Constitutional Futures

Constitutional Futures
 
 
We seem to have a fairly settled number of participants now, so can I welcome everybody to this seminar.
 
I'm Professor John Denham. I'm the director of the Center for English Identity and Politics at Southampton University, and I'm hosting today.
Most of you, I'm sure now will be familiar with this, but a couple of points about zoom, there's a Q and a.
Question and answer function on zoom if you want to put a question to the panel then please put your question in there.
You can also upvote or give your support to questions that other people have asked that you'd like to
Here answered, so I'm going to be quite strongly guided by that when I come to pose questions.
There is also a chat function so you can exchange comments amongst yourselves during the seminar.
I'm probably not going to check that so regularly, so if you want a question to be put to the panel.

Please put it under the Q&A.
Carwyn Jones, a member of the Senate former first book Minister for Wales now at Aberystwyth University, is going to open the discussion.
 
Nick Pearce, who's the director of the Institute for Public Policy Research at Bath University, former director of the Institute of Public Policy Research and director of the number 10 Policy Unit when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.
 
And Professor Nicola McKeown, who is professor of territorial politics at Edinburgh University, where she's also Co.
 
Director of the Center for Constitutional Change, Carwyn going to set out his views to make it interesting, I've asked Nick to reprise his role as a Downing St Head of policy.
 
So what response?
 
He would be making to a Prime Minister, not necessarily Gordon Brown, in response to what Carwin is going to propose, and I've asked Nicola to look at Carwin's ideas in the context of the broader academic debate on which is a considerable X.
 
But if I could just briefly set the scene, I was a Junior Labour minister in 1997 in Tony Blair's New Labour government. That was the government that introduced the initial stages of devolution to Wales and Scotland.
 
I wasn't involved in those discussions, but I certainly was given the lines to take as all ministers were, and the first line you always.
 
Took was that nothing in this is going to change the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament.
 
That the powers that would be exercised in the Parliament in Scotland in the Assembly now centered in Wales, were as it were, being lent from Westminster, but they weren't being transferred from Westminster, so everything was going to change, but nothing was going to change, and it's probably that's not a coincidence that in the second.
 
Reading of the Scotland bill.
 
Not a single Labour MP from England participated in any way whatsoever.
 
Nothing was going to change well.
 
20 years late.
 
Rather more has changed than many people expected in those days, and the idea that nothing was going to change seems less likely, so it's probably a good time to revisit that most fundamental question of the original devolution settlement.
 
The question of Westminster sovereignty, and that's what I've asked Carwin too.
 
Open the discussion and talk about today.
 
So over to you, Karen.
 
Thank you very much, John and good afternoon everybody here.
 
Pronouned are Bob and thank you very much for attending this session today.
 
As a still a serving politician, certainly until the end of March in our Parliament, I've always been very much aware of the fact that politicians are very keen to drive the car, but not necessarily that interested in knowing what goes on underneath the bonnet, which is what we're looking at today.
 
And how can the machine of the Constitution.
 
Be made to work more effectively.
 
As in some ways the current UK Constitution can be summed up in three sentences.
 
Now I can reach up above the shelves here and I can bring down for you a textbook and constitutional law.
 
It's not thick, but in reality it's three sentences, the UK Constitution.
 
One, there's a monarch.
 
Whose powers are exercised through ministers of the Crown.
 
Two as a parliament at Westminster.
 
Three that Parliament can pass whatever laws it wishes without any kind of challenge.
 
Lord Hailsham in the 70s described that system as an elective dictatorship.
 
He forgot his views when he got into government and your subsidy.
 
But the only break according to constitutional theory on the Westminster Parliament is an election every five years.
 
That's pretty much it.
 
Is that the kind of system we want in the future?
 
Parliamentary sovereignty or supremacy.
 
The words are used interchangeably is based entirely, and I mean entirely on the views of one man in the 19th century, Professor Albert Venn, Dicey at the Oxford University.
 
He was the first one who's to suggest?
 
The UK Parliament was sovereign, but only in the context of England.
 
There is an open question as to parliamentary or the parliamentary sovereignty actually applies in Scotland.
 
It was raised many years ago in a case called McCormick and Loyal Advocate in.
 
1953
 
It's never properly been settled, because when the UK parliament was.
 
Originally put together in 1707, it was silent as to which constitutional principles should apply with English principles or Scottish principles and Scottish constitutional principles were based on the.
 
Sovereignty of the.
 
People not on the sovereignty of Parliament.
 
