The Aristocratic Republic
O'er the hills and o'er the main
Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain.
Lord Burke commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.
The
United Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the
United Commonwealth (UC) or
Britain, is a country predominantly located in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental, with further member states located in Asia and the Mediterranean. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, Malta, Cornwall, and Hong Kong. However, England is divided into states within the Union's Federal System.
The United Commonwealth is a federal republic and parliamentary democracy. Though it does retain a powerful unelected system of peers, leaving it as an outlier among republics. Though the House of Lords has been curtailed in recent decades, it remains filled with hereditary peers. The capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with a metropolitan area population of over 14 million. London is home to a number of international institutions including the headquarters of the Community of British Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations. Other major cities include the city-state of Hong Kong, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds. The union is divided into 16 states with varying degrees of autonomy under the Federalisation Act and the terms of the London Conference of 1969. With the most autonomy afforded to Ireland under the terms of the Home Rule Act.
The United Commonwealth has evolved from a series of annexations and unions of the constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1784 with the Kingdom of Ireland and adoption of the Commonwealth Consitution created the modern republic United Commonwealth of Great Britain and Ireland. These events came about as a result of the First British Civil War, leading to the abolition of the British Monarchy in Great Britain and Ireland, and its exile to America. Queen Victoria, the current Monarch, remains styled
Queen-in-Exil of Great Britain and Ireland, among her other titles as the sovereign of the United Provinces, a source of continuing tension in diplomatic matters. Malta would be annexed in 1956, expanding the Union as the Empire was dissolved. The UC would become a federal state in 1970 as a result of agreements that ended the Second British Civil War (referred to as the Third British Civil War in American Sources) with Cornwall being granted country status and statehood during the negotiations separating it from England. It reached its current territorial area in 2000 with the accession of Hong Kong into the Union. The UC became the world's first industrialised country and was one, along with Napoleonic France, of the world's foremost powers during the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 21st century, the UC remains a leading power, with considerable global influence, even after having lost its superpower status in the aftermath of the Second World War.
The nearby Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not part of the UC, being Federal Dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. There are also 20 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1940s after the brief annexation of much of French Africa, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and a third of the world's population, and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies, with much of this being perpetuated and further spread by the United Provinces of America.
The United Commonwealth has the world's fourth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the sixth-largest by purchasing power parity. It has a high-income economy and a very high Human Development Index rating. It also performs well in international ranking in measures of socioeconomic performance, though ranks poorly in terms of social mobility, retaining an entrenched titled aristocracy. It is a recognized nuclear-armed state, the third country on earth to do so. It has been a permanent member of the Security Council of the Congress of Nations since 1948 and remains a considerable military power, ranking fourth globally in military expenditure and retaining mandatory national service.
The United Commonwealth is a member of the Community of British Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the Congress of Europe, the G5, the G20, Six Eyes, the Congress of Nations, CDTO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Interpol, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Source - Used the Wikipedia Page for the United Kindom as a Template