Scotland voted NO following a smooth wooing by Miliband, Clegg, and Cameron via their vicar on earth, Gordon Brown. This has been called The Vow, and guarantees retention of the Barnett Formula, increased devolved powers on tax and expenditure, termed Home Rule. This to be achieved in steps laid down by certain dates- today, St Andrews Day, Burns Night and Election day 2015.
Unfortunately many people south of the border are in strong opposition to it, and now the waters are muddied by Cameron’s intention to deal with the West Lothian question in the same timescale.
If The Vow is frustrated by English MPs or Cameron, how will it affect Scotland and the rest of the UK?
Has the referendum settled the problem of British Democracy, or merely thrown a brighter light on it?
Miliband has just this announced that he cannot agree to Cameron’s idea of dealing with the West Lothian Question. He is demanding that The Vow is met first and that it should then be followed by a full constitutional convention over the following years.
I imagine the Tories will actually give more powers to Scotland than has been promised in the “Vow”. They’ll give Holyrood complete control over taxation and spending and probably end the Barnett formula. Wales is also calling for more power, and will probably get it. Welsh and Scottish Labour MPs will face more and more pressure to abstain from voting on English matters. Without these MPs Labour are essentially adrift in England, they know it, that’s why Labour has gone full-on panic mode trying to stop Cameron giving Holyrood too much power.
Could it lead to England having its own devolved Parliament and laws, with the MP’s of the various countries all meeting at Westminster only for pan-UK issues?
Hopefully. Though a unitary English Parliament would come to challenge Westminster for primacy, as it would represent over 90% of the population of the UK. What would be better would be a series of regional parliaments perhaps based on the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy + Greater London, which would split the country up into roughly evenly populated chunks.
Though, being realistic, what we are likely to see is some sort of horrendous, ill thought out bodge job with “English only” days at Westminster, or something like that.
Retention of the Barnett formula is specifically guaranteed by The Vow. It is seen here as a quid pro quo for the real situation of Scottish wealth arising from oil- although Scotland has greater spending than its tax take, this ignores Oil revenues which if included reach approximate parity with spending.
If the Barnett formula is disavowed, the whole referendum settlement becomes questionable.
Either a separate English Parliament or an English Grand Committee. But each might require a separate English First Minister if the Prime Minster of the UK cannot also maintain an English majority in the parliament or grand committee.
I’ve got a better idea: The UK will be divided into the following units, each with exactly the same degree of home rule (Westminster governing pan-UK issues): NI, Scotland, Wales, and the nine regions of England. That way, you’ve got a de facto federation with no one member big enough to overwhelm the others.
That has been in the background for decades. It was offered to some regions a decade ago but it was rejected by the electorate who did not want another level of government.
Cameron is back tracking on The Vow already. He has reneged on Gordon Brown’s guarantee that there would be a Scotland Bill at second reading before the end of March.
The UK is already quite handily divided into constituencies, and England doesn’t need splitting further. The ideal situation is for Scottish MPs to stop voting on devolved issues at Westminster, or failing that, an English parliament. The latter, though, would be expensive and, if the rest of the UK behaves, unnecessary.
The problem with splitting the UK further would be that it would add to the problems we already see when local councils are controlled by a different party than central government, when they fight the government instead of doing their job. Or, if it’s a Labour council, raise council tax then try to blame the Tory central government for their own actions.
I don’t want to see England end up like the US, where central government gets nothing done, and driving from one part of the country to another will have completely separate laws.
As usual, though, the complaints about settling the West Lothian question at the same time as furthering devolution shows Scotland wanting to have its cake and eat it.
Scotland already has a massive collection of its own legislation dating back both years and centuries; that will not decrease as each Act of the Scottish Government passed by Parliament increases the difference between the bodies of law.
Correct, my point is I don’t want England divided up the way the UK is. I’ve not suggested any Scottish laws should be replaced by UK ones, nor that any devolved powers should be repatriated.
We already have central and local government here, and don’t really need another layer in between. I don’t get the sense that many people here want devolved regions, at most they would want an English parliament, as long as it’s done in such a way that there’s no great duplication between Westminster and the new one. In my opinion, if the West Lothian question is settled, and the other three countries get the level of devolution they desire, there’s no pressing need for any change here.
It is more than just legislative. The Prime Minister of the UK would not necessarily be the First Minister of England, especially when Labour are in the ascendancy.
The PM would have severely restricted powers- no control over health, social services, police, education, welfare Except maybe pensions), traffic laws, housing, and so on which would be devolved. They would influence national monetary policy and military and diplomatic matters and little else.
So in other words, you want to see a de facto independent Scotland with the added bonus of someone else to blame when things go wrong? Who would deal with the federal government if it didn’t have the power to enforce treaties when they impinged on the devolved areas (and that would happen a lot because it sounds like you want to give management of everything to the new provinces)?
I will point out that the situation you describe sounds a lot like the Articles of Confederation which the Americans quickly decided were a bad idea.