1.

COUNTRY AND PEOPLE

This is a document about Britain. But what exactly is Britain? And who are the British? You might think
that, when it comes to international sport, the situation would be simple – one country, one team. But
you can see that this is definitely not the case with Britain. For each of the four sports or sporting events
listed in the figure below, there are a different number of national teams which might be called 'British'.
This part describes how this situation has come about and explains the different names which are used
when people talk about Britain.

1.1. Geographically speaking

Lying off the north-west coast of Europe, there are two large islands and several much smaller ones.
Collectively, they are known as The British Isles. The largest island is called Great Britain. The other large
one is called Ireland (figure 2).

1.2. Politically speaking

In the British Isles there are two states. One of these governs most of the island of Ireland. This state is
usually called The Republic of Ireland. It is also called 'Eire' (its Irish language name). Informally it is
referred to as just ' Ireland ' or 'the Republic '. The other state has authority over the res t of the British
Isles (the whole of Great Britain, the north eastern area of Ireland and most of the smaller islands). This
is the country that is the main subject of this document. Its official name is The United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland although it is usually known by a shorter name. At the Euro vision Song
Contest, at the United Nations and in the European Parliament, for instance, it is referred to as 'the
United Kingdom'. In everyday speech this is often shortened to 'the UK'. In other contexts it is referred
to as 'Great Britain'. This, for example, is the name you hear when a gold medal winner steps onto the
rostrum at the Olympic Games. The slickers on cars ('GB') are another example of the use of this name.
The normal adjective, when talking about something to do with the UK, is 'British'.

1.3. The four nations

People often refer to Britain by another name. They call it 'England'. But this is not strictly correct, and it
can make some people angry. England is only one of the four nations of the British Isles (England,
Scotland, Wales and Ireland). Their political unification was a gradual process that took several hundred
years. It was completed in 1800 when the Irish Parliament was joined with the Parliament for England,
Scotland and Wales in Westminster, so that the whole of the British Isles became a single state - the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, in 1922, most of Ireland became a separate
state. At one time the four nations were distinct from each other in almost every aspect of life. In the
first place, they were different racially. The people in Ireland, Wales and highland Scotland belonged to
the Celtic race; those in England and lowland Scotland were mainly of Germanic origin. This difference
was reflected in the languages they spoke. People in the Celtic areas spoke Celtic languages: Irish Gaelic,
Scottish Gaelic and Welsh. People in the Germanic areas spoke Germanic dialects (including the one
which has developed into modern English). The nations also tended to have different economic, social
and legal systems. Today these differences have become blurred. But they have not completely
disappeared. Although there is only one government for the whole of Britain, and people have the same
passport regardless of where in Britain they live , some aspects of government are organized separately
(and sometimes differently) in the four parts of the United Kingdom. Moreover, Welsh, Scottish and Irish
people feel their identity very strongly.

1.4. The dominance of England

There is, perhaps, an excuse for people who use the word 'England' when they mean 'Britain'. It cannot
be denied that the dominant culture of Britain today is specifically English. The system of politics that is
used in all four nations today is of English origin, and English is the main language of all four nations.
Many aspects of everyday life are organized according to English custom and practice. But the political
unification of Britain was not achieved by mutual agreement. On the contrary, it happened because
England was able to exert her economic and military power over the other three nations.

1.5. National loyalties

When you are talking to people from Britain, it is safest to use 'Britain' when talking about where they
live and 'British ' as the adjective to describe their nationality. This way you will be less likely to offend
anyone, It is, of course, not wrong to talk about 'people in England ' if that is what you mean - people
who live with in the geographical boundaries of England. After all, most British people live there. But it
should always be remembered that England does not make up the whole of the UK. There has been a
long history of migration from Scotland, Wales and Ireland to England. As a result there are millions of
people who live in England but who would never describe themselves as English. They may have lived in
England all their lives, but as far as they are concerned they are Scottish or Welsh or Irish – even if, in the
last case, they are citizens of Britain and not of Eire. These people support the country of their parents
or grandparents rather than England in sporting contests. They would also, given the chance, play for
that country rather than England.

