Asymmetrical devolution

The current constitutional situation in the UK is that we have a devolved Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Assembly – all with differing powers. And we have a situation in England where there is no layer of elected government between local authorities and the Westminster Government. This is a situation of asymmetrical devolution and one that leads to questions such as the West Lothian Question being asked.

Asymmetrical devolution sounds an odd phrase and it does throw up logical difficulties – hence the West Lothian Question that Tam Dayell posed back in the 1970s. However, it is not either historically unique in British history and nor is such a phenomenon unique to the UK. Sometimes, looking outside our own country, to examples abroad, we can see why asymmetrical devolution might result and why, in some cases, it is a good compromise solution to the national question – a question and a problem that has proved so vexing in so many circumstances over the past couple of centuries.

Firstly, historically, asymmetrical devolution is nothing new to Britain. From 1922 to 1972, Britain had an asymmetrical devolution settlement – with an Assembly at Stormont that had devolved powers over Northern Ireland. In fact, its autonomy extended to matters like the franchise at local government elections (i.e. they were able to keep the ratepayer franchise when the rest of Britain moved to universal suffrage) – which is far more autonomy than any devolved assembly (rightly) has today. I find it interesting that, during that 50-year period, no one raised a ‘West Belfast’ question akin to the West Lothian one.

Secondly, looking abroad asymmetrical devolution does exist in a number of cases abroad. In Spain, Catalonia and the Basque country have more autonomy than other provinces of Spain. The Spanish Constitution enshrines the right of provinces to ask for and negotiate autonomy with the Centre – if they wish. Due to their history and to the existence of indigenous nationalist movements, Catalonia and the Basque country have done so. Other provinces have not felt the need to do so. Also, although it is mostly a uniform federal system, the US does have forms of asymmetrical devolution too. Washington DC does not have the autonomy a state does. It is under a form of direct rule by the federal government. Such is a case of asymmetrical devolution, as powers are vested in states which are not vested in the local government of Washington DC.

The Spanish case, to me, is a case where asymmetrical devolution has been designed to reach a much-needed compromise between the nationalist aspirations of local nationalists and the desire of the bulk of the people and of the country as a whole to maintain a degree of national unity. Autonomy which leaves local nationalists of a community satisfied can stop short of outright independence. Such autonomy enables a compromise between the nationalist aspirations of Catalan nationalism and the desire of Spanish nationalism to keep Spain united.

In Iraq, a similar idea is being mooted. The choice, surely, facing Iraq is not simply an independent Kurdish state or the lack of Kurdish autonomy that they had under the Ba’athist regime (and that Arab nationalists would like to reimpose on them). There is a third way – one that seems to be evolving – a compromise between Kurdish national aspirations and Arab nationalist ones. A Kurdistan Regional Government has been created. It is not the government of a sovereign state but it does have autonomy and the ability to handle education and other matters in the Kurdish language. This seems to be a reasonable compromise and one that a purely logical desire to have a ‘neat’ constitution would have rejected. Such a rejection would be dangerous, though, in an ethnically divided society as it seems to suggest that the only logical positions are the extreme ones of full independence or no special status for a national minority. I think that the wit and wisdom of human negotiations is such that we can move beyond such narrow parameters to a fuller compromise which meets as many of the aspirations of all parties as possible. Yes, no one will be 100% satisfied – but life’s not like that. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. A system that pleases most people mostly is good. It is better than one that causes polarisation.

So, perhaps I am meandering from the original point, I am talking of Iraq and Spain when I started off talking of the West Lothian Question. But the reason why I did so are to show that there are reasons why one part of a country develops a nationalist movement and others don’t. The political necessity is then to find a deal that can deal with legitimate national aspirations where they exist and can also compromise with the desire of others to keep the country united as one sovereign state. I think the devolution settlements for Scotland and Wales reflect that. Scottish nationalism and Welsh nationalism have been negotiated with while, at the same time, also reaching a deal that still keeps the UK as one country. This seems to me to be fine and part of the art of statecraft.

The West Lothian Question, of course, does in a sense pose a problem for this settlement. But it is only a problem when people think it is. I don’t think most people see it as one. And, if they do, then there can be a referendum on establishing an English Parliament.

However, I strongly suspect that there is not much demand for an English parliament as an immediate constitutional aim among voters in England. That is because they are more interested in bread-and-butter political issues than constitutional ones. Furthermore, of course, any desire to bring government closer to the people won’t really be met by an English parliament as it would (if based in London) be virtually as remote from the people of (say) Newcastle or Durham as the UK Parliament is. An interesting analogy can be drawn with the local government situation in the Netherlands. Holland was by far the biggest of the 7 historical provinces of the Netherlands. However, nowadays, it is 2 provinces for local government purposes – North Holland and South Holland – perhaps to reflect differences within the province and to prevent one unit from being too large within the system.

That is why some people, such as John Prescott, thought regional assemblies were a better idea. The experience, though, from the North-East referendum is that people do not see the need for them. The question remains an open one as to whether they feel the need for an England-wide Parliament.

There are many reasons, other than simply greater interest in sensible bread-and-butter political issues, why people in England might not feel the need for a separate parliament. The main one would be that, as the most populous nation of the UK, there is greater identification with UK-wide institutions than there is in the smaller nations. As such, people see the Westminster Parliament as their parliament in a way a lot of Scots didn’t in the 1980s and 1990s.

The question does remain, though, as to – if a government had a majority of seats UK-wide but not in England – whether it would have the legitimacy to pass legislation affecting England on matters which are devolved to Scotland or to Scotland and Wales. The answer is an Alice-in-the-Looking-Glass one, to my mind, it is that the government would have legitimacy as long as people felt it did . And, in most cases, their view on the propriety of the government passing one or another piece of England-only legislation at Westminster would depend on what that legislation was .

The discontent that many Scottish and Welsh voters felt for Tory government imposing policies on them was that these governments had (in the 1992-7) only 19 MPs representing Scottish and Welsh constituencies. The difference, because England is so much larger, is that no government could actually have a majority UK-wide without having a big minority of English seats. For example, at the next election, there are going to be (most probably) 650 seats in Parliament. Of those, 59 will be in Scotland, 40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland. England will thus have 533 seats. It is conceivable that if they did very well in Scotland and Wales, Labour could get (say) 80 of the 99 seats there. However, to get a majority of seats UK-wide, they would have to then win a minimum of 245 seats in England (45.9% of English seats). Such a situation is the situation that those who most frequently invoke the West Lothian question fear. However, it can be seen from those figures that Labour’s share of English seats in such a situation would be far greater than the share of seats the Tories have had in Scotland since 1955 and in Wales since 1900.

In fact, any political divide in such a situation is more likely to be a left/right divide on the issues rather than a national one. After all, to get 245 seats in England, Labour would have had to win a majority of seats in the North-East and the North-West and quite a few in the Midlands and Greater London. It thus can’t be said to be ‘England’ expressing one view and ‘Scotland’ expressing another [especially as, due to its 4-party politics, Scotland gives Labour a smaller percentage of the popular vote than the North-East does]. Any geographical divide that might exist would be as much between the North and South of England as between England and the rest of the UK.

So, to sum up, I do not feel that the West Lothian Question poses any significant real political issues – although it does pose logical ones. The way to deal with it would be, indeed, to offer a referendum on an English Parliament and see what happens. Should there not be public demand for it, then it will not pass. There is no reason to give devolution to voters who do not wish it and who prefer powers to be exercised by the national government or by regional or local authorities rather than by an intermediate layer of government. That would in itself be undemocratic and be overriding their preference for the status quo .