A serious question about Great Britain and the Commonwealths?

Question

No one can seem to give a straight answer about this. What is Great Britain, then what is England, and what are Commonwealths? Canada, Australia, etc. How are they all connected?

Answer 1

Hmm well not sure about commonwealths but i think maybe we are connected by sports etc and Great Britain is the whole of britain i.e. england , Ireland, Scotland and Wales so therefore England is a country on its own!

Answer 2

Great Britain is England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

England was a separate country from Scotland until the Act of Union.

You may find the following useful from the judgment of Barwick CJ in the Seas and Submerged Lands Act Case - State of New South Wales v. Commonwealth of Australia (1975) 135 CLR:-

51. Whilst the power with respect to external affairs is not expressed to be a power exclusively vested in the Commonwealth, it must necessarily of its nature be so as to international relations and affairs. Only the Commonwealth has international status. The colonies never were and the States are not international persons. (at p373)

52. Whilst the new Commonwealth was upon its creation the Australian colony within the Empire, the grant of the power with respect to external affairs was a clear recognition, not merely that, by uniting, the people of Australia were moving towards nationhood, but that it was the Commonwealth which would in due course become the nation state, internationally recognized as such and independent. The progression from colony to independent nation was an inevitable progression, clearly adumbrated by the grant of such powers as the power with respect to defence and external affairs. Section 61, in enabling the Governor-General as in truth a Viceroy to exercise the executive power of the Commonwealth, underlines the prospect of independent nationhood which the enactment of the Constitution provided. That prospect in due course matured, aided in that behalf by the Balfour Declaration and the Statute of Westminster and its adoption. (at p373)

53. A consequence of creation of the Commonwealth under the Constitution and the grant of the power with respect to external affairs was, in my opinion, to vest in the Commonwealth any proprietary rights and legislative power which the colonies might have had in or in relation to the territorial sea, seabed and airspace and continental shelf and incline. Proprietary rights and legislative powers in these matters of international concern would then coalesce and unite in the nation. That, in my opinion, was the intendment of the Constitution. It is far easier to conclude that the Act of the Imperial Parliament setting up the federal Constitution intended to vest such matters of international consequence in the new Commonwealth, withdrawing them from the former colonies, than it was to decide that when an American State, already an independent nation in possession of international rights, entered the Union, these rights became vested in the United States. Yet that is received doctrine in the United States expressed in decisions which have recently been affirmed: see United States v. California (1947) 332 US 19 (91 Law Ed 1889) ; United States v. Texas (1950) 339 US 707 (94 Law Ed 1221) ; United States v. Louisiana (1950) 339 US 699 (94 Law Ed 1216) and United States v. Maine (1975) 420 US 515 (43 Law Ed 2d 363) . The Supreme Court's reasons were applicable to the circumstances of the States originally entering the Union. These were then independent nation states. Yet without so clear an indication as the grant of the power with respect to external affairs, those States did not retain any rights or legislative power over the territorial sea, subsoil, etc. Later entrants to the Union, coming in on an "equal footing", were in the same situation. (at p374)

Answer 3

Great Britain is England and the commonwealth is every nation under the queen's control

10 points plz!

Answer 4

Great britain is the name of unions(territories) which come together to form kingdom of great britain. England is the contituent country of kingdom of great britain.

Commenweath countries means the regions, countries, monarchies ruled by british Empier.

Answer 5

Countries are in the Commonwealth because they were once part of the British Empire.

Answer 6

GB is made up of four counties. And the commonwealth are a bunch of ex colonial countries who come to the Queen once a year to kiss rear. A bit like the old NATO countries type thing