So it's all theory.
 
It's a convention that the courts have recognized all in recent years.
 
They began to question whether Parliament is absolutely sovereign, whether that's actually in keeping with democracy, or indeed the rule of law.
 
But there's no actual law that says that Parliament is sovereign.
 
UK Parliament rather is sovereign or supreme, but that's the way we've always.
 
Operated now if we take that to extremes.
 
It means that the UK Parliament can do away with courts, remove any rights, imprison people at random, or even abolish elections.
 
I used was extreme there for those who've been in Westminster who.
 
Are still there?
 
I don't suggest that it's about to happen, but in theory it could happen.
 
There are no constitutional safeguards against any of this.
 
We talk about.
 
Inherent individual rights there aren't any in the UK.
 
We have the Human Rights Act, but that's part of statute law.
 
The UK Parliament could get rid of that when it wants and replace it with absolutely nothing.
 
And also we really have a situation where everything is at the whim of the UK Parliament.
 
There are no constitutional safeguards at all in the way that we would see in other jurisdictions.
 
Now I have to say that if we had this seminar 7.
 
Or eight years ago.
 
We would all have.
 
Been accused of being anoraks and I would have been one of them.
 
I'm glad to see that anoraks have become fashionable over the past seven years, and perhaps the first thing to do is to analyze why that is the case.
 
The UK is under strain, the UK isn't has never faced such an existential crisis really as it faces now we see in Scotland consistent opinion polls showing a clear majority in favour of independence.
 
We see quite a significant growth in the independence movement in Wales along always showed the majority but.
 
Growing from about 10% to 30% of the electorate in not far short of 18 months. And of course we see in Northern Ireland the re thinking in terms of what the relationship with Northern Ireland would be with the Republic.
 
It's not about to rejoin.
 
The Republic is far more complicated than that of something away from Belfast.
 
I know that full well.
 
But this is a challenge that the UK has not faced for 100 years since Ireland. Most of Ireland left and it became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
 
This is also brought into sharper.
 
Focus by the fact that we've left.
 
The European Union.
 
We joined the.
 
EU or common market.
 
It was in 1973 the UK was a unitary state. There was but one government there could be only one.
 
If we look at the words we see in Highlander, the state was a unitary state.
 
But now what we have is a state.
 
That's a kind of.
 
Semi federal pick and mix, but where the UK government as John has already said, maintains a legal supremacy and the ability to legislate whenever it wants and ignore civil convention for example as well.
 
If it, if it wishes to.
 
It is possible for the UK Parliament to abolish the devolved parliaments without any reference to the people of those parliaments.
 
Nations highly unlikely, I know, but nevertheless possible.
 
And we've seen this message of taking back control.
 
Well, that resonates with the SNP and Plaid camera as well.
 
They will argue well.
 
Taking back control is not just for Westminster, it wasn't asterisk after the phrase saying does not apply in Scotland and Wales, and they will argue that the state must apply with Scotland with it's not my argument, but nevertheless it's one that we.
 
Increasingly see in Wales.
 
I think we are in real danger of seeing a UK that no longer exists in a decade unless we start to think about radical change now, we can't allow the debate to my mind to focus around either a the status quo or be independence.
 
And that's why it's important to develop other alternatives so that people can see what they look like and see whether or not they wish to offer them support.
 
The fundamental difficulty now with devolution after 20 years is a demolition.
 
In effect was designed to give powers lend powers.
 
John is right to to the.
 
Counts it was done in a very asymmetrical.
 
Way so when we started in 99 in was then the National Assembly for Wales.
 
We had no primary lawmaking powers, for example where Scotland did in Northern Ireland did.
 
That's changed over time?
 
We now attacks varying lawmaking Parliament but there is that asymmetry.
 
Their justice system devolved in.
 
Wales for example.
 
In Northern Ireland there's extensive devolution in terms of driver and vehicle licensing.
 
Employment law.
 
So there's no, there's no symmetry.
 
There, in terms of the devolution settlements, a bit like having a house, then building different sized extensions around the house without reflecting on what that means for the House as a whole.
 
And for me, the time has come now.
 
To look at.
 
The Constitution as a whole?
 
How does it work across the whole of the UK?
 
How does it?
 
Work for England now how does it work for everybody who lives within the jurisdiction of the UK, rather than thinking if we give this to Scotland, that will work in Scotland, but we won't give up to Wales and that might go.
 
It's it's just jumbled and perhaps now is the time for clarity.
 
