We need a federal system to save the Union

Instead of waiting for this crisis to build, it is time to get in front of the issue with a new federal system

Boris Johnson does not want to be remembered as the man who won back British sovereignty from Brussels, only to lose the British nation itself. Yet this is the fate he risks unless he takes a bold approach to saving the Union. Just over six years ago, Scotland came close to voting for separation. Since then, our leaders might have asked searching questions about our constitution and the cultural, institutional and political reasons for the growing estrangement between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Instead, in a state of panic, they offered more devolved powers, and then ignored the problem altogether.

Now the consequences of this inattention are becoming clearer. In the Holyrood elections in May, the Scottish National Party will almost certainly win a majority of seats, and perhaps a majority of the vote. Polls show that most Scots favour secession, and nationalism is most popular among younger voters. The future, Nicola Sturgeon believes, is hers.

But all is not yet lost. Nationalists know that support for separation might yet recede. Brexit – held as a reason why Scotland might want to go its own way – in fact makes secession more complex. The old questions for the Nationalists – not least about the currency and border – are still unanswerable. And while Scottish voters will not take kindly to the PM refusing to hold another referendum, as he did yesterday, neither will they appreciate an unseemly Nationalist rush for a second vote during a pandemic.

Behind the scenes in Whitehall, work is underway. MPS from across the political spectrum are anxiously discussing what can be done to save the Union. There is talk of yet more devolution, and even a constitutional convention. Still unclear, however, is what the Government actually thinks.

The Prime Minister was criticised for saying that Scottish devolution had been “a disaster”, but he was quite correct. Devolution has misaligned power and accountability, allowing Scottish ministers to claim the credit for successes while escaping scrutiny for their failures. This helps to explain what one Scottish writer calls the “Sturgeon paradox”: the worse she does, especially on education and health, the more popular she becomes.

Devolution has allowed the Nationalists to use the Scottish state to attack the Union. The school curriculum, for example, has been manipulated grotesquely to indoctrinate voters of the future. As Gordon Brown, the politician behind Scottish devolution in 1998, has admitted: “It was naive to think we could create strong Scottish … decisionmaking bodies and automatically expect people to feel more British as a result. Equally, it was naive not to anticipate that devolution could create a megaphone for intensifying resentment.” But it was also naive to think that devolution would not cause a dangerous constitutional imbalance.

The famous West Lothian Question – which asks why Scottish MPS should have a say on English matters when English MPS have no say over such matters in Scotland – remains unanswered because it is unanswerable.

English votes on English laws, the fix provided by the Cameron government, fails to answer the question and creates new problems. By saying legislation applying only to England must have a majority among English MPS as well as the Commons overall, EVEL, as it is known, creates two classes of MP, and makes it harder, perhaps impossible, for an MP from a Scottish constituency to become Chancellor or Prime Minister. It also sets up an inevitable future constitutional crisis: a government elected with a UK majority but no English majority would be unable to govern England.

So devolution is a disaster for all these reasons and one more: the powers it grants to the Scottish government are clearly insufficient for most Scottish voters.

But what can be done? First, the Government must break the cycle of devolving in a panic. Ministers must be clear that they want to reform the constitution because they understand the urgent need to do so, not because they are appeasing nationalists out of fear. And second, their approach must be guided by principle: decentralisation, not devolution, and equality, not disparity, between the four nations.

This means moving quickly to a fully-fledged federal model, with a government and parliament for each of the four nations, and a federal government and parliament residing in Westminster. Core functions – foreign policy, defence, international trade and aid, national security, immigration and border control, citizenship, extradition, monetary policy, the constitution and the maintenance of the UK single market – would rest with the federal government. Everything else, including almost all tax policies, would be the responsibility of the four national governments and parliaments.

There will be many arguments against this course of action. Constitutional reform is always treated as an inconvenient distraction, but as Brexit shows, where power resides matters. Some worry that England is too big for a federal structure, but if that logic were true, it would be too big for the Union itself. A federal system could anyway still weight constituencies to give a stronger voice to the smaller nations, and would make it more likely than now that a Scottish politician can become prime minister.

Nobody should be under any illusions of the radicalism of this kind of change. It would require new constitutional laws, and a new role for the Supreme Court. It would almost certainly herald further constitutional change, with the House of Lords replaced at last. But it would bring power closer to the people. It would put right the dangerous imbalances in the way we are governed. It would avoid the kind of constitutional crises that are heading our way. And instead of yet more piecemeal and selfdefeating devolution, it would be a self-confident and comprehensive offer to the people of Scotland.

For that is what is now necessary. The PM should recall the wise conservative insight that if we value something and want to keep it, we must be prepared to change it. If he values the Union, and wants to avoid the wrong place in history, the change must be great.

read more at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion