It’s endlessly frustrating when constitutional division works to reproduce the status quo. All the more galling when the benefits accrue to such a dubious bunch. Clearly, we need some mechanism to break the vicious cycle.

Source Direct: Is Scottish Home Rule the Answer?


“The Scottish electorate, like the people of Liverpool, have voted against Conservative rule for generations now. There is absolutely no sound argument for democratic deficiencies to be remedied by a government mired in its own corruption scandals, in jurisdictions where it cannot win elections.”

Analysis: Direct Rule for Liverpool should worry Scots


“We now know what the UK is going to look like in the final years before we reach those irreversible climate tipping points and the planet stops caring how fast our economy is growing. With Scottish elections and possibly another independence referendum now looming, it’s time for the various parties to show their support for an alternative future”

Analysis: UK Budget 2021




What unites Thatcher’s man in Scotland Sir Malcolm Rifkind and left-wing, anti-Tory firebrand Labour MSP Neil Findlay? They’re both agreed – it’s time for a federal solution to the Scottish question. In an interview yesterday, Rifkind, who was Scottish Secretary from 1986 to 1990 and was in charge of the notorious introduction of the Poll […]

Federalism is a trap we should not be lured in to




Devolution has been a “disaster” in Scotland, and was Tony Blair’s “biggest mistake”. Boris Johnson has only said what is almost certainly the quiet consensus in the British establishment, but it’s important that the words are now on record. I would wager that Blair thinks the same. You have to see devolution from the the […]

Johnson’s devolution comments are a sign of weakness


There is a constitutional curiosity in the UK Government’s Internal Market Bill which professor Michael Keatings, Centre for Constitutional Change director, has identified, and is worth reflecting on. Until now the UK Government operated a system of powers which was fundamentally different from that of the EU. Some powers are reserved and some are devolved, but […]

Britain’s new unitary state