Federalism

Fair Deal (Belfast, Slugger O’Toole): The three Unionist parties in Scotland with the support of the central government have established a 15 member Commission to examine the future political structures for Scotland. Unionism in Northern Ireland has an alternative proposal, a Royal Commission on the Union. The “totality of relationships” may be a phrase borrowed from the peace process but a broader process would have greater scope to answer the many questions left hanging by Labour’s unfinished constitutional project.

Gareth Young (Lewes, CEP): Labour’s Scottish Home Ruler, George Foulkes, who in 1981 argued that ‘Thatcher has no mandate in Scotland‘, has apparently come to the same conclusion as the CEP - that Gordon Brown has no mandate in England.

In the Scotsman he calls for an English Parliament and a federation of the four home nations. Controversially he goes against the wisdom of people like Falconer, Hazell and Bognador to argue that England’s size need not be a barrier. He writes,

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There was an excellent letter in the Guardian yesterday, short, cogent and reprod here in full:

The Tories are about to propose an English grand committee in the House of Commons, a variant on their earlier idea of banning Scottish MPs from voting on English matters (Salmond's solid start, October 29). This is riddled with practical difficulties and fails either to provide England with an executive like that of the other three nations of the UK, or to address the underlying problem, just as the old Scottish grand committee failed. The Westminster parliament currently has two mutually incompatible roles, as a federal parliament for the whole of the UK on non-devolved subjects such as foreign affairs, and simultaneously as a parliament for England on everything. The UK government has the same contradictory double role. There is only one solution: a parliament and government for England, the only one of the UK's four nations still without either, and (eventually) full devolution of all domestic affairs to the four parliaments and governments, making Westminster a fully fledged federal parliament and government dealing with all non-devolved and shared subjects.

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Its been hard - so far - to get Conservatives to write for OurKingdom about how they see the future of the Union. Mark Field, MP for the Cities of London and Westminster was asked for his views in a question session on ConservativeHome. The question was: "What should the Party do to minimise the effect of a surge in English nationalism as the next general election approaches? Is a policy of English votes for English Bills enough, or should we at the same time pro-actively seek to give the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments more powers over their economies?" The answer is remarkable, it deserves to be read in full:

Anthony Barnett (London, OK) I think I have seen the shape of a battle to come - one side personified by Jack Straw the other by Ken Livingstone. Jack Straw is too canny to make it a straightforward contest while London’s ‘Our Ken’ is now only an allegory for radical reform, as he is enjoying it for himself already. But while they may not be personally leading the two sides, they characterise different futures for the British state.