I have a particular view on how we might resolve this.
 
It's radical, you know.
 
I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but it's not without precedent either.
 
Elsewhere in the Commonwealth, or indeed elsewhere in the world.
 
I can't see how we can continue without a written constitution.
 
We don't have a constitution. We have a series of conventions that can be ignored and that I don't think is suitable for a 21st century state, especially one that's coming under pressure as the UK is now.
 
If unwritten constitutions were so marvelous, then they would.
 
Be prevalent across the world.
 
They're not.
 
And indeed Commonwealth countries have.
 
Have written constitutions as a rule because they know that gives them certainty.
 
We need a Constitution that guarantees fundamental rights as part of a constitution that cannot be touched by a legislature, and to my mind, gives the courts the power to strike down acts of unconstitutionality at the moment what we have is a UK Parliament that can effectively operate as it wants for five years.
 
Based on support of the minority of the electorate.
 
That to me is pushing the boundaries in terms of saying that we are an open democracy where there is a balance of power.
 
And to me that means that we must recognize that the UK consists of Four Nations coming together for a greater enterprise, and that is the year I made good things about the UK that we need to keep to my mind, which is why I'm not a supporter of independence, but.
 
That needs to be reflected in the Constitution.
 
The first thing for me that needs to be done is that we recognize there are Four Nations, and each of those nations has their own inherent sovereignty.
 
Does that independence? Well, no, it doesn't. Because if we look at the US, each state within the US is sovereign and whatever.
 
There are reserved.
 
Powers that are.
 
Held effectively by the US Congress in Canada, sovereignty is pulled between the provinces and the federal government.
 
These are not.
 
Radical ideas these are ideas that.
 
Are adopted as normal in many many other countries, so it would be a question of there being a Parliament.
 
Each in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and then an agreement that each of those parliaments holds identical powers.
 
So symmetrical, symmetrical, sovereignty if.
 
I can put it that way.
 
But importantly that each nation.
 
Agrees there are some areas where.
 
Sovereignty should be shared for the good of all.
 
And that means creating effectively a federal parliament, which would represent the whole of the UK and will deal with those issues that are specifically within the province and our Parliament.
 
What might they be?
 
They might be defence.
 
Of course they might be borders, immigration control and across the fiscal and monetary union that one of the great strengths.
 
The UK is.
 
That it's not ideal 'cause the Barnett formula is a outdated.
 
There be other views on that of course, and B can be ignored.
 
It will by the Treasury, but nevertheless there's a clear mechanism there where money is distributed to where it's most needed, and that is a big strength in the UK that I believe we need to to preserve.
 
So it would be for each nation to decide how that sovereignty is shared and that shared sovereignty would be expressed through a federal parliament.
 
And if you like a federal government.
 
There doesn't have to be a supreme legislature that sits above all others, as long as you are clear where powers lie, that's exactly what happens in the states.
 
It's exactly what happens in Canada and.
 
To my mind.
 
You can't do that without a written constitution, because otherwise you still keep parliamentary sovereignty and parliamentary supremacy both say.
 
Terms are interchangeable, which does not support equality in terms of the equality between parliaments.
 
This of course.
 
You will, some of you will notice ignores the question of English devolution, and to my mind it's a separate issue.
 
Either we have a system where there's asymmetrical devolution across the whole of the UK, 'cause I don't think people in north and they would argue they want the tax free and more like in Parliament, so it might but some not.
 
My answer would be it would be a matter for the English Parliament to decide how devolution operates within England and how power is dissipated within England itself.
 
So that will be a matter.
 
English Parliament to to decide.
 
And that will be a matter for.
 
A decision further on down the line someone said to me well, what happens then with the Confederal Parliament does not just mean that it's Brazilian.
 
So big that it becomes effectively a second English parliament.
 
I'd say, well, OK, the way you balance that out is to have a a hybrid system of representation.
 
There a mix of what we see in the states between the Senate and the US House of Representatives, where some unelected on population.
 
Basis and some.
 
On a territorial basis, to create that level of greater.
 
Balance was recognizing England sheer size and the fact that you you could not have a situation.
 
Where you know Scotland, Wales and Northern Island did.
 
One thing that would automatically over ruling them at every single time, whether it at governmental level or at legislative level.
 
It would also and I can see the time.
 
It would also be hugely important to have proper intergovernmental machinery in place.
 
Now we have at the moment the Joint Ministerial Council.
 
I can tell you for many years of experience it basically is a.
 
Place of argument.
 
