Britain Rebooted E-Book

David Torrance

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Viewpoints
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 180

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Great Britain, (abbreviation: UK) England, Wales and Scotland considered as a unit. The name is also often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom. reboot, ri-bu:t , verb to restart or revive… give fresh impetus to… federal, fed ar-al, adj. having or relating to a system of government in which several states form a unity but remain independent in internal affairs. Would federalism work in the UK? Wouldn't England dominate a British federation? How would powers be distributed between federal and home Nation level? What about the House of Lords? In the run up to the historic referendum on Scottish independence there has been a plethora of tracts, articles and books arguing for and against, but there remains a gap in the literature: the case for Scotland becoming part of a 'rebooted' federal Union. It is an old, usually Liberal, dream, but one still worth fighting for. It is often assumed that federalism is somehow 'alien' to the Scottish and British constitutional tradition but in this short book journalist David Torrance argues that not only has the UK already become a quasi-federal state but that formal federation is the best way of squaring the competing demands of Nationalists and Unionists. He also uses Scotland's place within a federal UK to examine other potential reforms with a view to tackling ever-increasing inequality across the British Isles and create a more equal, successful and constitutionally coherent country.

Leseprobe

DAVID TORRANCEis a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster who specialises in the politics and history of the long-running debate about Scottish independence. After being educated in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Cardiff he worked as a newspaper and television reporter before taking a brief career break to dabble in politics at Westminster. For the past seven years he has been a freelance commentator as well as the author or editor of more than ten books about Scottish andUKpolitics, biography and history. Like all good Scotsmen he has lived in London for long stretches, but is currently based in Edinburgh.

Luath Press in an independently owned and managed book publishing company based in Scotland and is not aligned to any political party or grouping.Viewpointsis an occasional series exploring issues of current and future relevance.

By the same author:

The Scottish Secretaries(Birlinn,2006)

George Younger: A Life Well Lived(Birlinn,2008)

‘We in Scotland’: Thatcherism in a Cold Climate(Birlinn,2009)

Noel Skelton and the Property-Owning Democracy(Biteback,2010)

Inside Edinburgh: Discovering the Classic Interiors of Edinburgh(Birlinn,2010)

Salmond: Against the Odds(Birlinn,2011)

David Steel: Rising Hope to Elder Statesman(Biteback,2012)

Whatever Happened to Tory Scotland?(ed.) (Edinburgh University Press,2012)

The Battle for Britain: Scotland and the Independence Referendum(Biteback,2013)

Great Scottish SpeechesI(ed.) (Luath Press,2013)

Great Scottish SpeechesII(ed.) (Luath Press,2013)

Britain Rebooted

Scotland in a Federal Union

DAVID TORRANCE

LuathPress Limited

EDINBURGH

www.luath.co.uk

First published2014

ISBN: 978-1-910021-11-8

ISBN (eBook): 978-1-910324-04-2

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act1988has been asserted.

© David Torrance2014

For Sean Bye, whose knowledge of the dynamics ofUSfederalism was invaluable in preparing this book

Contents

Definition of Terms

Federalism Diagram

Note on Sources

Federalism Around the World

Introduction: Seeking a Role

CHAPTER 1 A Short History of UK Federalism

CHAPTER 2 Scotland in a Federal UK

CHAPTER 3 Objections to a Federal UK

CHAPTER 4 Double Federalism

CHAPTER 5 Fiscal Federalism

CHAPTER 6 Educational Federalism

CHAPTER 7 Welfare Federalism

CHAPTER 8 Conclusion

Great Britain

(abbreviation:GB)

England, Wales, and Scotland considered as a unit. The name is also often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom.

reboot

VERB

Restart or revive… give fresh impetus to…

federal

ADJECTIVE

Having or relating to a system of government in which several states form a unity but remain independent in internal affairs…

Federalism

Note on Sources

IN MY OTHERpublications I have developed a habit of footnoting everything to within an inch of its life, but since this is a very different kind of book I have broken with that habit and eschewed references entirely. Nevertheless I must mention some of the texts on which I have drawn in the course of assembling my argument.

Two books by the Welsh Assembly Member David Melding,Will Britain Survive Beyond 2020?(Institute of Welsh Affairs,2009) andThe Reformed Union: Britain as a Federation(alsoIWA,2013), were invaluable, as was John Kendle’s excellentFederal Britain: A History(Routledge,1997) in terms of refreshing my knowledge of the historical background. Others have also set out arguments for a federalUKincluding John Barnes in his1998Centre for Policy Studies pamphletFederal Britain: No Longer Unthinkable?and Dr Andrew Blick and Professor George Jones in a2010Federal Trust publication calledA Federal Future for theUK: The Options. And although skeptical about federalism, Ferdinand Mount’s1992bookThe British Constitution Now(Heinemann) as very useful.

