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Britain is not a nation, it is an island, so the question doesn't really make sense to ask. It's impossible to be English, Welsh or Scottish and not be British

• vidarh 10y ago
  You're being a pedant and intentionally obtuse, so let me be one too: While we often refer to the island as Britain, it's name has been Great Britain for many centuries. The use of variations of Great Britain for the island dates at least as far back as Ptolemy - the use of variations of Britain alone (without some variation of "Great") quickly fell out of use around that time. And as I'm sure you're perfectly aware, Britain is equally used to refer to the UK in common parlance. The history of using precursors of Britain (without "Great") to refer to a political entity dates back to the Romans, who started using Britannia to refer to the Roman province. It was exceedingly clear from context that it was used to refer to the UK rather than the island. When talking about national identity, one also specifically talk about "British", which makes it more natural to use Britain rather than the UK.