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Comment by Kurtz79 | Hacker News Reader

Not British, but I guess the different national identities (English, Scottish, Welsh...) in the Kingdom play a major role, also considering the fact that one of them has had a fairly dominant role along its history.

Would a Scotsman or Northern Irishman identifies himself as such to a foreigner, rather than British ?

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The non-English Brits say that any time a Scottish, Welsh, or Irish person does something good, the press describes them as British; something bad, the press call out their nationality; but that the press do the reverse for the English.

As a Scot, it is sometimes much easier to identify as being Scottish in many parts of the world. People tend to be slightly warmer to you when they find out you are from Scotland and not just Britain.

I guess years of colonialism still makes being British slightly tarred.

For example visiting America, people are interested enough if you are from the UK but if you mention specifically Scotland they instantly start getting much more excited.

People who self identify as British rather than English, Scots etc. actually seem to be in the minority:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24302914

"What emerges from the census results is that, while a majority of people in England, Scotland and Wales pick English (60%), Scottish (62%) or Welsh (58%) as their sole identity, younger and more diverse communities show higher proportions selecting a British identity."

Edit: I'm a Scot - seems natural for people to describe themselves as English, Welsh etc. and relatively few people I've known got it confused with Ireland (apart from the US VCs who invested in our UK-based startup and thought we were in Ireland and we actually worried that if we corrected them they might not invest... this was ~20 years ago).

I use the label "British" rather reluctantly. I've spent 3/4 of my life in England and 1/4 in Scotland, so it seems like an accurate descriptor, but I'd rather claim to be Scottish if I can claim to be anything. "Britain" is a concept linked inextricably to the UK's imperial history, for me.

The travelling Scots I meet usually do. It seems very important to them.

Being Scottish isn't important to me on a national identy level.

However saying you are Scottish when abroad as opposed to British tends to result in a much warmer reception.

I've found in my travels within the UK as an American, that the reverse is also true. I tend to get a much warmer reception in Scotland than anywhere else.

(Except Shetland. I got the feeling they don't really like outsiders in Shetland.)

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