We used to meet once a year in plenary.
 
All Heads of Government and it would be a place where grievances would be.
 
Outlined and sage nods and acknowledgement given to those grievances didn't do anything.
 
There was no mechanism joint decision making, and that's the weakness we've seen with COVID, you know, there's no formal proper decision making process where all governments can going to come a way forward, and that's been a weakness for us.
 
And of course we, although we have a dispute resolution process as part of the GMC structure.
 
Every single dispute is resolved by the UK government, so if you have a dispute with the UK Government, the dispute is resolved by the UK Government and a classic example for me was the billion pounds that was given to Northern Ireland.
 
As part of the deal between Theresa May and the D.
 
UPI am not going to.
 
Argue against that, but.
 
A good third.
 
Of that, money should have been Barnett eyes.
 
It was for health.
 
In addition, we raised the issue as the Scottish Government raised the issue as a dispute with the UK Government as part of the formal dispute resolution process and the Treasury response was we don't accept as a dispute.
 
So we couldn't even start the process because.
 
The UK government.
 
Had a veto over whether there was a dispute at all and then decided to dispute.
 
In any event, even though it was a.
 
Party to that dispute.
 
No, it's all fairness, and that's clearly, and that's something that we need to change in the future.
 
Now I've gone on for longer.
 
I know John I should have done it at the start.
 
I could.
 
I could give you a long lecture on constitutional law.
 
You'll be really might likely relieved that I'm not.
 
Going to do that, but obviously looking forward to other people hearing other peoples views.
 
Thank you.
 
You were very succinct, but you've clearly laid out a radical vision of a different way of approaching the Union.
 
So I think the main points were very, very clear there.
 
Thank you very much.
 
Can I go straight to Nick Pearce for for a response, Nick?
 
Great, thanks very much John and and thank you Carlin for those thoughts.
 
It is indeed a radical set of proposals that Carwin makes.
 
John asked me as he said at the beginning to.
 
Respond rather as if I had the hat on of the head of the number 10 policy unit as I did.
 
Under Gordon Brown and people may recall actually that when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister in 2007, he stated his support for commitment to a written constitution.
 
And two processes of constitutional change.
 
Unfortunately, a financial crisis came along a a global recession and within, of course, a few years labour lost power and those processes of constitutional reform.
 
Change didn't very amount to very much.
 
They didn't go very far.
 
Leave leave much of a legacy and I think one of the issues that raises is at what point do you get the kind of constitutional change of the radical nature that Carmen is talking about happening in countries?
 
Like the UK, and when you're the head of a policy unit, you're not there simply to give.
 
Technocratic advice to prime ministers.
 
There are civil servants.
 
There are constitutional lawyers.
 
There are legal advisers and others with expertise in constitutional law in in fiscal policy, in the relations between levels of government and so on.
 
They of course all provide that advice.
 
But these issues are intensely political and one of the jobs of ahead of a A policy unit is to think about the politics of these questions as much as the.
 
The substance, and when you think about the politics of this, of course, it's immediately apparent that when you go through a radical change of the kind that Carwin is proposing, typically these sorts of changes just happen as a consequence of war.
 
As a consequence of revolution or civil war Carwin.
 
Made reference to the Irish War of Independence.
 
You know the last big constitutional change for the United Kingdom, as was the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, happened as a as a consequence of decades of.
 
Inflict the breakdown of consensus over home rule.
 
First World War, Easter Rising, and so on, precipitating you know those major changes.
 
And when you look at other federal states with written constitutions in particular, they tend to be formed on the basis of revolutionism.
 
As in the case of the US or war, as in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, or in the case of places like Canada and Australia, colonies coming together to form a union from what were previous separate states.
 
So for us, what are the kind of political drivers of such radical change?
 
If we were thinking about the politics of this question, well, as Carwin mentioned, I mean the main driver of discussion about these issues currently in the United Kingdom is Scottish nationalism and the rise and success of Scottish nationalism.
 
And although support for Welsh independence has been rising.
 
The proximate cause for all of these discussions about constitutional conventions and change has been the success of the SNP, and that indeed has given us a certain character.
 
To the proposals that have come forward for refounding the Union, they often are driven by the need to understand Scotland place in the Union, to understand how to keep Scotland in the Union, and that gives a certain kind of character to many of the proposals that follow.
 
So thinking about the the politics.
 
Of the immediate period, then well, of course, the SNP could win a majority in the elections later this year.
 
