If you want to characterize the time since the Acts of Union as a pure partnership and just ignore the itsy-bitsy flare-ups like the Jacobite rebellion and the Battle of Culloden (okee dokee) you're only talking three hundred years. It's not such a long time.
But if unsuccessful civil wars are allowed to disrupt the unity of a nation, hell, America has only been a country for like 150 years, not 250. The American Civil War was a lot bloodier than the Battle of Culloden.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunes_of_War
Quite why a German band would make a whole album paying tribute to the history of Scottland defeats my understanding but it's a good album and, in all seriousness, is a great way to get an idea about Scottish history if you don't have the time to read actual history books, or, I guess, wikipedia.
Say, this bit of lyrics is from "Culloden Muir":
I walk alone through burning towns.
My sword is in my hand.
But the battle has been lost.
And there is nothing to defend.
At Culloden in seventeen forty six.
Scotland's fate was sealed.
...
The rising was in vain.
We were a people free and brave.
Heroes stood tall.
But history is merciless.
Now we are doomed to fall.
The battle of Culloden.
The end of Scotland.
You are overgeneralizing, and in any case, that's not an excuse when the examples are pointed out and Wikipedia (for starters) exists.
They died. Like, a long time ago.
> Is this what Great Britain is now? Just the bottom half of a tiny island in the North Sea?
No, Great Britain is, and always has been, the island itself, whether or not it happens to be politically unified (which, most of the time that name has been around, it hasn't.)
It comes from the French name (Grand-Bretagne) which distinguishes the island from Brittany (Bretagne) in France.
Wikipedia: > The Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain (μεγάλης Βρεττανίας - megális Brettanias) and to Ireland as little Britain (μικρής Βρεττανίας - mikris Brettanias)
England and Scotland are not a partnership and have spent much of their histories at war with each other. Scotland formed the UK with England because they were bankrupt.
And the UK are not "closing their borders because they're scared of the outside world". They've decided to leave a trading union that doesn't allow them to control their borders, in which no elected person can introduce new legislation, and in which they are not allowed to negotiate their own trade deals.
You seem very much to have "bought the hype" here.
And that is a bad thing how exactly? What trade deals does the EU lack that the UK would've negotiated, had we been free to?
There are obvious reasons why the EU negotiates as a block (the nature of the single market), and why the UK cannot negotiate trade deals with third parties until it exits the bloc - for example, it's unknown if the UK will have access to the single market after leaving the bloc, and any trade deals with (for example) the US or China could be incompatible until the terms are clear.
Only the European Commission can introduce new legislation, however the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union vote to approve, or disapprove, any new legislation, and have the power to amend it.
The lack of legislative initiative of course is due to the fact that, initially, the EU was not a political union, and there is still strong resistance from nationalist factions within member states to the "ever closer union". Those are usually the same factions that complain of the perceived "democratic deficit" that is due to their own resistance to a closer political union.
Btw, dramatis personnae, the three legislative bodies of the European Union:
a) The European Commission, is made up of 28 European Commissioners, one for each member state, selected by the states' governments and approved by the Parliament. One of them, the President of the Commission (currently, Jean-Claude Juncker) is elected by the Parliament from candidates put forward by the European Council.
b) The European Parliament, is directly elected by the people of the EU member states in the five-yearly European Elections.
c) The Council of the European Union, is composed of ministers of the EU member states, normally each of them elected directly by the citizens of their respective states and appointed by their national governments.
And the UK is very much flapping about with little idea of what it is doing and why. Immigration does seem to be the biggest concern - but there is little evidence as to why it is the biggest concern.
If anything, I'd suggest that Brexit is the result of the same phenomenon that elected Trump - a general dissatisfaction with the state of governance and a lack of options with which to deal with it. People are understandably frustrated and want to effect some change; it's easy to believe promises made to this effect.
The Co-Principality of Andorra. Sure, there was a hiccup in 1812-1813, but it's hardly like the England-Scotland "partnership" hasn't had hiccups, and 789 years beats 310 years quite handily.
I'm not even talking specifically about the EU, the glory days of the British car industry was pre-EU. But the UK seems like it used to be a land of big goals, populated by dreamers who would get things done, impossible things. And the UK today, shrinking back from the rest of the world, stands as a stark contrast to the nation that sailed across the seas and established the most successful colonies and invented the car and invented the computer and owned property on every continent.
I don't know what you and your wife are experiencing in Scotland, I've never been there. But as an outsider looking in, the Britain that exists today seems a lot more afraid of the world than the Britain I learned about in history class. You might think it's condescending or hysterical, but remember that the UK literally owned land on every continent, in Asia and Africa and North America and South America and Antarctica and Europe and Australia. And now they're facing down the prospect of losing Scotland.
I'm sure some people called the fall of the Western Roman Empire "condescending and hysterical" too.
They died, and their racist, slavemaking, mass-murdering Imperial ideals died with them, and good riddance to all of it.
Can you name a major civilisation that was not trading, holding or capturing slaves during the time period the British empire was selling slaves to your country?
>Can you name a major civilisation that was not trading, holding or capturing slaves during the time period the British empire was selling slaves to your country?
No. But I would describe them in similar terms. We shouldn't mourn the passing of any empire, we should move beyond the premise that any country has any right to subjugate or plunder another out of a belief in their own racial and religious superiority. Whatever good the British Empire might have brought to the world, it often did while standing on the backs of cultures it considered beneath it.
Doesn't that make it all the more impressive? That they were a leader in abolishing something they were profiting from?
These peoples all contributed a lot of the world, and were all avid practitioners of slavery, as well as their own "racial and religious superiority".
Ideas, no, ideals, yes. Obsession over Greek and Roman civilizations held back the course of science, philosophy and ethics for centuries.
We can take the ideas of a few brilliant men for what they were while still consigning those empires to the rubbish heap of history where they belong. The world is better off for having the opportunity to move beyond the influence of those cultures.
And as an American, I would include my own country as well. You could list any number of benefits the United States has brought to humanity, in practically any field. But the world will still be better off when the US is no longer a superpower using overwhelming violence to reinforce its military and cultural hegemony.
Good riddance to all empires and superpowers.
And so, although the western civilisation led the movement to abolish slavery in modern times, the British Empire was not the first to do that. Other colonial powers came first- for instance, the French and the Spanish, etc.
Note that even on a civilisational level, slavery had been abolished before in various places, for instance by the Qin Dynasty in today's China, etc. Those were generally short lived but to be fair, it took a long time before the majority of the world stopped keeping slaves anyway, and abolition advanced with fits and starts.
And, unfortunately, some are still at it to this day, although not legally so.
Did you prefer it when 'India' was colonized by the Mongols?
Or perhaps the post-Mongol period when hundreds of States ruled by greedy Princes fought amongst themselves?
I'm not apologising for the Empire but it's erroneous to believe that the British landed on the shores of a peaceful and harmonious landmass and suddenly imposed all sorts of previously-unseen nastiness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707#Scottish_pe...
http://wingsoverscotland.com/weekend-essay-skintland-britnat...
As an American, I love watching Top Gear and feeling their nostalgia for great British cars, and for cars made in someone's shed with panels pounded by hand over wooden molds... are there any actual British car companies left from those days? Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by the Indians, Mini is owned by the Germans, MG is owned by the Chinese.
Is this what Great Britain is now? Just the bottom half of a tiny island in the North Sea? And people are content with this? I understand empires rise and fall but it's still kind of sad to watch. A nation that once owned the entire world, now they're closing their borders because they're afraid of the big scary world outside.
Glad to see Scotland isn't putting up with it.