Editorial – Seeing as this is my first post I thought I’d take it easy and talk about something close to home: The UK in the Eurovision. More specifically, the forgotten countries that seem to be left out of the contest. I just want to clarify before I get started that I am not a separatist and I’m not anti-English; I am, in fact, all for the British Union. I am not calling for complete Scottish independence, merely “Eurovision Independence”.
The UK is made up of Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales and has 4 official languages, English, Welsh, Gàidhlig and Gaeilge. I want to ask, therefore, why no other language has been used to represent the UK in all of the 54 entries other than English? Of course, many will say that this is because it is the clear dominant language but if the UK entry is meant to represent 4 countries then why are the 3 Celtic countries of the UK not having their time to shine? In addition to this, of the 8 times the Eurovision was hosted by the UK it was only once hosted outside of England (Edinburgh 1972), which confirms England’s dominance.
The United Kingdom
I hate pointing the finger at the obvious but it seems that the UK’s success is being scuppered by the English dominance of our nation. As a language student, I’ve met many people from all over Europe and the general consensus is that there is a very strong feeling of intolerance towards the English in mainland Europe, whereas the opposite is often the case for the rest of the countries that make up Britain. The opinion on the continent is that the UK is the “51st state of America” and that we are simply riding their coat tails to try and become empowered. From a British point of view it also seems that the current Conservative government consider themselves better than the rest of the EU, which has become more and more apparent of late, with the recent Euro Zone crises. A brilliant example of how England views itself in the UK is made clear through Andy Murray, the Scottish tennis player; When Andy Murray is winning, the English will refer to him as British, but if he is losing, he’s Scottish, it’s that kind of arrogant attitude that encourage the disdain of the English.
The EBU has publicly discussed the issue before and said that the ball lies in the BBC’s court, saying that “At the end of the day, it is the BBC’s decision”, so the EBU would probably embrace the arrival of 4 independent new members. All three of the Celtic countries have several national broadcasters that are established enough to be able to take on the challenge of sending their own artist and make a valid effort at winning the world’s largest song contest.
In recent years, the UK’s effort in the Eurovision has been pathetic. Artists such as Jade Ewen (2009) and Blue (2011) were welcome and refreshing changes to what became the UK norm of sending a lacklustre act to make fun of the competition, rather than embrace the spectacle. Entries such as Scooch and Josh Dubovie were almost as embarrassing as my home nation’s inability to kick a football. However, a minority have been blaming our recent failures on Eastern European “block voting”, something with which I completely disagree. While it is true that political voting exists, it doesn’t to the extent the UK makes out. Put it this way: If the UK were to separate, the 4 of us would do the exact same thing, especially the Celtic countries (Particularly Northern Ireland and Scotland, I’d imagine) and you’d be kidding yourself if you suggested otherwise.
There are several disadvantages of the idea; the first one would be the loss of the “Big 5” status for the UK so we wouldn’t have our safety net anymore. Saying that, the “Big 5” issue is a separate debate in itself. Another is that if Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland were to win, they would probably struggle with hosting the contest. While the Celtics aren’t in as much of a crisis as England, we are three relatively small nations and, while the benefits of hosting the competition are clear, it would be a financial burden on our countries.
However, I strongly believe the advantages would outweigh the disadvantages; From a Scottish point of view (And similarly, I’m sure, for the other 3 countries) we would all benefit from each other’s votes, we share a music industry so we all know our own artists, which would greatly increase our chances of not walking away with the dreaded nul points. It would also mean that with 4 countries competing instead of 1, the contest grows even bigger and with the inevitability of the 4 of us trying to outdo each other, the quality of the music being entered would greatly increase.
It is the increased quality and increased sense of competition that the Eurovision thrives on, without it there would be no contest and it would have dwindled out decades ago. I really have to stress that I love being part of the UK and I’m proud to consider myself both Scottish and British. I merely think that we would all benefit from “Eurovision Independence”.
I really want to hear everyone’s thoughts on this subject and would really appreciate opinions. Let me know what you think!
