A United Kingdom without England

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This was an image I made a while ago using my country vectors out of curiosity when I asked myself a question.

Scotland is talking about independence, and Plaid Cymru and the idea of Welsh nationhood has popped up now and again, and a rather loud minority that make up 21%* of Northern Ireland support the idea of the constituent country leaving the UK and integrating into the republic down south (and so does the second largest party, Sinn Féin).

This made me think: what if England were to be the one that wanted to become independent of the UK? Now hear me out, I know this is about as likely as David Cameron turning out to be a cage fighter, but it is nevertheless something that could possibly happen in some universe.

The real question is, how? The thing is, English nationalism is almost by de-facto British nationalism as England manages to dominate the UK through sheer population and influence, and it is in its best interests to keep the union together, and any kind of English pride often carries with it a sense of unionism. It is only in England and parts of Northern Ireland that you would generally find people who identify first as "British" and not as their constituent country.

And what would England even be? In the picture I've made it "the commonwealth" in reference to the Cromwellian era, but would it be a republic? Would it be a Kingdom? In fact, would it remain with the Monarch of the UK as head of state? Would the UK, having now excluded England, still even be a monarchy? Would it be the United Republic of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Almost all safe conservative constituencies were in England, would this mean the new UK would take a much more left-wing turn? For that matter, would this mean that England would take a further right-wing turn?

And then there'd be the question how the new UK would work. Would the capital be in Cardiff or in Edinburgh? Or would it be somewhere completely new? Glasgow maybe? Would the people of Northern Ireland be willing to stay in the UK or would union with Ireland be more appealing than this new sea-separated nation? Would the culture of the UK see a more Celtic turn now that only the most Celtic nations are left in the union?

But enough of my blathering, TL;DR version: UK without England. How could this happen? What would independent England be like? What would the new UK be like? I'd like to hear your thoughts.

EDIT: And for that matter, would the new UK flag remove England? Sorry, I tend to ask a lot questions.

*according to a recent poll
 
The problem is that without England pushing for it, there would most likely be no union. Ireland would still have remained under English sway, and Wales would likely remain a part of England and Scotland would've stayed being Scotland.
 
The Act of Union created the United Kingdom of Great Britain merging England and Scotland (Wales was legally part of England since at least Henry VIII). Later Ireland was merged in, then when Eire went independent Northern Ireland took their place, AFAIK.

Thus, for England to leave you essentially have to dissolve the Acts of Union. By doing this, yes you restore England to independence but you also restore Scotland and (N) Ireland. At this point, Wales remains within England.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
If subsidies for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are particularly high, and there's a particularly acute and media-dominating example of the West Lothian question (perhaps a different process of devolution means that England is the only place that experiences the 2010 tuition fee hike), then it could be possible for some people to argue that the rest of Britain is 'plundering' the wealth of England. Were the sentiment to prevail - though god knows how it would get so extreme - then perhaps England might be tempted to declare independence and keep its money. The problem with this, of course, is that this could then lead to the same argument being applied to the north-south divide... and from there, the London-to-everywhere-else divide, seeing how London practically keeps the entire country afloat by itself.
 
I don't think so; no England no UK
Only possibility if King Arthur (the supposed historical figure), would manage to kick out the Saxons
 
If subsidies for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are particularly high, and there's a particularly acute and media-dominating example of the West Lothian question (perhaps a different process of devolution means that England is the only place that experiences the 2010 tuition fee hike), then it could be possible for some people to argue that the rest of Britain is 'plundering' the wealth of England. Were the sentiment to prevail - though god knows how it would get so extreme - then perhaps England might be tempted to declare independence and keep its money. The problem with this, of course, is that this could then lead to the same argument being applied to the north-south divide... and from there, the London-to-everywhere-else divide, seeing how London practically keeps the entire country afloat by itself.

This is one of the only ways I could see this ever happening, the fact that England, unlike the other countries of the UK, could probably thrive independently, and the dilemma caused by the West Lothian question that could give it just a little bit of reason.

If we go down the realms of Alternate timelines, you could imagine a kind of English nationalist movement, first brought about by pseudo-racism but evolving into something more economical and cultural and somehow in the future it succeeded. Still though, it all seems iffy since England has generally thrived from its status in the union, and there's never been a call for it to leave.
 
For All Time had a referendum in which each of the UK's members voted on whether they wanted to stay, where England had a surprising vote to leave while everyone else stuck around. But there was a lot of backstory there, and FaT is a worst-case-scenario type TL.
 
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