A week ago, Scotland’s nationalists were trying to break up Britain. Now, it is the turn of England’s Tories. In the wake of Alex Salmond’s referendum defeat, British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives have set about handing the leader of the Scottish National Party the victory denied him by Scotland’s voters. Now there is a rum thought: Salmond lost the battle, but the English may yet concede the war.
In a state of some excitement, perhaps because it is the autumn party conference season, the Tories are clamouring for “English votes for English laws”. The price for Scots of more devolution, they say, must be a diminished role for their MPs at Westminster. This is partly, of course, about electioneering. The Tories have only one MP in Scotland; Labour has 40. Flying the English flag could paint the opposition into a corner at next year’s general election. Cameron also wants to guard his flank against rightwing English nationalists. On the face of it, the prime minister has a case. The closer Scotland gets to home rule, the odder it seems for its MPs to vote on English affairs. The snag, however, with deceptively simple solutions to complex problems, is that they are, well, deceptive.
The exclusion of Scottish MPs from most of the business of the House of Commons will amount to English secession by another name. It would also substitute a shuffling of power between politicians — English MPs get more, the Scots less — for the urgent task of dispersing authority within England. Creating a group of second-class legislators does nothing to loosen Whitehall’s deadening grip over the great cities and shires of England.
The neat answer will be a federal system. Goodness knows, Britain needs to decentralise power by returning to city mayors and councils authority to make choices about local taxes and services. The facts of the union, unfortunately, do not match the political theory textbooks. England’s overwhelming economic and political dominance among the four nations of the UK rules out a classic federation. For the union to work, its constitutional arrangements must serve as a counterweight to English hegemony. This means England has to be generous about the voice afforded to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Generations of English politicians have wrestled with this question and concluded, rightly, that a division of power perfectly calibrated to reflect respective populations or economic weights would be unworkable.
Nor, anyway, is it possible to draw a neat line between legislation that is uniquely English and laws that affect Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The deep integration of public policy and finances across the nations means there are precious few decisions taken at Westminster that do not have an impact throughout the UK. When MPs voted for university tuition fees in England, it changed fundamentally the structure of education funding in the other nations. William Gladstone grappled with this during the 19th-century debates about Irish home rule. Even in a much less complex world, he decided the circle could not be squared.
Follow the logic of English votes for English laws and it leads to an English parliament and government. Such would be the dominance of these English institutions that the Commons would be reduced to a foreign policy talking shop. Even then, an English parliament might want to choose a different relationship with, say, the European Union than the other nations. And once Westminster loses the power to raise UK-wide taxes, the union will be by any measure dead.
The noise about “unfairness” is in inverse proportion to a more prosaic reality. There have been only a handful of occasions in recent decades when Scottish MPs have been “swing” voters. On at least two of them, during Tony Blair’s premiership, these MPs were voting with a government that had a majority in England. As for the myth that Labour invariably relies on Scotland for a majority at Westminster, the electoral facts show it is just that — a myth.
Home rule in Scotland does raise important questions about the governance of the rest of the UK. There is a legitimate debate to be had about if and when Scottish MPs should step back from voting at Westminster. There will also be room for scrutiny of the Barnett funding formula for public spending in Scotland once Edinburgh gains more fiscal autonomy. But the prior question is whether England wants a parliament that represents all four nations of the union? If the answer is yes, then it cannot expect a formulaic English vote for English laws.
The strength of Britain’s unwritten constitution has lain in its capacity to accommodate anomalies and contradictions. If tidy English minds now redefine “fairness” as perfect symmetry between Scotland and England, the unavoidable consequence will be the break-up of the union. Salmond, of course, is rubbing his hands at the prospect.
— Financial Times
