British Isles naming dispute "British-Irish Isles" and the Islands of the North Atlantic. In documents drawn up jointly between the British and Irish governments, the archipelago is referred to simply as "these islands". To some, the dispute is partly semantic, and the term is a value-free geographic one, while, to others, it is a value-laden political one. The Crown dependencies of the Channel Islands may also for geo-political reasons be included in the British Isles, despite not being geographically part of the archipelago. United Kingdom law uses the term British Islands to refer to the UK, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man as a
Terminology of the British Isles There have been several suggestions for replacements for the term "British Isles". Although there is no single accepted replacement, the terms "Great Britain and Ireland", "The British Isles and Ireland" and "Britain and Ireland" are all used. The word "England" is often used synecdochically to refer to Great Britain—or the United Kingdom as a whole—which often causes offence, particularly to those from the non-English parts of Britain. In a similar way, references to England as an island, to an "English passport", or to Scottish or Welsh places as being in England are examples of this usage of the term "England".