Unified British culture.

[BenC]

Would it be possible for a unified British identity to manifest by the current day and what steps could be taken to achieve this?
By this, I mean that the Scottish, Welsh, English(/Cornish) all consider themselves as British or some other unified cultural group.
In this scenario, they're not seen as three separate countries in one sovereign state but as one single unified country.

Bonus if Ireland is somewhat more assimilated too.

 

[Cymraeg]

Would it be possible for a unified British identity to manifest by the current day and what steps could be taken to achieve this?
By this, I mean that the Scottish, Welsh, English(/Cornish) all consider themselves as British or some other unified cultural group.
In this scenario, they're not seen as three separate countries in one sovereign state but as one single unified country.

Bonus if Ireland is somewhat more assimilated too.

I think that would take a radically different history. The history of the various areas is very different and hellishly bloodstained in places.

 

[Driftless]

Perhaps, either no Roman-England, or the Romans take the whole island? That change would have been huge.

If you manage to keep the Romans out, then you also need to keep the Saxons out as well, I think.

Keep the native cultures mostly some form of Celtic?

 

[LeCHVCK]

The British empire federalize before WW1Scotland Wales Ireland England + colonies form one big British empire with a capital in London and many member states like Scotland or Quebec. All these people would think themselves as brits.

 

[Socrates]

If Cromwell's commonwealth had continued, it's quite possible all three places could have had a unified law and religion. France united its alien places a century later, so Britain could easily have done this in the 1600s.

 

[Morty Vicar]

If Britain remained Catholic it would dampen Irish Nationalism, it might also provide some sense of unity against a common enemy, as most of northwestern europe became protestant. If you can get some power of the time to colonise the British Isles, and be brutal (even more brutal than OTL rulers) then you might see some kind of popular uprising, leading to a sense of national unity. That would be an interesting tl, if you can keep the occupation up for a while then you might get some 'British Republican Army' type entity. Up the BRA!

Other ideas: go way back and unify the celts against the Vikings/ Normans/ Saxons and keep them out if that's possible.
Or keep the Saxon invasion, but make it much more successful than OTL, and spread right across the British Isles. If they can somehow keep up pagan traditions this might lead to a sort of Crusade against them, resulting in a stronger sense of British Isles unity against the invaders perhaps.
Another possibility perhaps, make the British crown/ parliament much more popular and progressive, and in contrast some much more violent and repressive seperatist movements, who would have some short term successes but become notorious for brutal and hated regimes. I know this is after 1900, but one way might be to make the nationalist/ seperatist movements very right wing/ fascist, which by the late 20th century would diminish their popularity greatly, and take them out of the mainstream.

 

[Thande]

Martin recently did a scenario like this for a map contest, see here.

Great Britain only, but even then, how you get there ain't pretty.