Isle Of Man Attitude Toward England?

[The Old Git]

Great Britain and the British Isles are geographical terms.

 

I wouldn't agree 100% with that

 

British Isles is purely a geographical area.

 

Great Britian is the main island part of the UK and "is also used as a political term describing the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales," (Wikipedia) which goes on to say -

 

"Politically, Great Britain describes the combination of England, Scotland, and Wales. It includes outlying islands such as the Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland but does not include the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

 

Over the centuries, Great Britain has evolved politically from several independent countries (England, Scotland, and Wales) through two kingdoms with a shared monarch (England and Scotland), a single all-island Kingdom of Great Britain, to the situation following 1801, in which Great Britain together with the island of Ireland constituted the larger United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (UK). The UK became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the 1920s following the independence of five-sixths of Ireland as the Republic of Ireland."

 

I'd agree that Great Britain can be used to describe a geographical area but it seems that it can also be used to describe a political area.

[VinnieK]

Great Britain and the British Isles are geographical terms.

 

As The Old Git points out, that's not strictly true. Despite the initial use of Great Britain to describe the larger of the two main British Isles (with Ireland being termed Little or Lesser Britain), Great Britain is also a very political entity, with it's own legal identity as created by the Act of Union.

[mollag]

My personal view goes along the lines of, chuffed to buttery to be Manx as my missus is chuffed for being a Lancastrian, but all bullshit aside being Manx to me is a regional thing not a national, i am and will remain for all intents and purposes British.

Wishing and hoping for otherwise is futile, after all. what language are we discussing this topic in?, i think a lot of our efforts to emphasise our " difference " to the big place, stems more from our recent history of tourism marketing rather than a deeply entrenched wish for total independance.

Nice edge being Manx but beware, there are those out there who would have us back in tholtans and subsisting on spuds an silver darlins. nein danke!

[VinnieK]

I agree, Mollag. Although there also seems to be a lot of celtic revivalism around these days that seeks to align the Manx more firmly with the Scots and/or the Irish than the English.

 

To my mind this cause is so much romanticised bunkum, especially since there's as much separating the Manx from the Irish and Scots as there is separating the English and the Manx. Whilst it's all very well to point to similar 'celtic' features and origins, the culture and identity of a nation is ultimately forged through historical experience. Scotland for instance has been moulded into what it is today by experiences that simply have no parallel in the Isle of Man: The Scottish Enlightenment, the cultural schism between the lowlands and the highlands, it's relationship with continental Europe, it's expansionist history, religious strife, and it's not always unfriendly dealings with England, to name just a few. Similarly, Ireland has the ancient social and political collapse, great famine, mass emigration, and foreign settlement (which, although now largely attributed to the English, was an entirely British venture under James I/IV, with half the settlers of the plantation of Ulster being Scottish) and influential literary tradition.

 

In my view, no amount of charming folk ballads and gaelic road signs can serve to bridge such vast gaps in the differing experiences, with the 'celtic connection' being little more than one of old tradition that has long since been subsumed and eclipsed to all practical purposes by the ways and practices of the modern world. In this much of the Manx celtic revival, far from being a genuine assertion of national identity (as it was in Scotland and Ireland) is more a rejection of modernity and desire to capitalise on the fashionable and romantic appeal of other 'celtic nations'.

[Chinahand]

Great Britain is also a very political entity, with it's own legal identity as created by the Act of Union.

 

Not sure: The Act of Union 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain ... but surely the political entity was the kingdom not the Geographical area.

 

The Act of Union of 1800 created the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ... a political entity stretching over a larger geographical area.

 

The Anglo Irish Treaty 1922 created the Irish Free State as a Dominion of the British Empire independent of Westminster but with the Queen as head of State and a governor; and the 1927 Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ... a political entity stretching over a slighly smaller area.

 

The 1931 Statute of Westminster created the legal frame work that enabled Eire to write and ratify a constitution entirely separate of Westminster by 1937 with it finally becoming a republic in 1949.

 

Digging even further back: the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 made Wales a part of the Kingdom of England!

[VinnieK]

Great Britain is also a very political entity, with it's own legal identity as created by the Act of Union.

 

Not sure: The Act of Union 1707 created the Kingdom of Great Britain ... but surely the political entity was the kingdom not the Geographical area.

 

 

The point is that 'Great Britain' can legitimately be used as a political term, it's application being determined by the context in which it appears. Indeed, in all the examples that you've provided of expansion and contraction of the Kingdom which Great Britain finds itself apart of, the political identity of Great Britain remains as a distinct entity, even if it is one that is to all practical purposes subsumed in a larger whole.

 

To see that this is the case, you only need to look at the 1927 act you refer to and which mentions Northern Ireland. Here your analysis of 'The Kingdom of Great Britain', where the Kingdom is the political entity and Great Britain the geographical entity' falls down, simply because the Northern Ireland referred to is in no way a geographical term. Geographically, Donegal is as much a part of 'Northern Ireland' as Belfast, which would make a nonsense of the act's contents. As such, both Nothern Ireland and the Great Britain referred to in the act are constituent political entities of a broader one, namely the United Kingdom.

 

Note that this is borne out by the history of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Although the situation has since become muddied, before 1974 Northern Ireland had its own legislature and parliament, as did Great Britain - i.e. both were political entities in their own right, with distinct political and legal identities. As stated, this has since become muddied by the imposition of rule from westminster, but the distinction survives still.

