lpetrich
Contributor
Britain moves towards Anglosphere federation - YouTube - I saw this video, and I want to assess the idea.
It's nicknamed
CANZUK and it's advocated by CANZUK International - the name CANZUK is an acronym of Canada (CA), Australia (AU), New Zealand (NZ), and the United Kingdom (UK).
It's pushed as an alternative to the European Union, but it has plenty of problems of its own. But a plus for it is cultural relatedness. It's the parent nation of the British Empire with the three Anglo-dominated nations with the closest political cultural links with them. The British monarch continues to be the Head of State for all three of these nations, though she has a locally-resident deputy in each one of them, a Governor General. All four CANZUK nations use a parliamentary system of government.
Other former members of the British Empire are a much poorer fit. The United States is Anglo, but for some Americans at least, it has a cultural identity of being a nation created from scratch, and it did not get along well with Britain for the first half of its independence. South Africa is only part Anglo -- and its white population is a minority there, split between descendants of British colonists and Dutch ones, the latter ones being Afrikaners. India is even less Anglo.
Now to some problems. CANZUK is very geographically spread. As an analogy, the US has two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii, both of them treated as full-scale members of the nation, but they are not as distant.
It's nicknamed
CANZUK and it's advocated by CANZUK International - the name CANZUK is an acronym of Canada (CA), Australia (AU), New Zealand (NZ), and the United Kingdom (UK).It's pushed as an alternative to the European Union, but it has plenty of problems of its own. But a plus for it is cultural relatedness. It's the parent nation of the British Empire with the three Anglo-dominated nations with the closest political cultural links with them. The British monarch continues to be the Head of State for all three of these nations, though she has a locally-resident deputy in each one of them, a Governor General. All four CANZUK nations use a parliamentary system of government.
Other former members of the British Empire are a much poorer fit. The United States is Anglo, but for some Americans at least, it has a cultural identity of being a nation created from scratch, and it did not get along well with Britain for the first half of its independence. South Africa is only part Anglo -- and its white population is a minority there, split between descendants of British colonists and Dutch ones, the latter ones being Afrikaners. India is even less Anglo.
Now to some problems. CANZUK is very geographically spread. As an analogy, the US has two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii, both of them treated as full-scale members of the nation, but they are not as distant.
- US: Seattle WA - Anchorage AK: 1,400 mi / 2,300 km, San Francisco CA - Honolulu HI: 2,400 mi / 3,800 km
- CANZUK: London EN UK - Montreal QC CA: 3,200 mi / 5,200 km, Vancouver BC CA - Brisbane QLD AU: 7,400 mi / 11,900 km, Sydney NSW AU - Auckland NZ: 1,300 mi / 2,200 km
