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The Devolution Disaster

Labour's Scotland Act of 1998 and the succeeding Scotland Acts of 2012 and 2016 provide the Scottish Parliament with a wide range of powers (See note below).

There is no party in Scotland agitating to give these powers back to Westminster so we can only expect Scotland to demand further powers culminating in independence.

Labour's Belfast Agreement 1998 (known as the Good Friday Agreement) cedes Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland when opinion polls and a subsequent referendum show a reasonable majority for Irish Union.  Demographic changes mean this will probably occur within a decade or so.  

The Belfast Agreement is a one-way valve because it has no clause saying another referendum should be held if the majority in NI wish to return to the UK after Irish union.  This means that if, for any reason, the UK becomes unpopular in NI or the Republic becomes highly popular then NI will secede and there is no route back.

During the EU Referendum Labour and the Remain Campaign argued volubly that UK independence from the EU would result in the end of the Union but the Union was fatally damaged by Labour in 1998. The independence of the UK from the EU could do no worse damage than has already been inflicted on the Union.

Many English people believe that the campaign for Scottish independence will blow over, that Sturgeon will be damaged goods after the conflict with Salmond and the Scottish will recover from being thwarted in the EU Referendum.  Against this are the polls showing that the SNP will, for the first time, have an overall majority in the Parliament at Holyrood in May.  This gives them four years to engineer a breakdown between Scotland and Westminster. It is also likely that the 2024 UK election will result in a hung Parliament with the SNP holding the casting vote.  The cost of their support will be another independence referendum in Scotland.

Even if the union with Scotland survives past 2028 the power invested in the Scottish Parliament means that the issue of Scottish independence will never go away.  As time goes on the argument that the independence referendum was a "once in a generation" event will disappear and the SNP need only wait for a moment when Westminster is unpopular in Scotland to demand, and get, a referendum. If they lose that referendum then in 20 years there will be another demand for a referendum and so on until the SNP get lucky.  The Scotland Act 1998 made the end of the Union inevitable.

We are in a period of a "long goodbye" to NI and Scotland.  What preparations should England and Wales be making?  

The most important change should be to create an English National Assembly such as that established for Wales.  The Welsh Assembly has relatively weak powers compared with the Scottish Parliament but it provides a focus for Welsh Nationalism.

It might be objected that an English National Assembly  would be too big and powerful and so English Regional Assemblies should be created. The possibility of having Regional Assemblies to split England into Welsh-sized bits was tested by Labour in a Referendum in the NE of England. The idea of a Regional Assembly was resoundingly rejected by 80% of the voters.  This means that a whole England Assembly is required.  A whole England Assembly is actually the best option for the reasons explained below.

Without a strategy to remove the Welsh Assembly Wales will eventually also secede.  Once the Scottish and Northern Irish have independence the power of an English Assembly has an advantage because it will produce pressure from the Welsh for the union of the Welsh and English Assemblies into a single Westminster government.  The politics of nationalism mean that both the English and Welsh would have to lose their Assemblies for a new Union at Westminster to be accepted. There is probably no other way to return England and Wales to government by a single Parliament without there appearing to be an assault on Welsh independence.  

The Act to create the English Assembly would provide the opportunity to include clauses that utterly forbid independence referendums within England or Wales and make campaigning for such referendums, or for independence, illegal, with financial penalties.  Such campaigns are, of course, treason and we should take treason seriously if we wish to avoid the steady secession of all of the remaining parts of the UK.  The UK must demonstrate that it has the will to exist.

The Act creating the English Assembly might also have a clause that provides for a "return to the Union" referendum in England and Wales every 15 years.  This would create a one-way valve back to full Union.

What about English desires?  Although the West Lothian Question has almost been resolved we still have a political system where the SNP can have greatly disproportionate power by supporting a minority UK government.  The SNP are pro-Scotland but the Conservatives and Labour are pro-Union. A balance would only be possible if there were a pro-English party as large as the SNP in Westminster.  Such a party is as undesirable as the SNP.  Yes, Labour created a disastrous mess in 1998.

The English Assembly will insulate the English from the increasingly hostile Scots and NI MPs as they sense that secession is only a few years away.  It would be crazy to have the UK governed by an alliance of SNP and English MPs with the SNP holding the balance of power.  They could damage England and Wales irreparably by setting their own terms for departure.  A powerful English Assembly would demand a role in secession negotiations.

The government should have full plans for the relationship between the UK and the seceded territories.  This might include the careful withdrawal of investment if secession looks highly probable (opinion polls stable at 60% or more in favour of secession).  There is no point in throwing money away.

9/2/2021

Note:

The Scottish Parliament has such extensive powers that it is already virtually independent. It has powers over:

health and social work
education and training
local government and housing
justice and policing
agriculture, forestry and fisheries
the environment
tourism, sport and heritage
economic development and internal transport
Income Tax powers including the power to set rates and bands on earned income
assignment of VAT
devolution of air passenger tax
devolution of aggregate tax
the power to borrow
fines, forfeitures and fixed penalties
extensive welfare powers


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