The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands: not part of the UK

Dependencies of the Crown

The UK government’s own guidance puts it plainly: the Crown Dependencies are not part of the UK but self-governing dependencies of the Crown. They have their own elected parliaments, their own administrative, tax and legal systems and their own courts, and they are not represented in the UK Parliament. They have never been colonies of the UK, and they are not Overseas Territories like Gibraltar either.^[1]

Their link to the UK runs through the Crown and is not written down in any formal constitutional document. The UK government is responsible for their defence and international relations, and the Crown, acting through the Privy Council, is ultimately responsible for their “good government”.^[1] In London the Ministry of Justice manages the relationship: it checks island laws before they get Royal Assent and issues “Letters of Entrustment” that let island governments negotiate some international agreements themselves.^[3]

In 1973 the Royal Commission on the Constitution, known as the Kilbrandon report, called the islands’ position “unique”. It found that by convention the UK Parliament does not legislate for them on taxes or purely domestic matters without their consent, while noting that in the eyes of the courts Parliament still has a “paramount power” to do so.^[3] The British Nationality Act 1981 made people with close links to the islands British citizens, and the islands, the UK and Ireland form the Common Travel Area, with no immigration controls between them.^[3]

“In some respects they are like miniature states with wide powers of self-government, while their method of functioning through committees is much more akin to that of United Kingdom local authorities.”^[3]

The last of Normandy

The Channel Islands lie 10–30 miles off the north-west coast of France.^[3] They were part of the Duchy of Normandy, so when William the Conqueror invaded England in 1066 he ruled them as Duke of Normandy.^[4] In 1204 King John lost continental Normandy to the French king Philippe-Auguste. The islands might have been expected to side with France, but they were persuaded, by “a combination of carrot and stick”, to stay with King John.^[5]

In return the King granted privileges, including Jersey’s right to be governed by its own laws, with 12 Jurats sitting with the Bailiff as the island’s Royal Court. Later monarchs confirmed these links in Royal Charters, and Jersey’s government says its constitution today is founded on them.^[5][4] In the islands the King is still styled Duke of Normandy, although Henry III gave up that title in 1259.^[3]

Jersey’s parliament, the States, grew out of the Royal Court consulting the parish Constables and the church.^[5] Today it has 37 Deputies and 12 Constables and elects a Chief Minister. Guernsey’s States of Deliberation has 38 People’s Deputies and 2 from Alderney, and in both islands the ancient office of Bailiff is at once chief judge and presiding officer of the parliament.^[3]

Sark: a fief until 2008

Sark, a small island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, was deserted when, on 6 August 1565, Elizabeth I gave Helier de Carteret, Seigneur of St Ouen in Jersey, the right to colonise it. In return he had to keep pirates away and divide Sark into 40 parcels leased to men able to defend it. Letters Patent from James I in 1612 kept the 40 tenements undivided and gave each owner a seat in the island’s parliament, the Chief Pleas.^[6] Each tenant had to keep a house on the land and provide one man armed with a musket.^[7]

The tenants sat in Chief Pleas with the Seigneur from 1579, and twelve elected deputies were added in 1922.^[8] The Commons Library describes Sark’s government as feudal and unelected until recently, an arrangement that came to be seen as untenable under human rights law.^[3] After a legal campaign by the Barclay brothers, owners of neighbouring Brecqhou, the 2008 reform removed the tenants’ seats in favour of directly elected conseillers.^[8] Royal Assent was given on 9 April 2008 to the Reform (Sark) Law, under which Chief Pleas became 28 elected Conseillers plus the Seigneur and the Seneschal, with elections due in December 2008.^[7] The number of conseillers has since been cut to 18.^[8]

Mann: a Norse kingdom sold to the Crown

The Isle of Man lies in the Irish Sea, about equally far from England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.^[3] In 1079 Godred Crovan conquered it, and his line ruled the Norse Kingdom of Man and the Isles, which included Hebridean islands such as Lewis, Skye, Mull and Islay. After the last king, Magnus Olafsson, died in 1265, the islands went to Scotland under the Treaty of Perth, and Mann passed back and forth between English and Scottish hands.^[9]

In 1405 Henry IV granted the island to Sir John Stanley, whose fee was homage and two falcons for every future king at his coronation. The Stanleys, later Earls of Derby, ruled as Lords of Man until 1736, followed by the Dukes of Atholl.^[9] Low Manx duties made the island a hub for goods smuggled into Britain, and the British government bought the Atholls’ rights for £70,000. The Revestment Act received Royal Assent on 10 May 1765, and the Crown took over the island on 21 June.^[10] King George III became Lord of Mann.^[3]

Home rule came back step by step. Acts of 1866 separated Manx revenues from the UK’s and made the House of Keys, until then a self-elected body, an elected one, with the first elections in April 1867.^[10][3] Later measures, culminating in the Isle of Man Act 1958, handed over more control.^[3]

Tynwald

The Manx parliament takes its name from the Norse Thingvollr, “assembly field”. Tynwald says it is over 1,000 years old and calls itself the oldest parliament in continuous operation, noting that Iceland’s Althing is slightly older but has not sat continuously. It also notes there is no document confirming a first sitting in 979, the date of its millennium celebrations in 1979.^[9] Tynwald has two branches, the 24 elected Members of the House of Keys and the Legislative Council.^[3]

Every 5 July, or the next Monday when it falls on a weekend, Tynwald meets in the open air on Tynwald Hill at St John’s, with the Lieutenant Governor presiding.^[11] Each new law is read out there in English and Manx, and an Act not promulgated on the Hill within 18 months of being passed ceases to have effect. Anyone may come to the foot of the Hill that day to hand in a Petition for Redress.^[3][11]

Occupied, 1940–45

In the summer of 1940 Britain decided they could not be defended and withdrew its troops. About 6,500 people left Jersey for Britain and about 40,000 stayed. On 28 June German aircraft bombed and machine-gunned the island, killing ten people, and German soldiers arrived on 1 July 1940.^[12]

The occupiers turned Jersey into a fortress with forced labourers from across Europe, including an estimated 1,000 Russian prisoners of war. In 1942 the occupiers ordered everyone not born in Jersey, with their families, sent to internment camps in Germany, and about 1,200 people were deported. After D-Day the islands were cut off and food and fuel ran out, until British troops arrived on HMS Beagle on 9 May 1945.^[12] Jersey and Guernsey celebrate 9 May as Liberation Day every year.^[3]

Never in the EU

When the UK joined the European Community in 1973, the islands’ relationship with it was set by Protocol 3 of the Treaty of Accession, which put them inside the customs territory with free movement of agricultural goods.^[3][2] The rest of EU law did not apply: not free movement of people, services or capital, not EU tax rules and not Schengen, and the islands got no EU structural funds.^[2]

Protocol 3 ended with the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020. From 1 January 2021 each island has been in a customs arrangement with the UK, and the UK–EU trade deal covers them for goods and fisheries.^[3] They still cannot sign treaties in their own name, but framework agreements signed with the UK in 2007–08 say Britain will not act for them internationally without consulting them, and that their interests may differ from the UK’s.^[2][4]