[Shasown]

Originally Posted by Tom

N. Ireland and Scotland might have their own parliaments but they're ultimately ruled by England. Is there any point, other than historical reasons, to keep it as 4 separate countries instead of just integrating it all into one and downgrading England/Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland to regions?

Yes its something called the Acts of (the)Union from 1536 (then1707) onward up to and including the various legislature that allowed the reintroduction of regional assemblies, which allows each country its own identity its own boundaries and the certain self determining rights, the Independence of Scottish education and judicial systems to name a couple.

Throwing all four countries back together into one country under one parliament would create more problems than it solves.

The biggest of these would be the people of three of the countries resenting the lack of regional assemblies etc and would probably lead to the dissolution of the union very rapidly.

United together as we are currently the UK can shout fairly loudly in Europe, four smaller individual countries would be ignored more than we currently are, that is if all four elected to stay in Europe, if they were even allowed in Europe as four separate independand nations.

The balance between self determination and collective sovereignity is about right for the current times.