Originally Posted by Britannist:
I call that ancient - even if you don't. The original Union - the font of the Union formed in 1707 which we have now - was formed between England and Wales centuries earlier.

As for 301 years (to which you refer in the quote above, Richard) - that is longer than a clear majority of today's nation states of the world have existed: including the USA.

I think you will find that dictionary definitions, as well as historians would disagree with you. The term "ancient" would refer to the very distant past, such as the periods of Athens, Egypt or the Rome.

As a former part time lecturer in history/classical studies and world religions, I would suggest your terminology of ancient is incorrect.
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Originally Posted by Richard the Lionheart:
As a former part time lecturer in history/classical studies and world religions.....

Regarding the above quote - I do hope that you are not about to start that very un-English habit of name-dropping: something you were doing in another thread the other day.

As for the word ancient - you are splitting hairs deliberately to divert attention off discussion of the subject of this thread.

I take the view that what is ancient and what is not ancient is down to the view of the individual.

My dictionary gives three definitions of the word - including one which says it means "of long ago." Looking at the other definitions in my dictionary it seems that you are not wrong - but neither am I.

Now, I don't know about you Richard - but I think 1707 is a long time ago. And so long ago that a clear majority of the nation states in the world today did not exist when the Union of the UK was formed in 1707 (a Union which, de-facto, in 1707 had already being going for centuries as the Union of Wales and England).
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Originally Posted by Britannist:
Regarding the above quote - I do hope that you are not about to start that very un-English habit of name-dropping: something you were doing in another thread the other day.

As for the word ancient - you are splitting hairs deliberately to divert attention off discussion of the subject of this thread.

I take the view that what is ancient and what is not ancient is down to the view of the individual.

My dictionary gives three definitions of the word - including one which says it means "of long ago." Looking at the other definitions in my dictionary it seems that you are not wrong - but neither am I.

Now, I don't know about you Richard - but I think 1707 is a long time ago. And so long ago that a clear majority of the nation states in the world today did not exist when the Union of the UK was formed in 1707 (a Union which, de-facto, in 1707 had already being going for centuries as the Union of Wales and England).

Ok, as to the definition of what's ancient and what's not, we can agree to differ.

So how come we refer to people from the UK of GB and NI as British? Would you say a person from NI is British or Irish? Their passport would say British wouldn't it? It would not say UKer. And if that is the case, why can't we call the state we live in Britain?
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Originally Posted by Richard the Lionheart:
...why can't we call the state we live in Britain?

Well, we can - and some do. I just won't use that word myself for the reasons I have given earlier in this thread.

You are not a fan of the words United Kingdom - and I am not a fan of the word Britain unless it is used with the word Great before it.

We both agree that England is a wonderful word and one which should be used more (as I am sure you and others in your Free England Party noticed some time ago - the BBC and Labour Party make great efforts to avoid using the word England at all).
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Originally Posted by Britannist:
Well, we can - and some do. I just won't use that word myself for the reasons I have given earlier in this thread.

You are not a fan of the words United Kingdom - and I am not a fan of the word Britain unless it is used with the word Great before it.

We both agree that England is a wonderful word and one which should be used more (as I am sure you and others in your Free England Party noticed some time ago - the BBC and Labour Party make great efforts to avoid using the word England at all).

Yes, England is such a wonderful word, it should have its own country :-)
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Originally Posted by Richard the Lionheart:
So how come we refer to people from the UK of GB and NI as British? Would you say a person from NI is British or Irish? Their passport would say British wouldn't it? It would not say UKer. And if that is the case, why can't we call the state we live in Britain?

In answer to your question Richard - as you know the island of Ireland is part of the British Isles but it is not a part of Great Britain.

The people of Northern Ireland are British but - in my view - reference to 'Britain' might not include them because 'Britain' could be a shortened version of Great Britain which is the name of this island we are on which consists of Wales, England and Scotland.

In other words:

The word British referred to all the peoples of Great Britain and Ireland but it is now thought that it no longer refers to the area of the island of Ireland which now forms the Irish Republic.

The word Britain might only refer to the British mainland (i.e. the island Great Britain) whereas United Kingdom means both Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

So the people of Northern Ireland are British - the island of Ireland is a part of the British Islands - but they are not part of the largest of the British Isles: Great Britain.

That is why it says on our Passport "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

The Northern Irish are British; their geographical location is the island of Ireland (the second largest of the British Isles) and their nation is the United Kingdom.
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Originally Posted by Richard the Lionheart:
Yes, England is such a wonderful word, it should have its own country :-)

It has - it's called the United Kingdom (UK) and Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are part of it too. What we want now is an English Parliament within the UK to end the constitutional imbalance created by Labour's devolution.
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Originally Posted by Eurosceptic Atlanticist:
The United Kingdom of Great Britain?

It was the Kingdom of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, so why wouldn't it revert to that if Northern Ireland left? And wouldn't the cross of St Patrick be removed from the flag?
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Originally Posted by Britannist:
I call that ancient - even if you don't. The original Union - the font of the Union formed in 1707 which we have now - was formed between England and Wales centuries earlier.

As for 301 years (to which you refer in the quote above, Richard) - that is longer than a clear majority of today's nation states of the world have existed: including the USA.

You have a funny definition of 'Union'. Wales was annexed by England. I suppose China is in a union with Tibet at the moment, using your definition???

And 301 years of union hardly compares to the Kingdom of England which lasted around 800 years.
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Originally Posted by mkpdavies:
If we got rid of UK here are the things that would suffer.

FCUK
UK Drum and Base in your Face.
UKIP
Yahoo UK & Ireland
Anything.co.uk
UK Top 40
Dogging UK
UKDNA
UK Indymedia
Diabetes UK
Excite UK

All very recent creations, I imagine.
Have you noticed how no sporting teams are called that? There won't be a United Kingdom team competing in the Olympics - it will be Great Britain & Northern Ireland.
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