Fuzzy Boundaries

One thing that’s always struck me as odd about Britain is that it’s not very well defined. Geographically the boundaries are, at best fairly fuzzy. For example, the islands surrounding mainland Britain are sort of British, but, in some cases, not really. The Scilly Isles off the Southwest tip of England are definitely part of England; in fact, they’re included in the county of Cornwall. On the other hand, the Chanel Islands, Jersey, Guernsey, Sark and a few more rocks, speak English, are loyal to the queen, use the pound as their currency, drink English beer in English pubs and allow the government in London to set foreign and defence policy. But, they have their own local government and legal system. The Isle of Mann in the Irish Sea is in a similar situation. By the way, the Manx parliament is older than the British one. I won’t even begin to get involved with Gibraltar.

Scotland and Northern Ireland are also in the sort-of-but-not-really category. For a while now Scotland has had its own government in Edinburgh that gets more and more autonomy as time goes by. And since the last election, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has had an outright majority in the Scottish parliament. It is the expressly stated policy of the SNP to hold a referendum in Scotland on independence, well, sort of independence.

Northern Ireland also has its own quasi government, but a lot of the decisions are made in London and the Irish government in Dublin has an informal veto on some things. Half its inhabitants want to be Irish citizens and the other half prefers being British.

My theory is that all this fuzziness has to do with two main things:

•        The first is imperial history. When the English/Norman kings consolidated their control in London, places like Wales and the Northern half of England were viewed as colonies of a country that existed primarily in the Southeast of the island. William the Conqueror (also known as the First and the Bastard) even sterilized a strip of farmland right across the middle of England to separate the North from the South. The echoes of these attitudes can be heard today. Everyone talks about Britain or England as if they represented a real country when the fact is that most of it is really a colony of London and the surrounding counties.
•          The second is the fact that the Brits never got around to defining their idea of nation and government in a constitution. So, each incumbent government makes up the rules as they go along.

The result of this history is a sort of country that continually redefines, or fails to redefine, itself.

Europe is the other big problem. The UK is sort of, but not quite, a member of the European Union. In normal discourse, the word “Europe” is used to designate a foreign place on the other side of the English Channel. And no British Government is crazy enough to join the common currency, the Euro. On the other hand, successive British governments have signed up to most of the treaties that make up the EU. The result is that a lot of laws and regulations that have effect in Britain originate in Brussels and the court of last appeal is a European court.

Most of the tabloid press and a healthy proportion of the voters are definitely anti-Europe. On the other hand, the biggest proportion of British exports goes to other European countries. So, is the UK a European country or not? Emotionally it’s definitely not; economically and legally it is. The whole idea of Britain in Europe is a bit fuzzy actually.