The SNP should consider backing a federal UK

Lord Salisbury, writing for Reaction last week, is right. Brexit poses serious questions for Scotland. Unlike the Prime Minister, we find it difficult to be pro-cake and pro-eating.

I hesitate, however, to speak for my fellow Scots. I’ve disagreed with the majority of them for a long time. I argued in countless newspaper columns against devolution. I feared like my old friend Tam Dalyell that it would put us on what he called “a motorway to Independence with no exits.” We lost that argument. The Scottish parliament is firmly established. The Scotland Act, which brought it into being, is not going to be repealed.

We were, however, right in thinking that it would stimulate the desire for independence rather than appeasing it as devolution’s architect, Donald Dewar, assured us it would. The Nationalist movement grew stronger. Before long the SNP, only a fringe party before devolution, came to power in Scotland and persuaded David Cameron to approve the holding of a referendum on Independence.

I remained a Unionist, wrote in support of the Union, and voted “No” to independence. The referendum was closer than many expected. This may, in part, have been because the “No” campaign was depressingly negative. To quote from Belloc’s Cautionary Verses, Scots were, it seemed, being urged “to keep a hold of nurse/ For fear of finding something worse”.

But one argument made sense. We were warned that an independent Scotland would no longer be a member of the European Union, but would have to apply for membership, and this application might not be approved. The only way Scots could be sure of remaining in the EU was to vote to remain in the United Kingdom. The argument wasn’t dishonest. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, had then no intention of losing a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU. When he did hold that referendum, he was confident of victory. Unfortunately – from my point of view – the Remain campaign was as dismally negative as the No campaign in Scotland had been.

In the event there was a UK majority for Leave. Scotland however voted 62-38 for Remain. My reaction on the morning after was sour. The rise of English nationalism was as depressing as the rise of Scottish nationalism had been. Moreover, it seemed that Scotland would be forced to leave the EU despite the comfortable majority in favour of remaining – a majority much more convincing than the narrow overall UK majority for leaving. The Union, though described by David Cameron’s successor Theresa May as “our precious precious Union”, was fraying.

As Lord Salisbury has generously admitted, it was natural for a Unionist to argue for a second EU referendum in the hope that the decision of the first one would be set aside, or, failing that, for the softest of Brexits. When however this was not forthcoming and when there was little sign of Scottish opinion being treated with respect, the SNP’s demand for a second independence referendum was bound to follow.

Lord Salisbury writes of a “pledge” that the 2014 referendum was a “once in a generation” vote. Certainly the words “once in a generation” were spoken by both Alex Salmond and his successor as First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, but I think it’s mistaken to regard this as a pledge. The words were addressed not to Unionists but to people who were hesitating to vote for independence. The message was “you won’t get another chance for a long time – so seize the moment”.

Then, on becoming First Minister, Sturgeon said she would not seek a second referendum until there was a material change in circumstances or opinion. She instanced opinion polls regularly showing 60 per cent in favour of independence (which they have never done), but there can be no doubt that leaving, or being taken out of, the EU is indeed such a material change.

Now, whatever one’s view of Brexit, it is clear that in one sense it makes the idea of Independence more attractive to an unknown number of Scots who have hitherto held to the Union, while in another sense, it makes the reality of independence more daunting. Leaving the EU Customs Union means, as Lord Salisbury has remarked, that if an independent Scotland became a member state of the EU, there would be customs posts on the Anglo-Scottish Border. I don’t see that this could be avoided, and it couldn’t be anything but harmful.

So what then of federalism as a means of resolving the problems of the UK while maintaining its integrity? At present the form this might take is being explored by the Constitution Reform Group, which Lord Salisbury chairs, but it unavoidably remains murky.

A federal Union is not of course a new idea, certainly not in Scotland. The argument for a federal, rather than an incorporating, Union was made in the debates in the old Scottish parliament – the parliament of a still constitutionally independent state joined to England only by a Regnal Union – in the years before the 1707 Treaty of Union was agreed. They failed because the English parliament wasn’t interested and insisted on the incorporating Union with its single parliament in Westminster.

It was aired again in the 1880s in the debates over Gladstone’s Irish Home Rule Bill, and, though it was never easy to read Gladstone’s mind, there were moments when he seemed to favour Home Rule All Round, with an Imperial parliament in London.

Then between the two World Wars, in the early romantic days of Scottish nationalism, there were members of the National Party more in favour of a federal UK – including the Irish Free State – than in a fully independent Scotland. The arguments are examined at great, sometimes wearisome, length in Compton Mackenzie’s flawed masterpiece The Four Winds of Love.

Nothing came of this, but the idea of a federal UK has been dormant rather than dead. Now, Lord Salisbury and his colleagues are at least giving it an airing.

Set aside for the moment the question of the European Union and Scotland’s preference for continued membership of it – rather a big set aside, I would say – there is much that is attractive in a federal structure for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and indeed we have moved some way towards at least a quasi-federalism in the last twenty years. Some way, but not very far, you may say. It seems likely that if the UK was already a federal state, Brexit would have required the approval of all its component parts. Refusing such approval by the Scottish parliament or the Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies (which would by then have been designated parliaments) would have infuriated the Leave majority in England, perhaps even leading to the disintegration of the federal state.

In any case, in any examination of the idea of a federal UK England is, as Lord Salisbury confesses, “the elephant in the room”. The disparity between England, the richest part of the proposed federation, with 85 per cent of its population, is simply too great. It is not only that England dominates the other constituent parts of the UK now, but it could scarcely not continue to do so in a federal state.

