Well fuck me pink and call me Rosie. AIBU?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

Do you know that Belfast and NI are in the British Isles? Are you aware that some British people claim they do not know that NI is in the same timezone as the rest of the UK?

YABU = You can't expect British people to know the history and geography of their country.
YANBU = Of course British people know this stuff. Anyone who says otherwise is having you on.

I'm a bit amazed and have never encountered anyone who thought the UK had more than one time zone.

However have been "corrected" on here that my kids in Wales can't be doing AS-levels and getting A*-G grades in GCSEs. Though I think Scotland having a completely different education and legal system is more widely known - but still throws a few posters on here.

But I have resorted to you tube video like one below to explain all the different parts - not just 4 main countries but Isle of Man Gibraltar and other counties to the kids though it's a bit dated now as few things have changed but I've never been taught this just picked it up as I went though life in the UK.

@piratypotato the dolls page yes. I was stunned. AND she had people responding to her that they had never been asked for passport at the station so she should 'get away' with it. Unbelievable.

I know right? I was boggled at it, but I sat on my hands so I couldn't respond!!!

Op - what you may not realise is that if you say to an English person "your country", they most likely think first of England. For many, "your country" is England and only England.
For others, they may have a wider view and consider themselves to be "British". So after a moment they remember Wales, and bemusedly remember that Scotland is supposed to count, i.e. be included in the "your country" of Britishness, although some of the Scots don't like it.
NI does not register.
It is just not recalled to 'belong', if it is remembered at all.

If we English thought of NI as part of "our country" for even a nano-second, then maybe Brexit would have gone differently.
When NI is recalled at all, it is as an inconvenience, a colony that we should have got rid of ages ago, more trouble than it is worth.
Hence why the trade border is now down the Irish Sea.

Sorry if this causes offence. If as a Northern-Irelander you want to belong to the UK, that is like wanting to be part of a toxic and dysfunctional family with a narcissistic senior member that considers you the black sheep and an embarrassment, when they remember you exist at all.

You would be better off going 'Low Contact' to use the MN phrase, and either becoming and independent state or re-joining the rest of the Island of Ireland.

So, to answer your original question, most people have no idea if NI is part of "our country", what its time zone or currency is, or why they should care.

And the 'its best to bring both sterling and euro'. Eh why? Euro is not the currency. It was just the most bizarre thing as Louth is an actual border county. I will never unsee that post.

This is a ridiculous post based on nothing more than personal anecdotes which leads to the Anecdotal Fallacy.

Faulty logic.

Despite what you've posted, England is NOT a monolith where all the inhabitants are as you describe.

In fact, opinion polls on English views of the Union has Northern Ireland held in the same way as Scotland. More people in England want Northern Ireland and Scotland to stay in the UK. A minority in England want both to leave.

Your post paints the English in a bad light and this is not my experience at all nor is it borne out in opinion polls. Yes, there's a minority who are rude about the Union in England, but it's by no means the majority.

More people in England still value the Union.

Your first paragraph - I was responding to a PP who was arguing this to which you then appeared to validate. My argument is not that NI is part of GB - only that they're not separate which I've covered in detail.

Your second paragraph - you're correct that "in order to be joined together into a union, they did originally (all of the nation states) have to be discrete entities." But my point is that the word "and" doesn't imply separation which a PP was trying to argue. I pointed out the correct context for "and" which is to join together as one vis a vis "United". It's moot to point out NI and GB were originally separate because its been a very long time since they were.

We appear to be in agreement, essentially.

I’d say it’s pretty true. I’m Irish but live in London and my impression is most English people view Northern Ireland as very ‘other’. Often if anything comes up in relation to NI they direct the question to me. At which point I tell them I’ve never even been there and should really be asking them since it’s part of their country!

Thanks for that, I agree and I'd say we're both on the same page 👍

I didn't mean to imply, btw, that NI is separate to GB (other than being separated from it by an expanse of water in the same way that, say, the Orkney Islands are). I think there's some merit to viewing all the nation states as individual entities with their own identities and so on, which are also joined together in a union.

