SoylentNews

Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

A new history shatters myths about an extraordinary nation.

Which is the largest nation in Europe to lack a state of its own? The Catalans? The Walloons? Wrong and wrong. It is the English: population 50 million-plus [theatlantic.com], all of them under the government of a multinational entity, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Until recently, nobody worried much about the statelessness of the English. After all, they dominated not only the U.K., but also for much of the past 300 years a vast global empire. The empire is gone, but its legacy of language and law and political systems endures from California to Calcutta.

Suddenly, though, the future of England has become a very live question. Since the late 1990s, Scotland has obtained [www.gov.uk] more autonomy for itself. Nearly 45 percent of Scots voted [bbc.com] for outright independence in 2014. And Scotland’s governing nationalists are weighing [independent.co.uk] a second try if reelected in 2016. Meanwhile, the U.K. as a whole faces a referendum on exiting the European Union that could trigger a different constitutional crisis if England votes narrowly in favor of leaving the EU, but is kept in Europe by Scottish, Irish, and Welsh votes. Such an outcome could prod [theconversation.com] the English to follow the Scots in rethinking the United Kingdom. It’s quite imaginable that sometime within the next U.S. presidential term, England could under one scenario or another part ways from Scotland and emerge as a self-governing entity (albeit with Wales and a sliver of Ireland still attached) for the first time since Shakespeare started his writing career.

Interesting article for history buffs and Anglophiles.

Original Submission