01Self-determination and elected government
The proposal begins with the peaceful, democratic retirement of hereditary office. Every public power — head of state, upper chamber, governor — would become elected. Citizens of the five nations would gain full, equal votes for a President, two Senators per state, and a House delegation apportioned by population.
02Equal states, not dependencies
Article IV, Section 3 admits new states on an equal footing with the original thirteen. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Ireland would enter as five sovereign commonwealths with their own constitutions, legislatures and courts — not as territories governed from afar.
03A shared legal inheritance
American law grew out of English common law. Trial by jury, habeas corpus and the separation of powers are already native to both sides of the Atlantic, so the courts of the new states would sit naturally within Article III jurisprudence. Scotland's distinct legal system could continue, as Louisiana's civil-law tradition does today.
04The NHS is preserved
Under the Tenth Amendment, powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states. A state may fund and run a single-payer health service. The NHS would continue as the state health services of England, Scotland and Wales, financed through state taxation.
05An end to the Irish border question
With Northern Ireland and the Republic admitted together, the Interstate Commerce Clause would forbid customs checks, tariffs and trade barriers between North and South. A century-old dividing line would become an ordinary state boundary, while the consent principle of the Good Friday Agreement is honoured.
06Weight in the world
Some 73.6 million new citizens, about 90 additional House seats and 10 new Senators would make the British and Irish states one of the most significant blocs in American politics — a voice at the centre of decisions on defence, trade and the dollar, rather than outside them.
07One currency, one market
Sterling and the euro would give way to the U.S. dollar, with the Bank of England integrated as a new Federal Reserve district. Businesses on both sides of the Atlantic would gain a single market of more than 400 million people.
Every step depends on consent: referendums in each nation, legislation at Westminster and in the Oireachtas, and an Act of Congress in Washington.