Largest possible UK

Honestly, the sort of issues your talking about are almost always a consequence of a pre-existing conflict rather than a cause.
Indeed. That's why many Scots and Welsh support any team playing against England. The pre-existing conflict is the national rivalry between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This rivalry is entrenched by separate national teams.
Sans the national team, you're probably just going to see that focus switched to teams like Celtic or Rangers in the same way Catalan nationalism focuses around Barcelona.
Which is likely fine in the case of Scotland because we know it's large enough to support a separate league structure, so as much as that nationalism would be channelled through Celtic or Rangers it'd be tempered by the possibility of them being ejected from the Premier League in the event of secession.
 
Considering the British Empire reached its peak in 1921, a larger British Empire would require avoiding World War 1.

World War 1 changed the world order with the rise of the US and Japan as naval powers plus many of the UK's colonies launching their own independence movements, like Egypt, India and Ireland. The British are also limited in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty that resulted from the US and Japan's naval rising.

With the League of Nations resulting from WW1 and then the United Nations from WW2, I think continued growth of the British Empire requires the World Wars not occurring which brought so much strain on the Empire both during and afterwards.
 
Indeed. That's why many Scots and Welsh support any team playing against England. The pre-existing conflict is the national rivalry between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This rivalry is entrenched by separate national teams.

Which is likely fine in the case of Scotland because we know it's large enough to support a separate league structure, so as much as that nationalism would be channelled through Celtic or Rangers it'd be tempered by the possibility of them being ejected from the Premier League in the event of secession.

But the thing is, I don't think the national teams really have any effect. We've got a unified team at the Olympics, and always have (indeed this predated the World Cup itself by a couple of decades and evolved into it), and essentially everyone manages to come together once every four years and then immediately gets back to fighting eachother again. I don't see how the unified national team competing in tournaments every two years would change this. Especially as the World Cup didn't come around until 1930 so you've got 60 years for the England/Scotland rivalry to get entrenched (assuming that essentially Fifa forces a merger on the basis of inheriting the structure from when it was the Olympic football tournament).

Catalans don't particularly care if independence means that the Barcelona-Madrid match might not happen anymore (in fact they'd probably claim that it would just in the Europe-wide competitions). I doubt the Scots would be too concerned that they'd be out the Premier League either. Nationalism tends to treat those sort of things as acceptable losses.
 
But the thing is, I don't think the national teams really have any effect. We've got a unified team at the Olympics, and always have (indeed this predated the World Cup itself by a couple of decades and evolved into it), and essentially everyone manages to come together once every four years and then immediately gets back to fighting eachother again. I don't see how the unified national team competing in tournaments every two years would change this. Especially as the World Cup didn't come around until 1930 so you've got 60 years for the England/Scotland rivalry to get entrenched (assuming that essentially Fifa forces a merger on the basis of inheriting the structure from when it was the Olympic football tournament).

Catalans don't particularly care if independence means that the Barcelona-Madrid match might not happen anymore (in fact they'd probably claim that it would just in the Europe-wide competitions). I doubt the Scots would be too concerned that they'd be out the Premier League either. Nationalism tends to treat those sort of things as acceptable losses.

I don't understand how you can state that the united British teams do not unify British identity. The Olympics, the eurovision, anything where there is a unified team does bring the whole of the UK together. A single sports league for the entire British Isles created by an authority in the early 1900s would do a great deal for bringing the nations together.

The nationalism that is in Scotland now I would describe almost entirely as pop nationalism and reactionary political nationalism (ie seceding because your party didn't win the election). You also most certainly in a single unified British premier league (and not just premier league every single sport) a tempering of any independence movement. I know first hand that people care far more about football which they understand than the dynamics of a currency union.