Documents published by governments and political parties, meanwhile, have also provided valuable material, especially two from the Scottish Liberal Democrats,The Steel Commission: Moving to Federalism – A New Settlement for Scotland(2005) andFederalism: The Best Future for Scotland(2012), as well as its successor, the so-called ‘CampbellII’(2014). The Scottish Labour Party’s Devolution Commission report,Powers for a Purpose – Strengthening Accountability and Empowering People(also2014) echoed – to a degree – some of the Lib Dem proposals, while the1973Royal Commission on the Constitution report (Cmnd5460) was an instructive reminder of what the anti-federalist argument used to sound like.

For the chapter on ‘Educational Federalism’ (which I accept might sit uneasily with the rest of the book), I drew upon the fourth ‘Referendum’ edition of the doorstopperScottish Education(Edinburgh University Press,2013), as well as Gerry Hassan’s engagingly honest bookCaledonian Dreaming(Luath,2014), Jim Sillars’ short bookIn Place of FearII(Vagabond Voices, also2014), George Walden’s1999autobiographyLucky George: Memoirs of an Anti-Politician(Allen Lane), and extensively from two editions of theNew Statesmandated30January and6February2014.

Finally, the quotes in the opening chapter from Dean Acheson’s curiously neglected (beyond one famous quote) speech come fromVital Speeches of the Day, Vol.XXIX, No.6, dated1January1963. Many other books, articles and websites are of course cited throughout the text and I have done my best to flag up the source in each instance.

Federalism Around the World

More than25Countries around the world have a formally federal system of government. This is not a comprehensive list but illustrates that far from being uniform federations vary widely in shape, size and balance of powers. Not included are unitary states with regional government – however widespread – for example Spain, Indonesia, France and the Netherlands. These are not federal countries although, like theUK, they have federal characteristics.

ARGENTINAIs a federation of23provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. Provinces hold all the power that they choose not to delegate to the federal government and under the Argentinian constitution they have to be representative but beyond this are fully autonomous, enacting their own constitutions and responsible for their own systems of local government and finances. Some provinces have bicameral legislatures, others unicameral. Each province has three seats in the federal Chamber of Senators.

AUSTRALIAis, like the United Kingdom, a parliamentary constitutional monarchy but with a federal division of powers. It has six states and three territories, including the Australian Capital Territory (ACT, which includes the capital of Canberra). Federal legislation can only over-ride state law in areas set out in Section51of the Australian constitution, otherwise state parliaments are responsible for all residual legislative powers, including those over schools, state police, the state judiciary, roads, public transport and local government. The federal Senate includes12senators from each state and two each from the territories.

AUSTRIAbecame a federal, parliamentary, democratic republic through its1920federal constitution, while the Second Republic – with its nine states – was re-enacted on1May1945. Although Austria is a relatively small country (8.5million people) it has nine states with legislative authority distinct from the federal government, for example in matters of culture, social care, youth and nature protection, hunting, building, and zoning ordinances. A president and chancellor govern at the federal level, while each state is represented in the Bundesrat.

BELGIUMis a constitutional monarchy and a federal parliamentary democracy. Constitutional revisions between1970And1993established a unique form of federalism with segregated political power at three levels: federal; ‘language communities’ (Flemish, French and German); and regions (Flemish, Walloon and Brussels-Capital). The federal government’s authority includes justice, defence, federal police, social security, nuclear energy, monetary policy and public debt, and other aspects of public finances, while communities exercise their authority only within linguistically determined geographical boundaries. The federal Senate includes21representatives appointed by the three community parliaments.

BRAZILis a federation composed of26states and one federal district, which includes the capital Brasilia. The states have autonomous administrations, collect their own taxes and receive a share of taxes collected by the federal government. They have a governor and a unicameral legislative body elected directly by their voters. They also have independent courts of law for common justice, although criminal and civil laws are a federal responsibility. The states and federal district each send three members to the federal Senate.

CANADAis a constitutional monarchy but also a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories. Provinces have more autonomy than territories, having responsibility for social programmes such as health care, education and welfare. while, taken together, the provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among world federations. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate policies at the provincial level, although the provinces can (but rarely do) opt out of these. Like theUKHouse of Lords, the federal Senate is appointed, albeit on a regional basis. The senate holds considerably less power than the House of Commons.

GERMANYcomprises16states that are collectively referred to as Länder; each has its own constitution and is largely autonomous in relation to the federal government. The size and population of the states also varies considerably. Germany was constituted as a federal republic in1949and federal legislative power is vested in a parliament (the Reichstag) consisting of the Bundestag (federal diet) and Bundesrat (federal council), the latter consisting of representatives from the16federated states.

