Finally, irrevocably it’s R-Day

The debate, one of the most dynamic I’ve ever seen, is over and voting is underway.  In less than twenty-four hours we’ll know whether Scotland has voted for independence or not.  Whether the ‘Stay Together’ campaign has done enough—just enough I suspect—to win, there really is no going back from the campaigns over the past two years.  The choice is between the visionary ambiguities of the Yes campaign and the equally ambiguous pragmatism of those calling for retention of the Union.  Given what most accept will be the closeness of the result, you have to ask what its democratic legitimacy will be.  What the referendum has done is to expose a fundamental ideological fissure within Scottish society that will, despite the weasel words from both sides, be difficult to heal.  I can’t see the two sides coming together in the immediate aftermath of the result however good natured the debate has generally been.

So, the referendum result may not be the end of the matter.  There are some who argue that, if the result favours independence, the rest of the UK should have a referendum on whether or not to accept the negotiated solution.  Now there is an argument for this especially as Scotland makes up less than 10 per cent of the total population of the UK and the result, whatever it is, affects all peoples in the UK.  Why, some have already asked, should Scotland be given special status and advantages over the other constituent parts of the UK?  The problem with a divorce is that, while the decision may be easy to make, working out the details of the split is always contentious and time-consuming.  I can’t see that being achieved by March 2016.  While the focus has been on whether there should be a monetary union between Scotland and the rest of the UK and what Scotland’s status will be in the European Union and NATO and what happens to Trident have long been the focus of debate, these are as nothing to untangling three centuries of Union.  The negotiations will be political horse-trading—you let me have X and you can have Y—they always are. Pragmatic politics almost always trumps political vision—remember that politics is the art of the possible.

Whatever happens in Scotland, constitutional reform is now inevitable

Whether Scotland votes for or against independence on Thursday, the constitutional genie is now out of the bottle.  If Scotland votes for independence, the West Lothian question will not longer apply as there will no longer be any Scottish MPs in Westminster but if it’s a no vote and further powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, it remains unresolved.  What the Scottish debate has highlighted is the increasing disenchantment of the public with Westminster politicians and the need for fundamental constitutional change.

The problem lies in the existing unitary constitution.  Although there have been constitutional crises over the last thousand years—the reform crisis of 1830-1832 and the crisis between Commons and Lords between 1909 and 1911—there has only been one truly revolutionary moment—the English Republic between 1649 and 1660.  It is evolution rather than revolution that has been the primary feature of our constitutional structures and the problem with evolution is that it can look like tinkering with things or cosmetic change.  The British state evolved over a thousand years from the separate Anglo-Saxon kingdoms into the centralised English state that then by a process of coercion, conquest and often disreputable ‘persuasion’, in to the United Kingdom.  More and more power has been concentrated in Westminster and, until the acceptance that devolution was a necessary development, it jealously guarded and maintained that power.  Devolution has led to this unravelling.  The unitary constitution, if not already dead, is in terminal decline.

So where constitutionally does this leave the United Kingdom?  The question of an English Parliament  has recently been revived as one solution to the problem—English MPs for English issues.  But is again tinkering…it fails to address the critical issue that what Britain needs is a federal system of government in which its constituent parts are responsible for governing themselves while the federal authorities are responsible for issues such as defence—so small federal government and bigger regional government bringing power closer to the people, a shift from representative to participatory democracy.