[BRIEF NOTE] On British constitutional issues after Scottish independence

[rfmcdonald]

David Rickard's Open Democracy essay "Scottish independence would open the way for constitutional reform" makes the case that Scottish independence would, well, open the way for constitutional reform in a rump United Kingdom of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

If, then, Scotland departs from the Union, there is no more Great Britain, and all pretensions of British nationhood fall away. But the / a United Kingdom could remain, albeit perhaps renamed the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland’. So Tim Luckhurst was wrong when he suggested in a discussion on Radio Four’s ‘Today’ programme today that all UK citizens should have a say on Scottish independence in a referendum because Scottish independence would mean the end of the UK, which Luckhurst regards as his ‘nation’. He is not wrong in suggesting the need for a UK-wide referendum but is wrong in asserting that the UK would be broken up by Scottish independence: it’s Britain that would be finished, but the UK could continue in a new form.

And it’s the need to re-define the UK, and re-design its constitution and structures of governance, that should be seized upon by constitutional reformers as a great opportunity presented by the prospect and process of Scottish secession. Indeed, this could be the occasion for a radical re-design of the constitution that reformers have been longing for. For starters, Parliament would have to be completely overhauled. Just as the idea of a unitary ‘Britain’ is designed to suppress the thought that the UK is really England plus its ‘Celtic’ appendages, so the stubborn holding on to the idea that the UK parliament remains integrally British even when so many of its powers and actions relate to England only is designed to suppress the idea that Parliament is really an English parliament: that it has always been so and should honestly re-style itself as such if it is to be a truly democratic forum for England on a par with the parliament and assemblies for the UK’s other nations.

If the UK were to become the ‘United Kingdom of England, Wales and N. Ireland’ – if Scotland departs and the need for a unitary ‘Britain’ and its parliament fades away – there would be a golden opportunity to craft a new federal UK. Civic English nationalists such as myself would rather the new UK was a federation of nations, including perhaps an autonomous Cornwall; while many liberal reformers would rather see a regional model of governance applied to England. But we could at least have the argument along with many other arguments, such as how to evolve the Lords into a federal parliament (dealing with reserved UK matters)-cum-revising chamber for the national / regional parliaments; a written constitution; the monarchy and the Church; proportional representation; a new Bill of Rights; a referendum on the new state’s membership of the EU; etc.

This may be possible. One major problem with this plan is that England would be overwhelmingly dominant in this new state, with something in the area of 95% of the British population and a still greater share of the British economy. With little likelihood of devolution taking off in England--earlier referenda are more than indicative of a pan-English identity--the risks of Wales and Northern Ireland being almost satellitized would seem very significant to me.

Am I off on this?