INDIAis a federation with a parliamentary system governed under the Indian constitution. It is composed of28states and seven ‘union territories’, most of which have elected legislatures and governments based on the Westminster model, although five of the territories are ruled directly via appointed administrators. In1956the states were reorganised on a linguistic basis and have remained largely unchanged since. Traditionally described as ‘quasi-federal’ given its initially strong centre and weak states, since the late1990S India has grown increasingly federal as a result of political, economic, and social changes.

MALAYSIAis a federal constitutional monarchy closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system (though not, obviously, the federal bit). The head of state – or ‘king’ – is elected for a five-year term by and from the nine hereditary rulers of the Malay states (another four states with titular governors do not take part). Legislative power is divided between federal and state legislatures, the latter possessing unicameral assemblies led by chief ministers. The state assemblies elect26of70federal senators.

THE UNITED MEXICAN STATESare a federation under a presidential system of government. The constitution establishes three levels of government: the federal union,31‘free and sovereign’ state governments and municipal authorities. Each state has its own constitution, congress and judiciary and elects a governor for a six-year term. The federal district of Mexico City is a special political division belonging to the federation as a whole, while the federal Senate comprises128senators, half of which are elected by each State (two each, as in theUSA).

RUSSIAis a very large, and therefore very complicated, federation comprising85federal ‘subjects’, to which the republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol were recently added. These subjects each have two delegates in the Federation Council although the degree of autonomy they enjoy varies depending on their status: oblasts (or provinces, of which there are46), republics (22), krais (or territories, nine), autonomous okrugs (or districts, four), together with a Jewish Autonomous Oblast and three federal cities (Moscow, St Petersburg and Sevastopol).

SWITZERLAND’s federal constitution adopted by Switzerland in1848makes it among the world’s oldest. Although a new constitution was adopted in1999it did not alter a federal structure dividing powers between the confederation and26cantons. These possess a permanent constitutional status and a high degree of independence with their own constitutions, parliaments, governments and courts. Each is represented in the federal Council of States.

THE UNITED STATESis the world’s oldest surviving federation with theUSConstitution regulating its government via a system of checks and balances. There are three levels of government: federal, state and local, with50states (the most recent being Hawaii, which joined in1959) and the District of Columbia (which contains the capital of Washington,DC), together with five overseas territories. The states, which vary considerably in terms of size and population, each send two members to the federalUSSenate. States do not have the right to unilaterally secede from the Union, which also observes the tribal sovereignty of the ‘native nations’.

INTRODUCTION

Seeking a Role

ON 5 DECEMBER1962, out of office for a decade but still a major figure in international affairs, the former Secretary of State Dean Acheson addressed an audience at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Great Britain, he famously remarked in the course of his speech, had ‘lost an empire’ but ‘not yet found a role’. Its ‘attempt to play a separate power role’ apart from Europe, a role based on a ‘special relationship’ with theUS, a role based on being head of a Commonwealth with ‘no political structure, or unity, or strength’ was, he added, ‘about played out’.

And in its attempt to ‘work alone and to be a broker between the United States and Russia’, Acheson reckoned theUKhad ‘seemed to conduct policy as weak as its military power’. For Harold Macmillan, the Anglo-Scottish Prime Minister of that empire-less and role-less nation, it hurt to hear this from the Anglophile Acheson (whose father, an Anglican priest, had been born in England) largely because it was true. Writing in his diary, Macmillan thought Acheson had always been ‘a conceited ass’, but conceded that the generally prickly response to his speech had not been ‘a good sign, for we ought to be strong enough to laugh off this kind of thing’. In his formal response, meanwhile, Macmillan stressed the doctrine of ‘interdependence’ in post-war affairs.

But with the benefit of more than three decades observingUSand international affairs, Acheson had identified an uncomfortable truth about the post-warUK. In the early1960S it was in the process of shedding, rather than losing, its empire and was still, as Acheson’s infamous epigram more accurately identified, searching for a role. Even more humiliatingly, within months of the speech Charles de Gaulle would veto theUK’s application (one he thought wise) to join the fledgling Common Market, depriving it of an alternative European role. As Acheson had anticipated, that ‘battle’ seemed ‘about as hard-fought as were those of an earlier day’.

And while Acheson’s remarks were intended for theUKas a whole (his use of ‘Great Britain’ was in itself revealing) they also unconsciously applied to Scotland, for in1962, a few months before the speech, theSNPhad first emerged as a modern electoral force, polling nearly10,000votes in the West Lothian by-election. Appropriately enough, the Labour victor in that fight, Tam Dalyell, would later best articulate the tensions implicit in theUK’s attempt to find an internal role as well as an external one, the so-called ‘West Lothian Question’ and all that flowed from it.

The decline of Great Britain and the rise of theSNP, as various political scientists have charted, was not unrelated. By the1960S there was a sense, politically, economically and culturally, that the Union – that of1707rather than1801– was no longer delivering for Scotland. Not only did Westminster and its leaders look tweedy and out-of-date (as Acheson had also observed of post-war French and German leaders), but the Scottish economy had been diverging markedly from the rest of theUKin the decades since the First World War. The Union, largely unquestioned in the18th and19th centuries, no longer looked beyond reproach.