Seek to hold a referendum and that referendum if it took place could lead to independence.
 
If that were the case, then the kind of reform process that Carmen is talking about would necessarily have to take place.
 
It seems to me.
 
The rest of the United Kingdom would have to go through a process of examination examining how it would be constitutionally reef.
 
Founded if the SNP is able to secure a referendum and there is a narrow victory for Scotland staying in the United Kingdom.
 
Then again, you can imagine processes of constitutional reform following from that, rather as the vow did just before the last independence.
 
Referendum in Scotland in 2014. In the week before the referendum are vowed that there would be further change and then the Commission that followed that referendum.
 
And of course the final process.
 
I suppose politically that might change things is if the Westminster government refuses.
 
A second referendum refuses a majority SNP government in Holy Rood, a second referendum and decides to create some kind of alternative process for reconfiguring the Union and may decide to.
 
To engage upon some kind of more fundamental reform.
 
Not easy for conservative governments, to do considerable reluctance to engage in constitutional reengineering amongst conservatives for all sorts of reasons, philosophical, political history.
 
Michael, but there could be an alternative process that then generated the kind of discussion about the things that carbon has raised, and there it seems to me you've got sort of two choices.
 
One is to do that as an elite process, rather like the royal Commission formed in the late 1960s, reported in 1973, which was a royal.
 
Commission on the Constitution created rather in response to victories in by elections by Opleiding SNP in the 1960s.
 
Uh, and leading to proposals for devolution which as we know then fell in in the in in the late 1970.
 
Or there could be a much more democratic process take place rather than like the kinds of ideas for constitutional conventions that people have been discussing recently.
 
Where you have a much more concerted effort to engage the the peoples of the different nations of the United Kingdom in a constitutional debate.
 
And there we do.
 
Actually have a lot more evidence now from things like citizens.
 
Assemblies that have taken place in places like Canada, but more recently in countries around Europe.
 
There's been one in Scotland recently.
 
It's been one climate in the UK.
 
France is engaging in citizens, assemblies, and perhaps the most notable example, the Citizens Assembly in the Republic of Ireland, which was asked to look at the question of the Constitution and the constitutional prohibition on it.
 
Ocean recommended change that went to a referendum which endorsed the change and then the Irish Parliament legislated for it.
 
So there is.
 
There is good evidence now and good experience of much more democratic methods of approaching these big constitutional questions that we could draw on.
 
And if I were advising a Prime Minister, I would advise precisely that kind of process now.
 
Just quickly, in the time I have left, what issues would you examine and seek?
 
To resolve well, the first thing is the question of whether you want to move from a unitary state with devolution or a hybrid state.
 
To a federation, I think Carwin presentation talked about sovereign states confederating powers. I think that's unlikely myself that we would go from a United Kingdom to four sovereign states choosing to confederat a federation, which is of course what we have in the US and Canada.
 
And so on.
 
Specifies the powers held at different.
 
Levels and codify's those in a constitution, but it's a federation rather than a confederation. And if we were to move to a some kind of a federal system in the United Kingdom at which you had a federal parliament, a federal executive, a Supreme Court, and then you had states which held.
 
Powers, which were codified and written down in a in in a constitution.
 
Uh, if you were to move to that kind of federal arrangement, the United Kingdom with a written constitution, the the big question would be the nationhood of England as John has raised over a number of years in his work as Carwin raised, who would be the units that would be Federated? What would be the States and in the 1973?
 
Royal Commission there was a minority report arguing for English regions to have that role and most proposals that come out of.
 
Debates about the future of the UK from a Scottish perspective.
 
Assume that English regions would be the counterparts to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
 
I personally think that is a mistake.
 
I think the English nation would need to be a Co signatory to a uh, or if not a Co signature story a a constituent part of a federal United Kingdom.
 
And then it would need to work out its arrangements for devolution within England.
 
And of course there's an issue here for Wales too, because although Wales has a Parliament and A and a government, it is still incorporated into the English nation by virtue.
 
Of Henry the eighth legislation 16th century legislation.
 
So it's not a principality as some people contentiously have suggested in recent years, but it needs to be given the the the status of a nation state within a federal arrangement and Scotland as Carlin said.
 
I think this very interesting question about whether the 1707 active Union actually was a founding treaty rather than as some people have sometimes assumed that it's simply the incorporation into the English Parliament of the Scottish.
 
Parliament but in dear F1 the first independence referendum. Certainly as it were established, I think it it it it it.
 
