Even though all these countries make up the United Kingdom, similar to how the 50 states make up the United States to say that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are states is wrong. According to Wikipediea,
"They are individual countries, that have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capital cities. Devolution refers to the statutory granting of powers from the Parliamnet of the United Kingdom to the Scotish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly and to their addociated executive bodies the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive.
Devolution differs from federalism in that the devolved powers of the subnational authority ultimately reside in central government, thus the state remains, de jure unitary. Legislation creating devolved parliaments or assemblies can be repealed or amended by central government in the same way as any statute."
That's a long way of saying it's like 4 siblings sharing a house and all competing to be in charge. We fight and bicker among outselves, but no one else better mess with our family. But Scotland is like Isaac's song Esau, the independent, wild hunter, and England is like Isaac's son Jacob, tricking the older brother out of his birthright and inheritance, and Wales is like their siblings that were never mentioned in the Bible. (Poetic license has been taken here.) Ireland is a bit like the red headed step child, if the step children were twins, where one went off and got his own apartment, and is doing his own thing.
See in the past, Scotland was Independent, with it's own Parliament, and King. England historically has always tried to rule Scotland and Scottish hero's like William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, and Bonnie Prince Charlie tried to fight it. When one English king died, the closest heir just happened to be the reining King of Scotland, so he became king of both countries, and later parliament in Scotland was disbanded.
What a nasty little twist of fate. Since then Scotland has been used for it's natural resources, their political voice has been disregarded, and an independent and wild country has been placed under a rule that continuously tries to break and train them, and they are still fighting for their independence.
Next year there is going to be a vote in Scotland for Scottish Independence from England... ok technically is the UK, but really it's from England.
I'm not British, I don't have a say, but since I moved here the amount of ANTI Scottish propaganda I have seen is amazing.
England... or should I say LONDON, doesn't give a crap about Scotland on so many levels, and I'm not even going to mention the poll tax of so many years ago.
England wanted to get rid of Daylight savings, saying that it would be better for everyone except for Scotland who would then be thrust into darkness from about 3pm to 10am...I realize regardless it's only 5 hours of daylight anyway, but to have darkness from 3pm seems way worse than darkness at 4...kids would be walking home from school in the dark, but it's better for England.
We use pounds Stirling here. Some of the pounds are issues by the bank of England and others from the bank of Scotland...like having a penny minted in Philadelphia of Denver... except when you go to England, often times, a shop wont take your Scottish Pound. That's illegal, but they still do it.. Can you imagine going to a store in the US, giving them some coins and they say, "Oh I'm sorry, we only except coins made in Denver." It's really annoying.
BP stands for British Petrol. One of the largest oil wells is in the North Sea...Scottish territory... lucky for England that we're part of the UK, so London pipes it down to England where they put a 20% tax on it, and ship it back to Scotland and the rest of the world. That's right, Scotland buys back it's own oil, while England makes A FORTUNE and then they give Scotland a tiny little kickback... If we get our Independence, they will lose all the money from the North Sea Oil, and they are TERRIFIED! Which brings me to the amount of ridicule they are subjecting us to in the media, like this picture here
If I was undecided before, I am for independence now!
As an American, the best thing we did was win our independence and the freedom to govern ourselves. I don't know anyone in American who says "I wish we were still part of the Brittish Empire, where they make all the decisions for us from 5000 miles away."
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