Brexit vote paves way for federal union to save UK, says all-party group

The Guardian ^ | 10 July 2016 | Martin Kettle

[Cronos]

The governance of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should be reinvented within a new voluntary union in a bid to save the UK from disintegration, an independent all-party group of experts will argue this week.

...Their proposals say the existing union should be replaced with fully devolved government in each part of the UK, with each given full sovereignty over its own affairs. The Westminster parliament, the group says, should then be reduced to 146 MPs. The individual nations and regions of the UK would then be encouraged to pool sovereignty to cover the matters they wish to be dealt with on a shared basis.

The proposals say they “start from the position that each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a unit that both can and should determine its own affairs to the extent that it considers it should; but that each unit should also be free to choose to share, through an efficient and effective United Kingdom, functions which are more effectively exercised on a shared basis.”

The new construction suggests a complete reversal of the UK’s current constitutional arrangement, in which all sovereignty formally rests in the centre and is then devolved to regions on a piecemeal basis.

..The group proposes that the shared UK functions would include the monarchy as head of state, foreign affairs, defence, national security, immigration, international treaties, human rights, the supreme court, a single currency, a central bank function, financial services regulation, income and corporation tax powers, and the civil service.

Other functions of the existing UK would be controlled by the nations and regions

[who_would_fardels_bear]

The only problem I see is that it would not be a federation of equals. Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland are all very poor with respect to England proper.

It would be like Germany combining with Spain, Italy, and Greece, i.e. very much like the EU.

If all four states had the same currency, then Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland wouldn't be able to devalue their currencies to compete with England.

What will most likely happen is what is happening in the US: the states are becoming poorer and depending more and more on the central government. They get funds from the Feds, but only by following federal mandates.

Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland would just end up in the same place they are now: demanding financial aid in return for taking orders from London.

[Mr. Blond]

The only benefit of Scottish independence would go to the English.

[Repeal 16-17]

The best thing for England would be to let Wales and Scotland secede from Great Britain. Within a few years they will both be begging to return to Great Britain. Neither has any chance of surviving on its own.

[naturalman1975]

One issue that really does need to be addressed - and I do not know if this is the way to do it but I suspect not - is the current lack of a specific legislature for England. Scotland has its own Parliament, Northern Ireland and Wales have their own Assemblies, but England has no independent legislature of any sort. Laws for England continue to be made by the British Parliament which at times means Scots, Welsh, and Northern Irish MPs can vote on laws and issues that only affect England.

[Cronos]

True -- this is not a federation of even roughly equals -- England outweighs the others. But a note is that even in England, the south-east is the heavyweight economically with London accounting for nearly 25% of GDP

What I believe the EU should do is to split GErmany into it's constituent "nations" -- note that Germany is already a heavily decentralized state with the individual Lander (states) with a lot of independence. Spain too

what I would favor is Germany and Spain and France being split into their constituent parts and each becoming a separate entity in the EU. This is not strange -- after all, truly speaking the Dutch, Flemish, Luxembourgians, German-Swiss and Austrians are "Germanic peoples" and but for a quirk of history would have been part of the German Holy Roman Empire and thence Germany. I propose the EU to be decentralized confederation like a greater Switzerland(of course, this is wishful thinking, I don't see it happening):

• Portugal
• basque region (parts of Spain and France)
• Castile-Navarre-Aragon
• Catalonia (including perhaps parts of Langue-d'oc of France
• Brittany
• Alsace
• Lorraine
• Normandy-Gascon-Anjou
• France including southern, Walloon Belgium
• Flanders-Netherlands
• Bavaria
• Swabia
• etc

Splitting Germany and France and Spain and Italy and the UK into their constituent nations, yet giving them a joint forum like the USA would make things a lot more governable. Eliminate the EU parliament and put the EU head in charge of external defence and trade with outside blocs

[Cronos]

In the UK's case, I think it's too late to talk of federation -- they should have done this in the 90s or early 2000s --> Scotland, Wales, N.Ireland, Yorkshire, Lancaster, Cornwall, Greater London, S-E England etc. To split England into

• Cornwall-Devonshire (S-W), maybe even including Bath, Bristol and Birmingham
• S-E including Sussex, Kent etc., or perhaps merge it with London -- though a Sussexon is quite different from a Londoner
• Greater London
• The North - Manchester-York-Liverpool

Each of these on their own would do better than if they were dominated by giant London

It's kind of like how the USA is dominated economically by California, Texas and New York states.

[Cronos]

I don't think they'd be begging and they can survive on their own - look at Ireland versus Scotland. They need to change, yes, but they can survive

Wales doesn't seem to be heading towards independence though -- a pity as historically they are the remnants of the Britons

[Cronos]

yes, the north Lothian question.

[dangus]

Scotland is wealthier than 7 of 9 regions of England. The balance of wealth is greater for UK countries than for US states.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Articles of Confederation 2.0?