From stewartb

As the ‘F’ word gets peddled once more by the Labour Party, it was timely to have Peter A Bell’s critique the party’s policy on UK constitutional reform as the solution to its Scottish ‘problem’. 

Source: https://peterabell.scot/tag/federalism/

One of the points made by Mr Bell that stood out for me was this:

“For a federal arrangement to be feasible it would not only have to be fair and equitable, it would have to be seen to be fair and equitable. Which means that the negotiation of the arrangement would have to be seen to be fair and equitable. Which, in turn, could only be the case if all the parties involved participated in those negotiations on the basis of parity of power, equality of status and mutual respect. Which, to close the circle, could only be possible if those parties to the negotiations were already independent nations.“

With this in mind I put on my PPE and ventured into that hotbed of grassroots Toryism and Unionism, ‘Conservative Home’. Among the most read political blogs in the UK, it was founded by Tim Montgomerie who has been described as ‘one of the most influential Tories outside of the cabinet’. So Conservative Home is a reasonable place to take the temperature of current Tory thinking on constitutional reform. It is a reasonable place to seek insights into the feasibility of any actual change to the structure of the UK coming from this retreaded Labour idea. And I was not disappointed!

Conservative Home’s assistant editor Henry Hill seems to have a fondness for the ‘F’ word or rather a special interest in dissing it. So we do have one thing in common! Mr Hill has written two pieces over recent weeks that touch on the topic.

• on March 9: ‘My row with Gordon Brown. And what it taught me about the state of the Union.’ – this was inspired by Hill’s presence at the These Islands’ meeting in Newcastle earlier this year.
• on April 9: ‘Labour’s new leader sets the party against Scottish independence… but toward federalist folly.’

It’s especially interesting to note who’s views Conservative Home draws upon for support. And it is also relevant to note the proposition here that ‘federalism’ equates to the weakening of the UK state.

Hill on ‘devo-max’: at the Newcastle meeting, Brown asked Hill if he “accepted that ‘devo-max’ would have got 80 per cent or more had it been on the ballot paper during the 2014 referendum”. In the blog Hill states: “having ‘devo-max’ as a question to be decided by Scots alone was always nonsense .…”.  I agree and it’s something to bear in mind when promises for change are made by Unionists to bolster their vote in IndyRef2.

On the principle of federalism: “… the danger posed by winning with promises to restructure the UK in a way that will fundamentally weakening (sic) it. Buying off the separatists with such concessions is, in terms a former Chancellor should understand, the constitutional equivalent of selling assets to cover costs. That way lies bankruptcy.“

On Starmer’s federalism: “Notably, and depressingly, he (Starmer) even explicitly says that he wants this to include not only a re-assessment of the relationship between the devolved governments and Westminster, but more powers for the Scottish Parliament.”

On the Lib Dems: ‘This (Starmer’s position) illustrates how under-developed this thinking is: even the likes of Willie Rennie, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and a committed federalist, told a recent pro-UK conference that the Scottish Government has “sufficient powers”.’

As an aside, every time Mr Rennie’s views on this topic appear it’s always worth contrasting them with the words of the former Liberal leader and MP for Orkney and Shetland (1950-83), Jo Grimond. In his 1983 book ‘A Personal Manifesto’ he wrote:

“I do not like the word devolution as it has come to be called. It implies that power rests at Westminster, from which centre some may be graciously devolved. I would rather begin by assuming that power should rest with the people who entrust it to their representatives to discharge the essential tasks of government. Once we accept that the Scots and the Welsh are nations, then we must accord them parliaments which have all the normal powers of government, except for those THAT THEY DELEGATE (my emphasis) to the United Kingdom government or the EEC.”

How things have changed!

On Gordon Brown’s federalism now: “In fact even Gordon Brown (at the Newcastle meeting) was at pains to disclaim the suggestion that he was calling for even more powers for Holyrood.”  Disclaim? I think this just means he was at pains to ‘deny’ he was calling for more powers for Holyrood!

So to close, here is Peter A Bell again to put it plainly:

“Federalism cannot proceed from the British state any more than pea and ham soup can proceed ‘fae a chicken’.”

This Conservative Home blogger would seem to agree!

Acknowledgement: my knowledge of Grimond’s view is due to Andrew Leslie (2013) ‘No place like home rule’ published in Wings over Scotland (https://wingsoverscotland.com/no-place-like-home-rule/ )