England and Englishness.

.

Jan asked….Fri Feb 5

“By the way, could someone from across the ocean tell me when I'm supposed to use these terms? Great Britain, England, British, English. In my mind Great Britain is everything on your island and England excludes Scotland and maybe other areas? Mostly I just avoid the terms, though, because I'm not sure how to use them properly.”

.

.

Britain comprises Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain comprises England, Scotland and Wales.

Britain’s full title is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

(Although the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are not part of the United Kingdom of GB &NI, they have a special relationship with it.)

In 1973 Britain joined the European Union.

The EU then went on to carve Britain up into Regions. There was Scotland and Wales for a starter, but the remainder (England) was too large a region so it was carved up into smaller regions, for example we have a South West Regional Development Agency.

England is no longer on their map.

It was Jack Straw who is on record as saying “The English are not worth saving as a race”.

The English were slightly miffed to put it mildly.

Thus there is now a marked rise in the number people who, without a second thought, would once have called themselves British, but now refer to themselves as English.

I for one!

Over the last ten years or so, amongst commentators, academics and the media, deconstructing 'Englishness' became the order of the day, in a way which would not be tolerated by the Scots, say, or the Welsh, who have instead been encouraged at every turn to re-affirm their sense of identity.

This negative onslaught is the background to the new-found celebration of England.

The new celebration of England and Englishness will be more visible from now on simply because, in the minds of millions of us, it needs to be.

I am firstly English and secondly British.

I am not a European.

Europe is part of a Tectonic plate, it is a Continent not a Country, it is an insult to all Nations with a language, a history, a culture, and an identity.

.

.

Foody, April last year left me this interesting comment.

“Many foreigners think that England is the whole of Britain and they think Scotland and Wales are parts of England. They usually assume you're English if you say "British". Imagine how irritating that might get. Even people on the telly and radio talk of England when they mean Britain and vice versa. You notice these things if you start to look out for them. When people on the media don't appear to know basic facts and geography it's a bit bad. I suppose the more the smaller nations hear these things the more annoying it gets so the more they have feel the need to assert themselves over the years.

It kind of gets me when I hear people talk of 'British law'. There is no such thing. Even the BBC do this. There's the law of England and Wales and there's Scots law. They talk of 'UK law' too and again there's no such thing but it has come to be used to refer to the laws of the UK as opposed to those that Brussels imposes on the UK."