Tag Archives: great britain

Is Britain being rebranded – is it time for an English Government?

At the time that Boris Johnson was talking up post BREXIT Global Britain and assuring the Democratic Unionist Party that there would be no border in the Irish Sea (despite one being included in his “oven ready agreement” which Teresa May had said no British Prime Minister could sign) the Government was requesting that the stickers on cars travelling abroad be changed from GB to UK.

The move was only revealed by the United Nations which said it had received “a notification stating that the United Kingdom is changing the distinguishing sign that it had previously selected for display in international traffic on vehicles registered in the United Kingdom, from ‘GB’ to ‘UK'”.

The rules changed in September 2021 and yet it has not proved possible to find any reference to a debate in, or approval by, Parliament on such a potentially significant change in identity.

The Department for Transport said that it was part of a wider move across Government. One reason was GB – Great Britain – only formally included England, Wales and Scotland, whereas the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is inclusive of Northern Ireland as well as England, Scotland and Wales, it said.

It is true that Great Britain is the official collective name of England, Scotland and Wales and their associated islands and does not include Northern Ireland.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged | 22 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Jana
    @Tim Roger’s “ Jana. Please do not assume that everybody in the party is pro trans. Just oppose violence towards them.” I know you are correct on this...
  • paul barker
    Reform continue their slow decline in the Polls, where they stand a second time their Vote share mostly falls, they are losing Councillors steadily. Even the mo...
  • GWYN WILLIAMS
    Burnham's gradualist approach is similar to past Labour Governments. In 1964 Jim Griffiths was the first Secretary of State for Wales. In the 1970s the Royal Mi...
  • Dr C de Vartavan
    Robin Ashby - Thank you for this comment. I was not aware that ASML - indeed one of the world's lead manufacturers of chips - is using Mistral. Apparently, ASML...
  • Robin Ashby
    Mistral deserves further investigation ASML the Dutch leader in advanced chip machine has just bought into it to create a European force in AI. We could buy f...