Is the UK still a United Kingdom?

Subject: Is the UK still a United Kingdom?

INTRODUCTION:

« The British empire has advanced to a new conception of autonomy and freedom, to the idea of a system of British nations, each freely ordering its own individual life, but bound together in unity by allegiance to one Crown, and co-operating in all that concerns the common weal »
This quote from Georges 6, the King of UK from 1936 until 1952, shows the particularity of the British political system. In fact,

United Kingdom is a country of a particular form indeed this country is neither a federal state nor a centralized state. Because the UK has centralized power with a powerful central parliament in London (house of commons). Nevertheless, the country is not completely unitary because it is composed of culturally territory dispute each other and do not seem to want to unite. The United Kingdom is composed of 4 territories not independent but with some individual powers: Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England. A common mistake is to confuse England with UK because England is the richest and most influential district of UK.

But if for Georges VI all the British district are united around the crown this notion is actually an important topic of tensions in some districts such as Scotland.  

In fact, we also may wonder if UK still a United Kingdom? 

If UK is a unified country by the history (I), today some elements shows that UK has some difficulties to keep the national unity (II).

1. UK: a unified country by the history

Actual United Kingdom is the result of long and complex history. In fact, the first step of the constitution of the country is the “laws in Wales acts” voted by the parliament in 1535. This act gives to Wales a representation in the parliament of Westminster and also wales became a full part of the kingdom of England. It was a very significant step for the building of the British kingdom because before the Kingdom of England was only composed of the actual district of England. In 1707, in reason of the possession of England by the king of Scotland Henri VI the cousin of Elizabeth I since 1603, the “act of union” permit the creation of the actual Great Britain. In fact, this act of union is the beginning of the collaboration between the Kingdom of England (Wales + England) and the kingdom of Scotland and this act permit a common parliament in Westminster for 3 different countries. In 1800 was created a unity in the British Isles. In fact, in 1800 the parliaments of Ireland and Kingdom of England (Wales, England, Scotland) create “the act of union” and also the “kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland”. It was the first time in the history where all the British Isles were unified. During more than 1 century this Kingdom was very influential and powerful. After 2 centuries of Irish nationalism (XIX an XXth century) in 1922 Ireland was declared as a free state and only the actually Northern Ireland remained in the Kingdom. And 1948 was marked by the end of the last link between Ireland and the Commonwealth.

1. A dislocation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

« As the UK has no written constitution in the usual sense, constitutional terminology is fraught with difficulties of interpretation and it is common usage nowadays to describe the four constituent parts of the UK (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland) as “countries”. » Scottish parliament, 2015

The actual political system of the United Kingdom is marked by the decentralization. In fact, some peoples think that the UK is composed of 4 independents countries both on cultural field that legislative. We will study on a first time the example of the Scottish referendum of 2014, after we will see the political problems of unity with the Brexit. And in a third time some examples of cultural variance.

The Scottish referendum was a major debate on the British unit. In 2014, Alex Salmond the Scottish first minister, decided the organization of a referendum about the independence of Scotland. This referendum causes some reactions in UK but also in all the world about the nationalism and the unity of countries. Indeed, this debate has provoked some questioning about the unity of the country. Finally, a majority of the Scottish people voted to stay in the UK (55,3 %). But this debate has left its mark on the kingdom’s unity. This referendum has provoked a decentralization of more power to the Scottish parliament and particularly in the domain of legislative power.  

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