under a single crown and central government in London. Likewise Italy with its unification of the kingdoms of Piedmont and Naples and whatnot. Only Britain insists on perpetuating this pointless charade of referring to long defunct kingdoms as countries, that what are now effectively no more than provinces or states. Your typical australian state has more diverging legislation from the federal than Wales or Scotland, like separate health systems
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 3:55,
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it's only the britain itself that continues to refer to its internal provinces as countries, despite them not fulfilling much of the criteria you'd expect of a country
They're not recognised as countries by the UN, EU and most other international bodies apart from sporting ones, which I think is more due to the UKs prominent position in the formation of several sports like football or rugby back in the day. That's your facts.
Now you need to tell me I don't what I'm talking about so I can have another only vaguely relevant rant. C'mon, be a sport, stickleback
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 23:12,
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Great Britain is the larger of the two largest Islands in the British Isles
That's where the word "Great" comes from. Great as in larger than Ireland which is the second largest island. (Great) Britain comprises three nations: The Nation of England, the nation of Scotland and the nation of Wales. Add in Northern Ireland* and you have the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or UK for short. The UK isn't a nation either. It's a united kingdom - a union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each have their own parliaments and to some extent, laws.
*Northern Ireland is a Schrödinger's nation - it's both a part of Ireland and a part of
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buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 21:08,
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The Brittany Isles?
I guess that makes sense - they are Islands off Brittany. Ireland is still the second largest one. By the way it's
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buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 10:28,
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To explain this very simply, I don't believe you'll find anyone in the world who officially recognises an entity called "Britain" as a nation. The official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is used for very specific reasons.
The fact that someone came up with this song demonstrates what a poor grasp many "patriots" have of their country's structure. The fact that it was endorsed by the Minister of Education sadly just demonstrates his ignorance (yet again).
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 22:52, Reply)
My passport says I'm a British Citizen.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 23:07,
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What's the official name of the country on the front cover?
I supppose you're just proving the point I was making about people who don't really understand what "UK" means.
(, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 1:10, Reply)
My point is that even an official document seems to be using United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Britain interchangeably.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 9:31,
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Nope, red. Says European Union on the top of the cover for some reason.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 21:14,
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it's all perfectly straightforward
Britain refers to the nation that is made up of 3 countries that aren't really countries as well as a part of another country that is no longer part of that country though some seem to quite strongly wish it were. It is formed from Great Britain which is a geographic term that includes those three countries that aren't really countries but not that part of the other country previously mentioned, though this is encapsulated in the term United Kingdom that by contrast does include that part of a country that is not united, along with the three countries that are not really countries but are united, at least officially if not in practice. People from the United Kingdom are British, and not United Kingdomish, though they are just as likely to refer to themselves as citizens of the countries that are not really countries. The UK is abbreviated as GBR because it has three letters rather than two, which is important, and they compete as Britain, Team GB, the United Kingdom, or from one of the countries that are not really countries depending on the sport and whether the other actual nations involved from other parts of the world feel like putting up with all this special case nonsense that they don't seem to grant to other non-countries like Quebec or the Basque.
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Thu 24 Jun 2021, 2:23,
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It was promoted in a tweet by the DofE but it's a private organisation
that's been going since 2005, set up by 2 husband-and-wife Tory MPs.
"We’ve opened our doors, and widened our island shores" - precisely the fucking opposite, stupid deluded cunts (and yes I know the lyrics are supposed to have been written by a primary school)
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fred zeppelin (Taylor's version), Wed 23 Jun 2021, 15:34,
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erm, the latter part isn't true
they did post a bollocks tweet,
but this shit song is by a nationalist bellend who's coattailed off the Dfe tweet
(, Wed 23 Jun 2021, 18:12, Reply)