Membership in the English Chess Federation is down 55 percent.
Interestingly Wales and Scotland have their own federations recognized by FIDE.
Well, so does Puerto Rico.
Alex Relyea
As do some other US territories.
I joined and encourage all others to follow my example … thank you 
Guam and USVI are examples. These have their own Olympic programs which is one of the factors in FIDE membership.
The UK situation is a historical anomaly. It also leaves Northern Ireland without any representation in FIDE.
America Samoa also has its own representation in the Olympics. Gibraltar does not, and is part of the UK as well as using ECF rating.
It should be noted that there is enough travel between Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and England that use of the ECF ratings is not a big surprise. Historically those countries were part of the UK for a long time, and thus used England’s rating system. Unless one of those countries wanted to use FIDE ratings, it made no sense to develop their own system rather than use the ECF system. Do remember that less than 40 years ago there were no FIDE ratings under 1800.
Larry Cohen
Wasn’t there a time when FIDE ratings below 2205 were kept internally but not published?
One has to wonder how much of the difference between US Chess and FIDE ratings is due to deflationary factors that FIDE does not deal with but US Chess does.
Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland are still in the UK.
Time to go to the U.S. Virgin Islands and play for the Olympiad team.
I believe the President of that Federation lives part of the year in New Hampshire. You can probably easily make contact to see what is required to be considered. I think they hosted a continental event last year.
was thinking the same thing when i was in high school!