Should also say, I think the name issue is also complicated for foreigners by the fact that GB is often used rather than UK in our media. For example, it's much more common that French commentators will refer to Grande-Bretagne than Royaume Uni.

No, it's very much stereotyping the English and presenting them as a monolithic society. You've made out like there's zero variety of opinion there which is what you'd expect from a country of more than 50 million!

There is actually no one set of opinion in England which can be demonstrated.

The idea that England supposedly has no sense of ties with Northern Ireland some push is just their own agenda showing. They've failed to understand that England is definitely not a monolithic society.

Polling more than bears that out.

From the 2020 YouGov poll:

"Despite more of the British public supporting a border poll than opposing one, more respondents prefer the outcome in which Northern Ireland stays put, with 37% saying it should remain part of the UK. The region sticking in the union has the most support across two of the three main parties, as well as both sides of the referendum."

Just 27% of respondents believe Northern Ireland should leave the UK.

People being in favour of a border poll doesn't necessarily mean they're in favour of a part leaving the union. Those are two different things.

The 2019 Ashcroft poll concluded:

".....most English voters would rather keep the union together if it were up to them – though they recognise it isn’t up to them."

43% of English people felt Scotland should remain in the UK and 35% felt Northern Ireland should remain in the UK.

41% of English feel it's up to the Scottish whether or not they stay and 43% feel it's up to the Northern Irish.

When asked if they had to choose between the UK and EU in the hypothetical they couldn't have both, 45% of English people felt Scotland should stay in the UK and 42% felt Northern Ireland should stay.

In contrast, 36% of English people felt leaving the EU was more important than keeping Scotland and 36% again in regards to Northern Ireland.

Final word to Ashcroft again:

"only a handful say that if either voted to leave the UK they would be happy to see them go. Of those who say it is for Scotland and Northern Ireland to decide, a large minority nevertheless say they would be sorry to see them leave if they chose do so. This means that, overall, most English voters would rather keep the union together if it were up to them – though they recognise it isn’t up to them."

Essentially, how the English feel about Northern Ireland as part of the Union is very similar to how they feel about Scotland.

Support for the Union in England has also recently increased too despite selective media reporting.

I'm Northern Irish and have family in England, so I know it very well. Like I said personal anecdotes are worthless in debates like this. See the Anecdotal Fallacy.

That's why I use data....

Well I’ve lived in England for 15 years and that’s my overwhelming impression. I think wanting to keep the Union together is more to do with being stronger / more powerful as a bigger country. Especially since the Empire is no longer.

Panic mode activated at the suggestion that England is largely indifferent to NI.

But your statement is incorrect. You said "all of NI is more northerly that all of the ROI". Wrong. The most northerly point on the island of Ireland is located in the ROI... You even said this so surely it's pretty obvious that as part of the ROI is more northerly than all of NI it's therefore impossible for all of NI to be further north than all of the ROI.

Just wanted to clarify for anyone watching this that the bit where the narrator says 'Ireland is not a country' is wrong. He is under the mistaken impression that the island is called Ireland, but that the country is the Republic of Ireland. This is not the offical name of the country. The country's name is also Ireland (in English; it's Éire in Irish). Though it is sometimes called the Republic of Ireland this is not the official name. The same error was present in the map shown by @JaneJeffer.

He also said that people calling themselves Irish are from ROI, but some people in NI call themselves Irish too as already discussed on here.

Regarding time zones, it's handy to look at a map with lines of longitude marked. Belfast and the majority of NI lie more easterly than do the western part of Scotland.

That's ludicrous. It's astounding to think that people in mainland Britain may think NI is in a different time zone, whether they give a hoot or not where NI belongs, politically. It's geography!! Do they never see a map? Perhaps a weather map at the end of the news, or on their phone/satnav? It's frickin tiny!! You can see a map of Asia/Australia/USA etc. and understand how time zones are crossed, but flip me, you can literally stand at the edge of the North Coast (Giant's Causeway) and see mainland UK (no offence to any Scottish republicans).

Just wanted to clarify for anyone watching this that the bit where the narrator says 'Ireland is not a country' is wrong. He is under the mistaken impression that the island is called Ireland, but that the country is the Republic of Ireland.

