I have been trying to find a stainless steel ‘UK’ badge for the back of my Roadster to replace the ‘GB’ badge, now frowned upon in France.
Is there any particular reason why we should allow ourselves to be concerned about what politicians from the European Union dictate we should use as an abbreviated reference for our own nation? Both UK and GB are well understood abbreviations for more or less the same thing, with the exception of the United Kingdom including Northern Ireland.
More specifically the United Kingdom is a sovereign nation spread across multiple islands on the coast of northwestern Europe consisting of the countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland; while Great Britain is a large island on which most of England, Scotland, and Wales are located. I appreciate strictly speaking Great Britain is a land mass and not a country, but if the purpose of the badge is to identify where the vehicle is registered, arguing that displaying GB does not serve this purpose is at best rather pedantic as the number plate and even the position of the steering wheel serves this purpose perfectly well.
For the record the word Britain comes from Latin Britannia lit meaning 'land of the Britons', the Romans started using this name having learnt it from the ancient Greeks in the Hellenistic period, and contrary to popular belief the the preface 'Great' wasn't added during our colonial days as some sort of arrogant definition to identify ourselves as ‘Great’, it was added to Britannia way back in the twelfth century to distinguish the island of Britannia Maior (Greater Britain) from Britannia Minor (Lesser Britain). In summary, the term Great Britain is far from new, and the Britain part of it was actually given to us by an occupying force from Italy who borrowed it from the Greeks, you can't get more European Union friendly than that!
What I've noticed having driven Monty through France a few times now is our French friends absolutely love a Morgan, they seem to really appreciate the romance of them and I strongly suspect the average French citizen couldn't give two hoots if we display a GB or UK, as for sure both leave no question where the car hails from.
Personally I will continue to display GB as I've always done, a Morgan is a classic car with styling from an age where a GB would have always been displayed during continental touring. Showing UK therefore simply looks wrong as it’s not period correct, I'm also confident the French police have a lot more to worry themselves with than enforcing such a minor pedantic rule created by small minded unelected politicians.
Actually the French themselves have a proud tradition of challenging authority which I have huge respect for, it seems by contrast us Brits have a culture of doing what we're told, and ridiculously this now includes changing our charming period Morgan GB badges for an inappropriate UK badge, and just because someone in authority has told us to!