 

In any case, it's rather a moot point, surely. Since to all extents and purposes the question "is the Isle of Man part of Great Britain?" yields exactly the same answer, regardless of whether we choose to rely on a political or geographical perspective.

[The Old Git]

Digging even further back: the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 made Wales a part of the Kingdom of England!

 

I guess that's why there's a Prince of Wales?

[Chinahand]

Erm ... before I go away and count angels on pin heads ... as far as I'm aware when the term Great Britain is used to refer to a political entity today it is being used as a synonym for the UK ... I don't think GB has a political reality separate from the UK. Basically GB is short hand for

UK.

 

Where does GB exist without the Northern Ireland bit being there too? It doesn't: there a union and they are part of a unitary state. There is no political entity GB only a unitary state the UK.

[GD4ELI]

Erm ... before I go away and count angels on pin heads ... as far as I'm aware when the term Great Britain is used to refer to a political entity today it is being used as a synonym for the UK ... I don't think GB has a political reality separate from the UK. Basically GB is short hand for

UK.

 

Where does GB exist without the Northern Ireland bit being there too? It doesn't: there a union and they are part of a unitary state. There is no political entity GB only a unitary state the UK.

One example: I am a British citizen, not UK.

[VinnieK]

Erm ... before I go away and count angels on pin heads ... as far as I'm aware when the term Great Britain is used to refer to a political entity today it is being used as a synonym for the UK ... I don't think GB has a political reality separate from the UK. Basically GB is short hand for UK.

 

And didn't you state that the adoption of this short hand was incorrect and a problem (albeit for a different reason)?

 

Constitutional matters are a 'bit tricky', especally when concerning the convoluted history of Northern Irelands position within the United Kingdom, so of course any discussion of what Great Britain is is going to involve a certain amount of detail, but it hardly constitutes counting angels on the head of a pin, with all the futility such mischievous use of that phrase implies.

 

The fact remains that until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished in the seventies, both N.I. and Great Britain had parliaments, both with legal and political identities of their own. Northern Ireland even had a prime minister and governor of its own acting as the Queen's representative, further underlying the simple fact that both N.I. and G.B. had their own political identities.

 

Although the matter has been complicated by the abolition of the Northern Irish parliament, as well as devolution and so forth, an important distinction is that during Direct Rule legislation was passed for Northern Ireland through statutory instruments rather than full bills, with no opportunity to make ammendments, and little of the mechanisms for scrutiny that oversaw the rest of Westminster's actions. In short, the Northern Ireland parliament was not 'unified' with that of Great Britain, or even absorbed by it. Instead it's responsibilities were entirely handed over to Great Britain's parliament, with Northern Ireland being acknowledged as a separate political entity by the novel method of legislating for it by Westminster.

 

 

Where does GB exist without the Northern Ireland bit being there too? It doesn't: there a union and they are part of a unitary state.

 

This is because you're operating under the assumption that 'Great Britain' incorporates Northern Ireland, which it doesn't. Without Northern Ireland, say if it joined the Republic of Ireland, Westmister would continue as it always has done since the Act of Union, as the Parliament of Great Britain, unless devolution in Scotland advanced to such a stage where Westminster no longer had any significant mandate in the domestic issues of Scotland.

 

There is no political entity GB only a unitary state the UK.

 

Even this point isn't quite as uncontroversial as you suggest, as this testifies.

[LoneWolf]

Great Britain is simply the largest of the British Isles and the Isle of Man is definitely a part of the British Isles ... this is Geography not politics.

 

Chinahand Im really taken aback. Not like you to make such inaccurate statements.

Great Britain is part of the Manx Isles.

If you are in any doubt as the the truth of this situation I would refer you to the assembled company of the back bar in the Whitehouse on Friday evening. They will put you right

[Politician]

The fact remains that until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished in the seventies, both N.I. and Great Britain had parliaments, both with legal and political identities of their own. Northern Ireland even had a prime minister and governor of its own acting as the Queen's representative, further underlying the simple fact that both N.I. and G.B. had their own political identities.

 

Yes and no. Northern Ireland did indeed have its own Parliament and its own Prime Minister, but at the same time it returned MPs to Westminster. I would argue that its status was more akin to that of Scotland today than of a Crown Dependency.

[VinnieK]

The fact remains that until the Parliament of Northern Ireland was abolished in the seventies, both N.I. and Great Britain had parliaments, both with legal and political identities of their own. Northern Ireland even had a prime minister and governor of its own acting as the Queen's representative, further underlying the simple fact that both N.I. and G.B. had their own political identities.

 

Yes and no. Northern Ireland did indeed have its own Parliament and its own Prime Minister, but at the same time it returned MPs to Westminster. I would argue that its status was more akin to that of Scotland today than of a Crown Dependency.

 

True that Northern Ireland returned MP's to Westminster, but from what I've read, Northern Ireland's Parliament seems to have had far greater powers than that of Scotland today, with the primary exceptions to home rule being confined in the main to defence, foreign affairs, currency, and so forth, whereas the Scottish Parliament has a more restricted (but still significant) mandate.

[Doric]

While I'm 'on one' this morning from the International News forum:

 

The Isle of Man is more than happy it seems to be represented by the British Broadcasting Corporation.

 

Why do we pay them all those £millions per year? Does Ireland, does Guernsey and Jersey?

 

The Isle of Man in so many respects is British - just accept it.

[The Old Git]

The Isle of Man in so many respects is British - just accept it.

 

Being British does not make you English or part of the UK though

 

There's people in the Falklands that are British, for example