So wrong.

But quite a common mistake for British people to make. The only time I can think where an Irish person refers to the 'Republic of Ireland' is sports commentators in a footballing context. The front of our passports say Ireland. Irish people say they're from Ireland. Of course Ireland is a country.

"35% felt Northern Ireland should remain in the UK."

Which implies that 65% thought it should leave, or didn't express a preference. Kinda proving my point that (most of) the English don't care about NI.

Wow, you seriously need to take English refresher classes!

My statement is correct because the ONLY way ALL of the* Republic of Ireland could be more northerly than ALL of Northern Ireland is for TWENTY-FIVE counties *to somehow be moved above Northern Ireland!

Impossible! 🤦‍♂️

A very small part of the Republic is more northerly than Northern Ireland, yes. But this does not mean the Republic itself as a whole is more northerly! 🤦‍♂️

Apart from County Donegal, the entirety of the ROI is to the south of Northern Ireland.

So, the statement "all of Northern Ireland is more northerly that all of the Republic of Ireland" still stands as correct.

The keyword in the statement is "ALL".....twice.

Just wanted to clarify for anyone watching this that the bit where the narrator says 'Ireland is not a country' is wrong. He is under the mistaken impression that the island is called Ireland, but that the country is the Republic of Ireland. This is not the offical name of the country. The country's name is also Ireland (in English; it's Éire in Irish). Though it is sometimes called the Republic of Ireland this is not the official name.

I missed that though I did believe Ireland was the countries name not just the geographical part and did see updates in the comments about various situations but missed anything pointing that out.

It does shows how you can easily miss things when not directly affected -moving to Wales has been eye opening in that respect for us.

This is a bizarre interpretation of the data which demonstrates you don't know how to correctly read the results!

You're quoting the Ashcroft Poll of 2019 there which I used the conclusions above to give you the correct conclusion from the data as provided by Ashcroft himself.

You blatantly ignored his words and misrepresented the data itself.

The correct breakdown was as follows:

35% say NI should remain in the UK

13% said the country should no longer be part of it

10% said they did not know

43% said they did not have a view and it was for the people of NI to decide

Just a paltry 13% thought Northern Ireland should leave the UK. Straightaway we can see your argument cannot stand on two legs.

It's illogical to lump this 13% in with the 10% who said they didn't know and with the 43% who said they had no view, but that its up to the people of Northern Ireland. These are THREE different* *sets of views, so it makes no sense to treat them as though they mean the same thing! 🤦‍♂️

And THAT supports MY argument that the people of England are far more varied in their views than you give them credit for. England is not a monolithic society!

Here's the conclusion from Ashcroft himself on the results of his own poll:

"...only a handful say that if either voted to leave the UK they would be happy to see them go. Of those who say it is for Scotland and Northern Ireland to decide, a large minority nevertheless say they would be sorry to see them leave if they chose do so.

This means that, overall, most English voters would rather keep the union together if it were up to them – though they recognise it isn’t up to them."

And so the poll results does NOT support your argument OR your faulty conclusion. That's because you've argued with a argument from false premises fallacy which is logically unsound.

And so misinterpreted the data.

It's illogical to lump this 13% in with the 10% who said they didn't know and with the 43% who said they had no view, but that its up to the people of Northern Ireland. These are THREE different sets of views, so it makes no sense to treat them as though they mean the same thing!

You are over-stating your case.

It is statistically valid to add the 10% who said didn't know and 43% who said they had no view, making 53% who could broadly be called 'indifferent'. Which is what I originally said - most English people just don't care about NI.

I am surprised that the 13% in favour of NI leaving the UK was as high as that - as it is a clear viewpoint and shows some interest/engagement with the matter.

This is bonkers logic.

is every single square mile of ROI south of every single square mile of NI?

No. Every single square mile = all.

That's a depressing thought @Stillcountingbeans.

I worded the OP in my way. I make no apology for that.

Of course this isn't a TAAT. This thread is not about what Kier said to Rishi (as linked upthread). It is not a thread about party politics. It is a stand alone thread. And I am grateful to all who took the time to reply. Even those who NC'd to have a go at me.