2. HISTORY
2.1. Prehistory
Two thousand years ago there was an Iron Age Celtic culture throughout the British Isles. It seems that
the Celts, who had been arriving from Europe from the eighth century BC onwards, intermingled with
the peoples who were already there. We know that religious sites that had been built long before the
arrival of the Celts continued to be used in the Celtic period. For people in Britain today, the chief
significance of the prehistoric period (for which no written records exist) is its sense of mystery. This
sense finds its focus most easily in the astonishing monumental architecture of this period, the remains
of which exist throughout the country.
2.2. The Roman period
The Roman province of Britannia covered most of present-day England and Wales. The Romans imposed
their own way of life and culture, making use of the existing Celtic aristocracy to govern and encouraging
this ruling class to adopt Roman dress and the Roman language (Latin). They exerted an influence,
without actually governing there, over only the southern part of Scotland. It was during this time that a
Celtic tribe called the Scots migrated from Ireland to Scotland, where they became allies of the Picts
(another Celtic tribe) and opponents of the Romans. This division of the Celt s into those who
experienced direct Roman rule (the Britons in England and Wales) and those who did not (the Gaels in
Ireland and Scotland) may help to explain the development of two distinct branches of the Celtic group
of languages. The remarkable thing about the Romans is that, despite their long occupation of Britain,
they left very little behind. To many other parts of Europe they bequeathed a system of law and
administration which forms the basis of the modern system and a language which developed in to the
modern Romance family of languages.

2.3. The Germanic invasions

One reason why Roman Britannia disappeared so quickly is probably that its influence was largely
confined to the towns. In the countryside, where most people lived, farming methods had remained
unchanged and Celtic speech continued to be dominant. The Roman occupation n had been a matter of
colonial control rather than large-scale settlement. But, during the fifth century, a number of tribes from
the north-western European mainland invaded and settled in large numbers. Two of these tribes were
the Angles and the Saxons. These Anglo-Saxons soon had the south-east of the country in their grasp. In
the west of the country their advance was temporarily halted by an army of Celtic) Britons under the
command of the legendary King Arthur. Nevertheless, by the end of the sixth century, they and their
way of life predominated in nearly all of England and in parts of southern Scotland. The Celtic Britons
were either Saxonized or driven westwards, where their culture and language survived in south-west
Scotland, Wales and Cornwall.

2.4. The medieval period

The successful Norman invasion of England in 1066 brought Britain into the mainstream of western
European culture. Previously most links had been with Scandinavia. Only in Scotland did this link survive;
the western isles (until the thirteenth century) and the northern islands (until the fifteenth century)
remaining under the control of Scandinavian kings. Throughout this period the English kings also ruled
over areas of land on the continent and were often at war with the French kings in disputes over
ownership.

2.5. The sixteenth century

The power of the English monarch increased in this period. The strength of the great barons had been
greatly weakened by the Wars of the Roses. Bubonic plague (known in England as the Black Death)
contributed to the reduction of their power. It killed about a third of the population in its first outbreak
in England in the middle of the fourteenth century and continued to reappear periodically for another
300 years . The shortage of labor which this caused, and the increasing importance of trade in the
towns, helped to weaken the traditional ties between feudal lord and peasant.

2.6. The seventeenth century

When James I became the first English king of the Stuart dynasty, he was already king of Scotland, so the
crowns of these two countries were united. Although their parliaments and administrative and judicial
systems continued to be separate, their linguistic differences were lessened in this century. The kind of
Middle English spoken in lowland Scotland had developed in to a written language known as 'Scots'.
However, the Scottish Protestant church adopted English rather than Scots bibles. This, and the glamour
of the English court where the king now sat, caused modern English to become the written standard in
Scotland as well.

2.7. The eighteenth century

Politically, this century was stable. Monarch and Parliament got on quite well together. One reason for
this was that the monarch's favorite politicians, through the royal power of patron age (the ability to
give people jobs), were able to control the election and voting habits of a large number of Members of
Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons.

2.8. The nineteenth century

Not long before this century began, Britain had lost its most important American colonies in a war of
independence. When the century began, the country was locked in a war with France, during which an
invasion by a French army was a real possibility. Soon after the end of the century, Britain controlled the
biggest empire the world had ever seen.

