Politics in the British Isles Politics in the British Isles The British Isles comprise two sovereign states, Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and three dependencies of the British Crown, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man. Ireland is a unitary state and a republic. Since 1998, it shares certain common institutions with Northern Ireland, in the United Kingdom, from which it was partitioned in 1921. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and also a unitary state comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Also since 1998, the United Kingdom has devolved significant domestic powers (though differing in extent) to administrations in Northern
British Isles naming dispute by individual ministers, as did cabinet minister Síle de Valera when delivering a speech including the term at the opening of a drama festival in 2002, and is used by government departments in relation to geographic topics. The term was formally disavowed in September 2005 by the Irish Government when Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern stated: "The British Isles is not an officially recognised term in any legal or inter-governmental sense. It is without any official status. The Government, including the Department of Foreign Affairs, does not use this term." "British Isles" has been used in a geographical sense in Irish