Principality of Sealand

"E Mare Libertas"

"The history of Sealand is a story of a struggle for liberty."

"We have never asked for recognition, and we’ve never felt the need to ask for recognition. You don’t have to have recognition to be a state, you just have to fulfill the criteria of the Montevideo Convention which is population, territory, government and the capacity to enter into negotiation with other states. We can and we have done all these things. We’ve had the German ambassador visit at one point to discuss something: that was de-facto recognition. We’ve had communication with the president of France many years ago, but we have never asked for recognition and we don’t feel we need it."

"With my new grandson Prince Freddy being fourth generation Sealander its future will be assured."

"My sons enjoy being involved in it, it gives them an interesting life and they meet interesting people."

"When I was first there I was 14 years old, there was no mobile telephones, no communication at all. You would go there and be there until the boat came back in two weeks to get you. And it might not come back for six weeks. You would stare at the horizon waiting for it to come back."

"Ships have allowed groups ranging from cheerfully illicit pirate radio stations to socially committed abortion providers, like Women On Waves, to avoid local laws. [...] It is the less instrumentalist iterations that inspire the imagination. Occasionally, in a spirit of can-do contrarianism, some offshore spit or rig has been designated an independent country, such as Sealand, a sea-tower-based nation with no permanent inhabitants on Britain’s Suffolk coast."