Why didn't the British annex any of their overseas colonies?

Not quite.

The way Britain is governed predates sovereign states as we know them today, and is based on the "realm" concept: all power flows down and is wielded in the name of a superpowerful Crown by people delegated to wield it. So the British Realm expanded outwards, engulfed the island of Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the island of Great Britain, much of the East coast of North America, the continent of Australia, the islands of New Zealand, and so on. This is why Benjamin Franklin could - accurately - describe himself as British.

Then the realm contracted back and ended up covering bits of the island of Ireland, all of the islands of Great Britain, Isle of Man, Jersey, Gurnsey, and little else. That expansion and contraction took, what, 6-700 years?

Whilst this was going on, the concept of the "sovereign state" took hold: legal entities existing separately from its head of state and with defined borders. The single unified British Realm fractured into individual Dominions which then spun off into sovereign states in their own right. The modern-day UK is the largest remaining self-governing bit under the Realm, but it is not the only one. The other self-governing bits are the Isle of Man, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey.

This explains the OP's original question. The colonies were not integrated into the UK because there was no need (they were governed directly under the Crown) and it was not practicably possible (how do you govern when it takes two weeks for a message to cross the Atlantic?).

Pretty much this. England never bothered with integrating the Isle of Man and the Duchy of Normandy, and with the notable exception of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, didn't see a need for doing so for the rest of their overseas territories. Heck, having them be self-governing territories would be a much more convenient option for the Crown.
 
Decentralisation and local rule is the traditional British way.

It's more a case of areas are created, governors are appointed to govern it/oversee its governance, and power is delegated - lent, never given - to them to enable it to work. That is how local British government (local authority areas) can have maximum local taxation (council tax) limits imposed on them. That's not centralisation nor decentralisation, that's just choosing the most appropriate level. During World War Two Britain was staggeringly centralised - imagine a very streamlined 100% effective Communism, and you just about get it.


What benefit is there for both sides if say Canada and the UK were the same country?

Before the creation of the-country-called-Canada, they *were* part of the same realm.

And it is a huge mistake to associate Ireland with the empire. It was a totally different part of British history. Its joining the UK was more akin to Scotland's joining.

Empires are just a way of administering territory. When a realm expands past its obvious borders into other places then we start calling it an Empire, but that's just geography. Pre-revolutionary Dublin was part of the Empire in the same way as pre-Revolutionary Boston, and left it in much the same way. Any area that is part of the UK is also part of the Empire: it's only the fact that the borders of the shrunken remnant Empire are similar to the borders of modern-day UK that obscures this
 
Several European countries - France most prominently, but also the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Italy (during their dictatorships) - integrated at least some of their colonies directly into their polities. Examples include the French overseas departments; Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canaries vis-a-vis Spain; Madeira and the Azores for Portugal; the Dutch overseas cities (formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles), etc.

Why did this never occur with the UK and its colonies (except for Ireland)? I know there was some consideration given to annexing and integrating Malta in the 1950s, and some who advocate integration of Gibraltar. But other than that, why did the British never themselves see fit to annex some of their West Indies, Atlantic, Indian Ocean or Pacific territories as the French did? Was local opposition stronger than in French colonies? Or did the Brits just never have the interest, and if so, why not?

Have you considered places like St Helena, Ascencion Island, the sovereign bases of Akrotiri_and_Dhekelia? I think they may meet your reqiurements, in part if not in whole
 
If Canada was "strategically unimportant" then why did it produce a quarter of all of British armaments used in WW1?

Erm....basic British colonial history, and the raison d'etre for British colonialism. Colonialism existed for trade and prestige purposes, bolstered by racism. The first and last European colonies existed for this reason. Argentina supplied the UK a lot of beef in WWII, which was never even a UK colony, but so what? A country thousands of miles away from the front lines is a safe place to rear cattle or make shells.

The UK would most likely never have given India autonomy, since it was a major source of cotton and other crops. Similar for the major African colonies, Malaysia, Jamaica, etc. Moreover, given the racism element and white man's burden, it couldn't give those bad black and Indian peoples independence, unless no other option existed.

You mention Canada, well in WWI it technically wasn't independent. It joined WWI by default as the UK controlled its foreign policy, and as per all UK colonies once war was declared against Germany. By strategically important, I mean from an economic and/or political standpoint. Which is why Singapore's loss in WWII was a major blow. Canada was never under serious threat from the USA, and full of white British settlers, it made sense to grant it autonomy and then independence.
 
Several European countries - France most prominently, but also the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Italy (during their dictatorships) - integrated at least some of their colonies directly into their polities. Examples include the French overseas departments; Ceuta, Melilla, and the Canaries vis-a-vis Spain; Madeira and the Azores for Portugal; the Dutch overseas cities (formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles), etc.

Why did this never occur with the UK and its colonies (except for Ireland)? I know there was some consideration given to annexing and integrating Malta in the 1950s, and some who advocate integration of Gibraltar. But other than that, why did the British never themselves see fit to annex some of their West Indies, Atlantic, Indian Ocean or Pacific territories as the French did? Was local opposition stronger than in French colonies? Or did the Brits just never have the interest, and if so, why not?
I know I'm being pedantic here but Ireland was not a colony.
 
Did anyone else already point out that the British did this with Ireland? Look how that went, and you know why the British didn't do it with the rest.

I don't buy this, as it requires successive British governments to be so very stupid that they can't recognize that different conditions and circumstance prevail in the relations with Ireland, vs relations with the various colonies . If they took a one-size-fits-all lesson from Ireland and applied it generally, then they'd have to have been drinking lead paint.
 
I regret to say that I can believe it...

...A mid-Westerner I met in AH thought D-Day was a purely American show, when it was really the US Dieppe. But for Canadian and British efforts, the invasion would not have got as close to Caen as it did. My own father was a Royal Engineer Lieutenant on Sword Beach. He got a Mention in Dispatches for saving a man's life, but I had to find his old campaign medals before I got him to admit it.
 
I've always thought that the British Empire was less of a prestige project than those of the other European powers.

It was originally a trading empire and was designed to produce wealth and later to provide ready markets for British manufactured goods.

As such it was always less centralized than most of the others - places deemed critical might be under direct control but other areas were left to be run by native rulers.

I don't think there was ever any imperial plan or system.

Most of the overseas territories that are left exist because they are too small to be independent or because fear of their neighbours makes them want the security that comes with being linked to the UK. However I'm not sure if they would really want to be integral parts of the UK even if such a status was offered.

As a Guernseyman born and bred, I know that as far as the Channel Islands are concerned, they were never parts of the UK and predate the Norman conquest of England. Guernsey and Jersey were annexed to the future Dutchy of Normandy by William Longsword, the Count of Rouen in 933.

They remained loyal when the rest of Normandy was lost by King John, and the queen continues to rule them as the Duke of Normandy.
 

Devvy

Donor
As a Guernseyman born and bred, I know that as far as the Channel Islands are concerned, they were never parts of the UK and predate the Norman conquest of England. Guernsey and Jersey were annexed to the future Dutchy of Normandy by William Longsword, the Count of Rouen in 933.

As a Guernseyman, do you think there are any advantages to becoming part of the UK "proper", ie. as another Home Nation with a similar level of devolution to Scotland at the moment?
 
In effect this is less than we have at the moment.

We are self governing and we are ruled by a collection of home grown f**k wits.

I can't see how our situation could be improved by being run by a collection of f**k wits based in Westminster.
 
Considering the population of the Channel Islands is that of a standard Parliamentary constituency, it wouldn't make any sense for it to be a home nation.
 
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