National Day (United Kingdom)

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland does not currently have an official national holiday .

As a partial replacement, the monarch's birthday is celebrated as a central national holiday - under Queen Elizabeth II this day is celebrated as Queen's Official Birthday (regardless of her actual birthday on April 21) on an annually newly determined date, usually at the end of May or beginning of June . However, this day is also celebrated in the other Commonwealth Realms , of which Elizabeth II is the head of state (sometimes with a different date), and is therefore not exclusively British and, due to its annually changing date, it is not a real national fixed day. In recent years in particular, there have been repeated efforts to make Britain Day or UK Day a fixed date as a national holiday.

Advocates

Concrete proposals for the establishment of a British national holiday were officially put forward for the first time under the Labor Party government in the 2000s . In June 2007, Minister for Local Government Ruth Kelly and Immigration Minister Liam Byrne from Tony Blair's government spoke out in favor of it, including the name " Britain Day ". Blair's later successor and then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown had already advocated a day to celebrate Britishness in early 2006 and was later considered the most prominent proponent of Britain Day .

In 2011, the conservative - liberal government proposed to move the public holiday, which was celebrated at the beginning of May, to October and to call it “UK Day” or together with Trafalgar Day as a national holiday. However, this proposal was rejected by the UK trade unions because it would effectively make Labor Day a public holiday.

Possible dates

• March 24th: Day on which the "Union of Crowns" could be celebrated, in which James I first united the crowns of England , Scotland and Ireland in 1603 .
• May 1st: Day on which the Act of Union 1707 came into force officially joining England and Scotland to form the United Kingdom.
• May 8th: VE Day , in memory of the victory in World War II .
• May 29: "Oak Apple Day", which had already been declared a public holiday by Parliament in 1660, on the occasion of the Stuart Restoration .
• Queen's Official Birthday could officially become a national holiday.
• June 6: D-Day , in memory of the decisive victory in World War II.
• June 7th: Known as Democracy Day in memory of the Reform Act 1832 .
• June 15: the day the Magna Carta , the founding document of the British Constitution, was completed in 1215 .
• June 18: Waterloo Day commemorating the victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
• Armed Forces Day or Veterans Day : Established in 2006 as a day of thanksgiving to the British Armed Forces , no fixed date (last Saturday in June). The day was originally set up as a result of Gordon Brown's suggestion for a special British holiday.
• October 14: in memory of the Battle of Hastings 1066.
• October 21: Trafalgar Day , in memory of the victory in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
• November 11: Remembrance Day , also known as Armistice Day or Veterans Day , to commemorate the end of the First World War .

In a 2006 survey carried out by the BBC , 27% of those questioned said they were for June 15 (Magna Carta), 21% for May 8 (VE-Day), 14% for June 6 (D-Day), 11% for November 11th (Remembrance Day), 10% for October 21st (Trafalgar Day), 6% for August 24th (Wilberforce Day, in memory of William Wilberforce and the abolition of slavery), 4% for June 18th (Waterloo Day), 3% for November 30th ( Winston Churchill's birthday 1874), 3% for a day to commemorate Oliver Cromwell's Republic and 2% for June 7th (Reform Act) as a national holiday.

See also

• Holidays in the UK

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b} Article Ministers proposing 'Britain Day' on bbc.co.uk/news , June 5, 2007 (accessed March 16, 2013).
2. ↑ Article Brown speech promotes Britishness on bbc.co.uk/news , January 14, 2006 (accessed March 16, 2013).
3. ↑ Article TUC critical of plan to shift bank holiday to October on bbc.co.uk/news , February 5, 2011 (accessed: March 16, 2013).