And while aspects of that decline were subsequently addressed, via legislative devolution and economic policies that brought the Scottish economy – certainly by the late1980S – into phase with theUKas a whole, it never amounted to a holistic and sustainable solution to problems both perceived and real. Devolution, always ad hoc and often politically opportunistic, was a sticking plaster rather than a delicately executed operation.

Acheson’s speech (‘Our Atlantic Alliance’) had focused on the13-year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but he clearly saw Western Europe – in political and military terms – developing along federal lines, referring to ‘progress toward integration… which has been going on for over a decade’. ‘The forces which these far-seeing and imaginative policies have set in motion’, he added, ‘are surely the constructive forces of the future, upon which we must base both our hopes and our policy.’ Acheson continued:

Furthermore, we know from our own experience, an experience which is born out by that of other federal states, that federalism never stands still. It either moves towards increasing strength, increasingly managed by the central authority, or it tends to weaken and disintegrate. If the latter can be prevented, the former will surely occur.

But Acheson warned against seeking solutions in machinery alone, noting that institutions of government in themselves ‘amount to little; importance lies in the extent and solidity of the agreements as to what they are to do’.

He also acknowledged that such solutions were difficult although not impossible, quoting the great French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw that a democracy ‘can only with great difficulty regulate the details of an important undertaking, persevere with a fixed design, and work out its execution in spite of serious obstacles’. With that, Acheson urged those in Western Europe to ‘increase the tempo of action’, concluding with a quote from President Lincoln in1862: ‘The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.’

Half a century on, and with Europe in similar (if less destructive) flux, much of Acheson’s wisdom applies to a United Kingdom now shorn of all but the detritus of empire and accustomed to a clearer, if less than perfect, role in an increasingly interdependent world. It is a world that neither offers easy solutions to a myriad of challenges, nor a clear route map towards greater equality and happier, more co-operative states, not to forget component parts of states. In2014, with an independence referendum due on18September, the occasion is, as Lincoln observed of post-Civil War America, piled high with difficulty, and thus it demands not only Scotland but the rest of theUKto rise to the occasion.

Which brings me to federalism, a view, although currently a minority one, that has the prospect of attracting wide support, from Nationalist to Unionist, Left to Right, and pretty much everything in between. As Alex Bell, a former policy chief to theSNPScottish Government, observed, ‘if Britain were to listen to its citizens again, it could become an astonishing model of how the world will organise itself perhaps for the next century or so’. Had theUKmoved to give parity to each British nation or region, he added, then ‘we would have become the first cluster of nations to rethink their shared purpose in the21St century. We could be pioneers precisely in the way that the original union was a pioneer in1707.’

Bell couched his remarks in the past tense, as he clearly believed no such re-imagining of theUKwas in prospect any time soon. I do not share his (understandable) cynicism, for even if a federal solution does not enjoy ostentatious support, it could be argued that it exists implicitly, given succour by a general sentiment that constitutional ad hocery is unsustainable. Not only is there a lively ongoing debate in London, Wales, Northern Ireland and of course Scotland about ‘more powers’, even in hitherto constitutionally conservative England there is at last serious discussion of localism, city-based regionalism and breaking the dominance of Whitehall. Sure, a lot of this discourse is untidy and lacks coherence, but neither the status quo nor independence represents the logical end point of those discussions.

Therefore I unapologetically posit a rebooted, federalUKas a constitutional Middle Way I am sure Harold Macmillan would have approved of were he still active in politics today. It is a pragmatic recognition that neither Unionist nor Nationalist enjoys a monopoly of wisdom, and indeed a federalUKoffers the best chance of achieving an institutional rapprochement between those two often-hostile forces. In that context the referendum debate has been useful, for it has afforded a good – perhaps the only – opportunity to put theUK’s constitutional house in order.

But as Dean Acheson recognised, it is not enough to propose purely mechanical changes in order to bring about better outcomes. A federalUKcan only ever be a means to an end, not an end in itself. Since the1960S Scottish political discourse has too often regarded constitutional change as a sort of panacea, and it has frequently become a means by which to avoid difficult policy decisions. Thus this short tract cautiously offers some suggested reforms in other areas, chiefly in the realms of local government, economics, welfare and education.

I do not mind admitting that doing so makes me a little uneasy. Should a journalist and mere commentator set out not only constitutional models but policy prescriptions? For a long time I would have answered ‘no’; journalists ought to comment and analyse, not suggest remedies. But today the boundaries are so often blurred that I see no reason to be squeamish about such things. Too much of a commentator’s life can involve the practice of (modest) power without responsibility, so why not get one’s hands dirty for a change?