It is certainly in the in the minds of the Scottish people that they had the sovereign right to decide their future.
 
Northern Ireland is more complicated by virtue of the Brexit Protocol, by virtue of the Good Friday Agreement.
 
By virtue of the fact that it that any constitutional reworking for the United Kingdom would need.
 
To take particular cognizance of all of those special political and legal circumstances in in Northern Ireland, which are distinct and different from those in Wales, Scotland and England, and are are enormously politically complicated.
 
And there are international obligations at work there, even though the government in recent months.
 
Sought to abrogate international obligations.
 
We do have now.
 
Treaty obligations and obligations to the people of Northern Ireland, which are which?
 
Make the idea that we can engage in a process of federal reworking of the United Kingdom, which treats Northern Ireland as a simply a constituent part akin to the others.
 
Both implausible, illegal and undemocratic.
 
So where might that lead us if we, if we were thinking that of of the actual areas for change, will just to finish on these?
 
Of course, you could imagine a process of a constitutional convention leading to incremental.
 
Changes to you.
 
Might approach this in a way that lead to certain kinds of changes.
 
So Carla mentioned an elected Senate.
 
Of the nations, you might have a a replacement for the House of Lords which had nominated a members on the basis of England, Wales, Northern Ireland, perhaps of English local.
 
Comments you might have a combination of population and nomination to constitute that Senate.
 
That would be a big issue for discussion and one that would pick up the threads of a lot of recent debate about reforming the House of Lords.
 
You'd have to address this English question, as I say, whether it constitutes a nation and how it relates to its own processes of of devolution.
 
So there is the fiscal question that whether you replace the Barnett formula with a needs formula, if you were in the treasury, you would be precisely seeking to do that and and and.
 
And of course, that raises very difficult political questions in Scotland, where the Barnett formula has bit seemed to be sacrosanct.
 
But nonetheless, if I were advising a Prime Minister on these questions, I would be looking to move.
 
Over time, slowly and an incremental fashion towards a new needs based formula for the United Kingdom.
 
You've got the question of dispute resolution and and the question then about whether if you took those sorts of steps.
 
It were possible to codify them into something which then formed a written constitution for a new federal United Kingdom.
 
Those steps themselves might be taken along a path towards something which, as you got to it, was codified in a final settlement.
 
So politically there are different ways of getting to that point.
 
Nonetheless, the same sorts of questions need to be addressed, but.
 
As I say, as I said at the beginning, this is not a technocratic exercise.
 
It's a deeply political one that goes to the heart of who we are as a people.
 
Thank you.
 
Yeah, thank you very much, indeed a bit more than just saying that would be a brave move Prime Minister so a lot a lot of the key issues there.
 
Can we go now please to Nicola Nicola?
 
Yep, thanks.
 
Thank you very much for the invitations come along.
 
I'm deeply honored to be part of this panel and I agree with much of what has been said so far, particularly in relation to the diagnosis of the.
 
Problem in terms of the state of play.
 
I share carbon view and I think to some extent coming from Nick as well of the fragile state of the UK Territorial Constitution all is not well at the moment and I don't think all of that is about Brexit and some of the flaws.
 
Certainly predate Brexit.
 
It from the very big.
 
Meaning there was a focus both from the government of the day and also from those who were advocating for devolution.
 
A focus on the powers to be devolved on the self government aspect on the self through without really thinking through properly the mechanisms that might support coordination and communication and perhaps.
 
Even Co decision between the different governments that were being established by devolution, but I think there's also been a cultural issue.
 
Clearly, in Westminster and Whitehall where devolution has been conceived as being something that happened in Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland rather than something that happened to the UK and to the UK as a whole.
 
So there's been a reluctance to.
 
And reform the way that the UK Government does its business, the UK Parliament even does its business as the centre of a devolved decentralized Union state.
 
That being said.
 
There is no doubt that Brexit has exposed the weaknesses that were already there and exacerbated them.
 
It's made it.
 
Clear how the decisions taken by the UK Government affect the competences and the responsibilities of the devolved institutions.
 
And although.
 
Some forums were created like the Joint Ministerial Committee for.
 
EU negotiations that was a a body that was created after the Brexit referendum.
 
In order to facilitate the kind of cooperation in order to, according to its remit, to try to reach a common UK approach to Brexit.
 
That was the initial intention in practice.
 
It turned out that.
 
The devolved governments had very little influence over the Brexit process, and there was clearly a difference in view, but.
 
