Great Britain

 

I had mentioned I would try to figure out how Great Britain was set up plus how they chose their prime ministers. It's quite confusing it turns out. Lets first try to figure out how these countries fit together.

The players are as follows - Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland, The Republic of Ireland, The Isle of Man, Ireland, Great Britain, Britain, the British Isles, and the British Empire. Buckle up.

The first six listed are all their own countries. Then they can get grouped together in different ways. I'm going mostly with the Encyclopedia Briannica and its not as smart, but more popular brother, Wikipedia. Scotland, Wales, and England (all one island) can be called Britain, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom. When English kings were taking part of France, there was a difference between Britain and Great Britain, but apparently not anymore. However, another source says those three countries are Great Britain, but the United Kingdom has those three, but also includes Northern Ireland. 

To say "Ireland" is the full island which contains the Republic of Ireland and Northern (technically northeastern) Ireland.

The British Isles includes both those big islands plus a few small places like the Isle of Man (which sits between Ireland and the UK).

That is the best I can make of it.

The British Empire isn't really a thing anymore. They used to have all the above plus Canada, Australia, India, our 13 colonies and more. They've lost most of that, but still have fish and chips, so they're doing just fine.