Moreover, England is not only the richest part of the UK but also the most centralised state in western Europe, even more centralised now than France, despite that country’s Jacobin tradition. Local government has been emasculated in England (as indeed it is being emasculated in Scotland since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament).

One assumes that in a federal UK there would be a federal parliament and an English parliament, each with clearly defined powers and responsibilities, those of the English parliament being no greater or more extensive than those of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parliaments, though these would be greater than they are now.

The English parliament would still be very powerful, simply because it represented so many people with such a great share of the federal UK’s wealth. I guess there would be a deal of friction between the English and federal UK parliaments, not diminished if one of them was based in, say, York rather than London.

Could the First Minister and parliament of England be content to find themselves in some areas of government subordinate to the federal UK Prime Minister and parliament?

One solution would be to break up English government, creating a number of regional parliaments, but, not only is there no evident appetite for this, there would be natural and justified resentment. England has a longer historic continuity within more or less its present boundaries than any European state. This continuity even pre-dates the Norman Conquest. In the tenth century AD the Kingdom of Wessex gradually absorbed the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to create a state that was unified, however loosely.

Nobody surely seriously thinks of re-inventing the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy (which may indeed never have actually existed except in the minds of historians).

Democratic political structures cannot survive without the acquiescence of their citizens. By their nature federations are more likely to split into their component parts than unitary states. Yugoslavia is an obvious example. In the US a hundred and sixty years ago a terrible Civil War was fought to compel the Southern States which had seceded to form their own Confederacy, to return to the Union.

Federations last and flourish when there is a sufficient common interest, when bonds are strong and consent is freely given: Germany is a case in point, though one may remark that even the (West) German Federal Republic is only seventy years old. They break up when the common interest is weak and consent is withdrawn. Few of the federations set up by Britain as we withdrew from Empire have endured.

How would a federal UK fare? Much, obviously, would depend on its constitution, and an important element in this would be the respect granted to the smaller units. Chief among these might be the power to say “no”.  States rights may be weaker and the federal government stronger in the US than the framers of the Constitution expected or desired, but they still matter. Not everything goes to the big battalions.

The result of the last presidential election provoked some criticism because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but lost to Donald Trump in the Electoral College. Yet the Electoral College was devised to ensure that the interests of individual states were respected. Likewise every state elects two members of the Senate. It may seem absurd that Montana has as many senators as California, but the success and even the endurance of a federation may depend on such apparently undemocratic absurdities. This is the sort of question which I would suppose the Constitution Reform Group is considering.

Is a federal UK feasible despite the difficulties outlined? Well, it might be more satisfactory for the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish than what we have now. For the English it’s more doubtful; they would have to make unprecedented concessions to the other nations of the United Kingdom. For many Scots, not only SNP members, independence coupled with membership of the EU might be preferable, partly, but not only, because of the tone of resurgent English Nationalism, a tone that, to our mind, is both arrogant and resentful. Yet only a fool can contemplate a hard border running from the mouth of the Tweed to the Solway Firth with anything but dismay and apprehension.

It is not only Remainer Scots who can see that Brexit has narrowed our options and clouded our future. However much we feel ourselves to be Europeans, we know that history and geography make us also British, and we recognize that a customs barrier between Scotland and England would damage in many ways our fragile economy.

What however of nationalists and especially of the SNP leadership? Is there any reason why they should even consider setting aside what Lord Salisbury, with little exaggeration, calls their “visceral objections to Westminster and Whitehall” and respond to his invitation?

I can think of two reasons. First, in the federal UK he envisages, Westminster and Whitehall would no longer be what they are today. What they would be is admittedly clouded in obscurity, but a federal UK would require a written constitution and this would guarantee rights and powers to the component parts of the federation. As an example, the decision to hold the EU Referendum might have required the consent of each part of the Federation rather than simply being determined by the party that had a majority in the House of Commons.

Second, it is by no means certain that Nicola Sturgeon would win a second Independence referendum, even though the Independence movement now extends beyond the SNP. After the 2014 one, Andrew Hook, Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow, wrote an interesting essay in which he suggested that “September 18th’s 45 may prove to have been Scottish nationalism’s greatest achievement” or, one might say, its high-water mark. He remarked first on how the appeal of independence in Quebec has ebbed since the very narrow defeat in what was admittedly a second referendum in 1995.

Then he observed that 2014 was the ideal moment for the nationalists to hold a referendum. So much was in their favour. The coalition government in London was four years into an unpopular programme of austerity. Memories of unpopular and possibly illegal wars were warm.

Then the fact that there was then only one Tory MP in the Commons made it easy to argue that Scotland was governed by a party it had rejected. Finally, with daft complacency David Cameron allowed the SNP to choose the date for the referendum and even to frame the question.

Despite all this and a largely feeble and negative Unionist campaign, the SNP and associated separatists lost. If they couldn’t win with so many dice stacked in their favour, when – Professor Hook asked – could they win?

Now, or next year, or the year after, the mood engendered by Brexit may favour them. But it may not. Many people are weary. Many, even among us Remainers, are willing to see how things work out, or at least are resigned to doing so. So much is uncertain. The prospect of another Independence referendum and perhaps of a SNP victory adds uncertainty to uncertainty.

In these circumstances it might be wise for Sturgeon at least to explore the possibility of a federal UK. It might, if suitably defined, suit Scotland very well. It might even take us all a step further on what is likely to be a long road back to the EU.

But I confess, reluctantly, that I can’t see the Conservative party showing any interest – not certainly while in its present triumphant mood.