Between the devolved institutions on the one hand, the UK Government, on the other about the kind of role that they ought to have in shaping issues like Brexit, negotiations like trade deals, and so on, and the result, a lot of all of that has been that there are now exceptionally low levels.
 
Of trust.
 
Between the UK Government and the devolved institutions, and that's not just about Scotland and not just about the SNP.
 
I think that the relationships have deteriorated quite significantly, and perhaps that's epitomized by the ease with which the SEAL convention has been set aside by the UK.
 
Parliament, the SEAL Convention being of course the convention that the UK Parliament, although it is sovereign and remains sovereign, will voluntarily constrain its sovereignty by not.
 
Uhm, legislating on devolved matters without the consent of the devolved institutions.
 
Now that was set aside in the case of Scotland over the EU Withdrawal Act, it was set aside in the case of all three legislatures.
 
In the case of the Withdrawal Agreement Act, and most significantly.
 
Of all, it was set aside over the Internal Market Act that was passed in December.
 
Now the reason why I say that one is the most significant of.
 
All is because the central purpose of the internal my architect has been to change the way that devolution operates to dominion, and with the effect of diminishing the authority of the devolved institutions.
 
So what is to be done while Carbon talked about a written constitution or a codified constitution?
 
And to be honest, I've always been a little bit ambivalent about that.
 
My instinctive reaction is to say, well, it depends on what's in it.
 
If it was a written constitution that that quantified.
 
And enshrined parliamentary sovereignty.
 
It's not really going to take us very far.
 
I mean clearly there are disadvantages in not having the kind of constitutional safeguards that that carbon was talking about in a codified constitution.
 
But at the same time I think there are certain strengths in having.
 
The flexibility that the UK constitutional arrangements have demonstrated to adapt to circumstances as they change to introduce constitutional changes as and when necessary.
 
So I'm not convinced that the problem is the result of an unwritten constitution.
 
I think the problem is a result of a lack.
 
Of political will or a lack of shared understanding about what the UK is and how its constituent territories should relate to each other.
 
Carbon also talked about having a more symmetrical system.
 
And again, I'm I'm not convinced that asymmetry is the main source of the problem.
 
That asymmetry can allow a flexible response to different sets of demands.
 
I appreciate that the hotchpotch is problematic to some extent, but I don't.
 
See that we would be likely to have a lasting settlement if we try to design A1 size fits all type of constitutional arrangements.
 
And indeed, I think one of the strengths of the devolution arrangements that we have had have been their adaptability.
 
To quote Ron Davies, devolution really has been a process and not an event and that has helped.
 
Certainly in Wales it's helped in Scotland with each revision to the devolution settlements even if each time that that happens the architects of the new settlement often think.
 
Of it sincerely, as the last one in the lasting settlement and built to last, I think was the phrase that that did Cameron used.
 
In the last range of settlements, but it's OK, I think for the constitutional arrangements to be flexible and to adapt and to be a living, breathing thing that shape, that that change in light of circumstances.
 
In light of experience, and so I think that's that's OK.
 
And of course, now asymmetry is a problem.
 
Is in the issue of of England?
 
And what about England and?
 
Perhaps in terms of the arrangements within England, maybe they are a separate issue, but there is clearly a growing sense of.
 
Dissatisfaction at the way that England is governed in all of these arrangements.
 
My colleagues in Cardiff and in Edinburgh have over the years been conducting in the future of England survey, which has identified a growing sense of unease.
 
A growing sense of of grievance, a growing sense of English identity.
 
And that, I think does need to be addressed in some way.
 
And I do think that the failure to address the governing of England as England is a barrier to creating the kind of Co governance model that carbon and his colleagues in the Welsh Government have long since advocated.
 
My final set of comments is around the issue of consent.
 
Now there probably are constitutional options that could achieve the consent from all parts of the United Kingdom, including Scotland, but I do not see how that would happen before a new independence.
 
Referendum now that doesn't mean that I think that independence is inevitable.
 
I am not advocating it.
 
I'm not opposing it, but it's clear that there is now sustained support for independence.
 
There has been in every opinion.
 
Conducted by a wide range of pollsters since last June, I think it is.
 
And you can't keep a territory happily inside of the UK and secure a happy constitutional outcome without the consent of all of those territories.
 
And I do think that that has to be tested again before we're likely to have a revised constitutional.
 
Arrangement that will be something that sustains, at least for a little while.
 
Any federal system?
 
Is about balancing unity and diversity even any federal type system from Federation Federation or something in between?
 
