The mounting number of anomalies in our constitutional arrangements may lead to the Union’s eventual demise

Constitutional reform is a key issue for the future of democracy, and an important theme for Democratic Audit UK in the run up to the UK general election. Andrew Gamble asks whether the Union can be sustained in the long term with a growing number of questions about an English parliament. He argues that unless Unionists can convincingly answer the question of why we should keep the United Kingdom together, the growing number constitutional anomalies and questions may lead to an eventual split.

Credit: antoniothomas, CC BY 2.0

One of the key themes in the 2015 General Election will be territorial politics – the unresolved Scottish Question, and alongside it with increasing insistence, the emerging English Question. It was not supposed to be like this. The independence referendum held on September 18^th 2014 was intended to settle the issue for a generation, but the clear margin of victory for the pro-Union side (55% to 45%) failed to do so. It has fuelled new demands in Scotland for the devolution of further powers to Holyrood, and has raised questions about the constitutional arrangements for all the other parts of the United Kingdom, especially England.

The UK territorial constitution is riddled with anomalies, and finding remedies has always been hard. A hundred years ago UK territorial politics was dominated by the Irish Question, and the key aspects of that question are the same today. Should power be devolved at all? How should powers be divided? Who should be responsible for taxation? Should devolved territories still have representation at Westminster, and if so should it be on the same basis or a different basis to English MPs? How can the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty be reconciled with devolved parliaments?

Devolution finally arrived in 1998 and created a new political dynamic in UK politics. After 2003 the SNP has steadily advanced, winning an absolute majority at Holyrood in 2011. Since the referendum despite being on the losing side the SNP have gained members and are now the largest political party in Scotland. The opinion polls indicate that they pose a serious threat to Labour in the 2015 election, and may emerge for the first time ever with the largest number of Scottish MPs at Westminster, threatening Labour’s chances to form a majority Government.

Before the referendum the Unionist parties united against the SNP threat, but then fell to quarrelling again. All three party leaders promised at the end of the referendum campaign major new powers to the Scots if they voted to stay in the UK, amounting to the devo max option which the British Government had refused to put on the ballot paper. The concession of devo max to Scotland created considerable resentment among Conservative MPs, and led David Cameron straight after the referendum result was announced to link increased powers for Scotland with a new deal for England, the implementation of English Votes for English Laws.

William Hague was charged with coming up with a way of doing this and in December he proposed three options, all involving a change to parliamentary procedure, which avoids the creation of a separate Parliament, by allowing English MPs alone to vote in committee on measures which only affect England. The difficulty with all the options is firstly deciding which measures are wholly English and do not have any implications for the rest of the UK; and secondly deciding whether English MPs have a veto on legislation deemed to be English only, or whether the whole House can still vote on and therefore potentially overrule decisions reached by English MPs at the committee stage.

John Redwood expressed the view of many Conservative MPs when he said in the debate on the Hague proposals: ‘England expects English votes for English issues. We expect simplicity and justice now. No ifs, no buts.’ It is hard to see how that aspiration can be realised without creating a de facto English Parliament within the Westminster Parliament. Anything short of that is unlikely to be seen as a lasting solution to the English Question. But if a de facto English Parliament, with its own First Minister were indeed to emerge, then the possibility of UK-wide government would be seriously undermined, and the breakup of the United Kingdom would become much more likely.

Labour’s preference for dealing with the English Question is to decentralise the Westminster government by giving significant new powers either to English local government or to the English regions. This would be administrative devolution, however, which would not address the problem of the imbalance of powers between Scotland and England in the Westminster Parliament. Labour wants both the English Question and the Scottish Question to go away, but is unwilling to propose the radical solution, a federal constitution which would be above all the Parliaments in the UK, including the Westminster Parliament, and would set out the powers of each level of government, as well as an institutional mechanism for adjudicating disputes. This is because although it might be the best hope of maintaining the Union, it could only be implemented if the problem of the size of England was addressed. There are many successful federal constitutions in the world, but none have one unit with 85 per cent of the population. The highest is 38 per cent (Ontario). But there is at present little appetite for regional assemblies or parliaments in England.

The political difficulties of either an English Parliament or a federal UK is why most politicians continue to prefer muddling through, trying to ignore anomalies like the West Lothian Question. Do not ask the Question, has been Jack Straw’s advice. But the politicisation of relations between the nations which make up the UK has probably gone too far for that to be possible any longer. Unionists also find it hard to say what the Union is for. The referendum campaign was notable for the abundance of optimism and hope in the future on the Yes side, and the absence of it on the No side. Most Unionists, with the exception of Gordon Brown very late on, found it hard to think of positive reasons for keeping the Union.

The No Campaign was predominantly negative. Unless a new common purpose and common interest can be forged of the kind which sustained the Union in the past, the Union cause may wither in Scotland and elsewhere. It is hard to see how a new vision for the Union can avoid being a federal one, but a federal UK would need some radical constitutional thinking and agreement about the questions which most English politicians of all parties have generally preferred to avoid.

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Note: this post originally appeared on the Crick Centre blog. It represents the views of the author and not those of Democratic Audit UK or the LSE. Please read our comments policy before posting.

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Andrew Gamble is Professor of Politics at the University of Sheffield and Emeritus Professor of Politics at the University of Cambridge.