2.9. The twentieth century

By the beginning of this century, Britain was no longer the world's richest count ry. Perhaps this caused
Victorian confidence in gradual reform to weaken. Whatever the reason, the first twenty years of the
century were a period o f extremism in Britain. The Suffragettes, women demanding the right to vote,
were prepared both to damage property and to die for their beliefs; the problem of Ulster in the north
of Ireland led to a situation in which some sections of the army appeared ready to disobey the
government; and the government's introduction of new types and level s o f taxation was opposed so
absolutely by the House of Lords that even Parliament, the foundation of the political system, seemed to
have an uncertain future in its traditional form. But by the end of the First World War, two of these
issues had been resolved to most people's satisfaction (the Irish problem remained) and the rather un-
British climate of extremism died out.
3. DEMOGRAPHY
3.1. Population
At the most recent census in 2001, the total population of the United Kingdom was 58,789,194, the third
largest in the European Union, the fifth largest in the Commonwealth and the twenty-first largest in the
world. By mid-2007, this was estimated to have grown to 60,975,000. Current population growth is
mainly due to net immigration but a rising birth rate and increasing life expectancy have also
contributed. The mid-2007 population estimates also revealed that, for the first time, the UK is now
home to more people of pensionable age than children under the age of 16.

3.2. Migration
In contrast with some other European countries, immigration is contributing to a rising population,
accounting for about half of the population increase between 1991 and 2001. Citizens of the European
Union have the right to live and work in the United Kingdom and one in six immigrants were from
Eastern European countries that joined the EU in 2004, with larger numbers coming from New
Commonwealth countries. Transitional arrangements apply to Romanians and Bulgarians whose
countries joined the EU in January 2007. Official figures showed that 2.3 million net migrants have
moved to Britain since 1997, 84% of them from outside Europe, and a further 7 million are expected by
2031, though these figures are disputed. The latest official figures show that net immigration to the UK
in 2007 was 237,000, up from the 191,000 the previous year. Though the proportion of foreign-born
people in the UK remains slightly below that of some other European countries, the actual number may
almost double to 9.1 million over the next two decades. At the same time, due to emigration, at least
5.5 million British-born people are living abroad, with Australia, Spain, and France being the top three
destinations.

3.3. Religion
The Treaty of Union that led to the formation of the United Kingdom ensured that there would be a
protestant succession as well as a link between church and state that still remains. Christianity is the
major religion, followed by Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and then Judaism in terms of number of adherents.
The 2007 Tearfund Survey revealed 53% identified themselves as Christian which was similar to the 2004
British Social Attitudes Survey, and to the 2001 Census in which 71.6% said that Christianity was their
religion, (though the latter used "a softer question".) However, the Tearfund survey showed only one in
ten Britons actually attend church weekly. There is also a large and growing atheist and agnostic
population. In the 2001 census, 9.1 million (15% of the UK population) claimed no religion, with a further
4.3 million (7% of the UK population) not stated. There is a disparity between the figures for those
identifying themselves with a particular religion and for those proclaiming a belief in a God: a
Eurobarometer poll conducted in 2005 showed that 38% of the respondents believed that "there is a
God", 40% believed that "there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 20% said "I'don't believe there is
any sort of spirit, God or life force"
3.3.1. Christianity
Christianity is the main religion in England with the Church of England (Anglican) the Established Church:
the church retains a representation in the UK Parliament and the British monarch is a member of the
church (required under Article 2 of the Treaty of Union) as well as its Supreme Governor. The Church of
England also retains the right to draft legislative measures (related to religious administration) through
the General Synod that can then be passed into law by Parliament. The Roman Catholic Church in
England and Wales is the second largest Christian church with around five million members, mainly in
England. There are also growing Orthodox, Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, with Pentecostal
churches in England now third after the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church in terms of
church attendance. Other large Christian groups include Methodists and Baptists.

3.3.2. Other religions

At the 2001 census, there were 1,536,015 Muslims in England and Wales, forming 3% of the population.
Muslims in Scotland numbered 42,557 representing 0.84% of the population. There were a further 1,943
Muslims in Northern Ireland. The biggest groups of Muslims are of Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian
origin. According to the Office for National Statistics, the total number of Muslims in the UK in 2008 was
2,422,000. Over 1 million people follow religions of Indian origin: 560,000 Hindus, 340,000 Sikhs with
about 150,000 practicing Buddhism. One non-governmental organization estimates that there are
800,000 Hindus in the UK. Leicester houses one of the world's few Jain temples that are outside of India.
There are approximately 270,000 Jews in Britain, according to the 2001 census.