ET: Our newest writer bobopickle has written his first article for the blog and we would like to welcome him to our team! Congratulations on a great first editorial!
[...] Editorial: The UK and Eurovision: Should 1 Become 4? [...]
[...] Editorial: The UK and Eurovision: Should 1 Become 4? [...]
how can you say we should split the united kingdom up for eurovision its a terrible idea and england are dominent because england is the best
The Uk is not only four countries but actualy 12, your forgetting about guernsy, jersey, isles of wight, isle of man etc, and they each have their own languages…. as does cornwall and devon. The fact is that the uk will never split up for eurovision in the short term future, its been discussed between the bbc, bbc scotland and bbc wales before in the past…. (notice how its always the bbc) lol. and they decided to keep it as one entry. I agree with you, that it would be better for the countries to split up and have their own entries, but if you seriously believe scotland will enter a song in celtic when less than 1 in 4 scots speak it, or wales enter a song in cymru when less than 1 in 4 speak it then your mistaken…. thats why we have never had a entry from a minority language…. the idea is nice, but in reality its nonsense as there are more people in the uk who speak polish, punjabi or chinese than the languages you mentioned, so why not in one of those languages….??
I’m not sure where you get the idea that the Isle of Wight is a country, or that it has its own language. The island is undeniably part of England, and until 1898 was part of the county of Hampshire. Nor does Devon have its own language.
Whether we get separate entries from the British countries really depends on the independence referendum to be held in Scotland. If Scotland opts for independence (and the best of indications so far is that it may possibly do so, but that it is by no means guaranteed), then undoubtedly a future Scottish national broadcaster would want to enter in its own right. Until then, I simply cannot see it happening.
The idea of the United Kingdom entering a song in a minority language is not as outrageous as you make out. After all, Norway has previously entered a song partly in Sami, Finland has twice entered songs in Swedish, Italy has entered in Neapolitan and partly in German, Yugoslavia in Slovenian, Ireland has had an entry in Irish, Israel had one partly in Arabic, Switzerland has entered in Romansh, Italian and French (as well as German, though never, as far as I’m aware, in Swiss German), Lithuania in Samogetian, Estonia in Võro, Monaco in Tahitian, the Czech Republic in Romani, Russia in Udmurt, Austria in both Vorarlbergish and Viennese, and France has entered songs in Breton, Corsican, and Creole (along with one partly in Tahitian) before now. Not to mention that Romania has entered a song in Italian, and Norway partly in Swahili, neither if which which have any native speakers in those countries! And, to top it all, both Belgium and the Netherlands have entered songs in purely made-up languages.
Whether the BBC could ever bring itself to “think outside the box” is another matter. They are not exactly imaginative in selecting British entries, or even in chosing the selection method, and seem to be happy to just blunder incompetently from one contest to the next. Despite the fact that the United Kingdom charts have seen records in both Irish and Scots Gaelic achieve respectable positions (for Clannad and Capercaillie), though as far as I’m aware no record in Welsh, the most widely spoken of the United Kingdom’s minority languages, has ever charted.
Just to point out after living in Devon for a short while it does have its own language
The main problem we would have at being seperate countries is that you need to have your own national tv and radio stations. While the welsh have S4C as a tv channel their national radio channel is BBC radio Wales, therefore this excludes them. We could host the contest if we won as we have many main halls to host it. (St Davids Hall being one).. The welsh do have a national song contest each year on March 1st (St Davids Day) where all songs are sung in Welsh, and then the winning song goes on to represent Wales in the annual Pan Celtic Festival which consists of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Cornwall & Britanny. I would love to see Wales in the Eurovision, but can’t see the BBC letting us split.
I hate the English dominance thing. I’m Northern Irish, and I feel like a second class citizen at times. If Northern Ireland could support itself, I’d be all for leaving the UK.
No. Goddammit I might be Scottish but I’m also British.
I wish people from every part of the UK would stop being condescending to one another and trying to force my country apart >:C