I will also add that breaking up England into regions does seem necessary if you want other regions to not feel dominated. Equi populous regions are really the only way to do that
 
The nationalism that is in Scotland now I would describe almost entirely as pop nationalism and reactionary political nationalism (ie seceding because your party didn't win the election). You also most certainly in a single unified British premier league (and not just premier league every single sport) a tempering of any independence movement. I know first hand that people care far more about football which they understand than the dynamics of a currency union.
Quite. As I said at the time of the referendum, Glaswegians are generally pretty passionate about their football and comprise around ten percent of the Scottish population. Independence would struggle to find any support there as soon as it became apparent that independence would mean Celtic and Rangers being expelled from the Premiership. I recall seeing a vox pop on the day of the referendum with a Glaswegian who said he voted against independence because he didn't want to lose Match of the Day!
I will also add that breaking up England into regions does seem necessary if you want other regions to not feel dominated. Equi populous regions are really the only way to do that
Yes, that's a big part of the problem with the current devolution settlement, England is too big a region and Westminster legislates for it and the devolved countries in reserved matters, this causes resentment. Though I'm not sure that Equi populous regions are even the best way to do that, simply because I don't think that it would be good politics to split Scotland up into three regions or London in to four or five regions to accommodate Northern Ireland, much as I don't think that adding Northern Ireland to Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, Merseyside, Cumbria and Lancashire would be a popular way of ensuring regions were the same size as London. I'd be perfectly happy with differently sized regions that perhaps had a common regional bond.
 
Though I'm not sure that Equi populous regions are even the best way to do that, simply because I don't think that it would be good politics to split Scotland up into three regions or London in to four or five regions to accommodate Northern Ireland, much as I don't think that adding Northern Ireland to Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, Merseyside, Cumbria and Lancashire would be a popular way of ensuring regions were the same size as London. I'd be perfectly happy with differently sized regions that perhaps had a common regional bond.
I don't think that regions need to be of equal population, but they shouldn't be too dissimilar. California-to-Wyoming is a bit too much of a range, being entirely honest, but London to Northern Ireland is only a factor of 5 or so - that's not too bad. The trick is finding regions of England such that they have that bond. Yorkshire can pull it off, East Anglia and the West Country might, and beyond that I'm pulling a blank.

Out of pure malevolence, I've sometimes suggested devolving to English counties the same powers as the Scottish Parliament has. Probably not a good idea, but it would be fun to watch.
 

RyanF

Banned
I don't think that regions need to be of equal population, but they shouldn't be too dissimilar. California-to-Wyoming is a bit too much of a range, being entirely honest, but London to Northern Ireland is only a factor of 5 or so - that's not too bad. The trick is finding regions of England such that they have that bond. Yorkshire can pull it off, East Anglia and the West Country might, and beyond that I'm pulling a blank.

Out of pure malevolence, I've sometimes suggested devolving to English counties the same powers as the Scottish Parliament has. Probably not a good idea, but it would be fun to watch.

Tying devolution to the English regions into the original question, if Irish Home Rule is successfully implemented (either by avoiding WWI or going through as proposed in spite of WWI) then you would see Scotland soon follow (a Scottish Home Rule bill was discussed in 1913 or 1914 and was quickly forgotten about after WWI started). After this very big if, you may see devolution to the English regions or the larger counties, as mentioned by Churchill in a speech during the Home Rule crisis (I think he mentioned London, Yorkshire and the Midlands specifically).

Following on from this you may see integrationism become desired in Malta or Gibraltar (Cyprus I can't see under any circumstances) along the federalist model, but again pretty big if. An even bigger if would see the crown dependencies become fully integrated.

So the largest possible UK (not Empire) that you would see in the 20th century would be OTL UK including the whole of Ireland, plus the crown dependencies, Gibraltar, and Malta.

Anywhere else is a combination of two far away to be fully integrated (unlike France the UK has a convenient dominion on most continents to integrate colonies to a la Newfoundland into Canada) and too sparsely populated to be worth integrating (Falklands).

There may be a few more odd islands in Europe which may find themselves part of the UK (eg. the Faroes if Denmark is Fascist or Communist or occupied long-term opposed to the UK), but even the scenario we have so far presumes nearly everything going right for the UK to take territory from other European nations you take it to a whole new level.
 
Top