But all of them rely on a commitment to living together within the same state, and that isn't evident within Scotland just now.
 
And it wouldn't be evident this side of a referendum.
 
Now, of course, there's the order of events that you might think about the sequencing of events that Nick spoke about swear at the end of his contribution, and it's possible entirely possible that you could have an alternative offer as part of a constitutional referendum in Scotland.
 
It would certainly help to make the issue less.
 
Polarizing, but I I just don't see how ignoring the fact that there is majority support for independence in Scotland.
 
It will help you to reach a federal type of arrangement that will secure the consent that Scotland, but it would depend on it to be workable.
 
Thank you.
 
Thank you very much.
 
Indeed, Nicholas again some really perceptive observations there.
 
As I said.
 
At the beginning I'm I'm generally going to manage the questions myself rather than bring people in because it's it's simply simpler with the technology.
 
However, we do have Rachel Reeves who's the shadow minister.
 
For the Cabinet Office who's joined the panel today, so I'm hoping I'm going to be able to bring Rachel in now as as a as a panelist if the if I can get this to work properly.
 
And that Rachel is going to be able to join us.
 
I seem to have brought Ray Nixon in by mistake.
 
Apologies Ray, but we've got Rachel there.
 
Hi, Rachel.
 
You obviously have.
 
A role in relation to Labour's proposed Constitutional Commission. It would be interesting to hear any reflections you've got on the the contributions you've heard so far.
 
Yes and thanks very much John for inviting me along that today.
 
It's been really interesting and thought provoking so thank you to Caroline and and and Nick and Nicola as well for for their contributions and John you often say to me that labor doesn't talk enough about the.
 
Achievements from our our time in office, including on these constitutional issues.
 
Devolution the Good Friday Agreement etc and I think you're right on that.
 
We do also need to to face up to the challenges that we face in the.
 
Deficiencies in the model that we've got.
 
Now and and as as you'll as you'll now remember, one of the key's pledges in the leadership campaign was to have a a constitutional convention as quite hard from opposition as all of you have been in in in government will will know. But Kim had a really good speech, I think back in December.
 
I'm at Glasgow University, setting out what he wants that that that Commission and convention to look like.
 
And we we.
 
There'll be some announcements about that in in the coming weeks.
 
And just to sort of make this, this offer to all of you who who are interested in these areas and and and and and and can contribute.
 
We really want that to be consultative and to involve all of the experts that are here today, but also very much to go out to the public with either citizens, assemblies or or forums etc.
 
To to bring people in and not just on the sort of the the sort of dry issues 'cause this I.
 
I think it was Caroline who said at the at the beginning that the sort of anoraks and, but to ask the question more more widely about what sort of country and society do we want to rebuild from the virus?
 
What lessons?
 
Have we learned, and certainly within England, and I think that you know it's it's easy to talk about constitutional reform and and just talk about Scotland and Wales.
 
And and obviously we need settlements that work for all of our nations, but England in a right mess as well.
 
And and I think.
 
Andy Burnham really encapsulated that during that many periods last year when the government in Westminster were imposing things.
 
On parts of the country that also felt very disconnected from what's going on in in Western style, I don't think it's a bad thing to.
 
Actually draw those.
 
Parallels between Wales, Scotland and the regions of England, who I think actually have a lot of grievances in in common, and there's a wider issue in England.
 
As well, and and John knows this threat very much about where power lies so certainly on the constitutional content.
 
Action and we've got some more work to do, but we very much want to to to bring all of you into that and we'll be in touch.
 
There's only in in due course on that, and also thought about how we can make it as wide and broad as possible so that it it isn't just a conversation occurring between the the anoraks.
 
But it's a it's a broader one and as well just just a couple of questions and from from me.
 
And well, one of the things I've been sort of ponder.
 
Thing is, how do we tell a story about our United Kingdom about our shared values about what we have in in common, that that that means it makes sense to be part?
 
Of of of a of A.
 
Of a wider union.
 
And you know, quite quite often it's it's easy for for for.
 
For politicians and policymakers to talk about the practical benefits of the.
 
Union around currency around shared institutions.
 
Uh etc and those are important points because you know they they really matter to people everyday lives.
 
But there's also this issue about what binds us together as as different nations, but part of 1 union.
 
And how can we better tell that story and and how important is that for winning those arguments?
 
Particularly in Scotland, but also in in in Wales as as well, and I guess the other question that I I'd like to put to the the panel.
 
Is you know what can we learn from Labour's last period in office that what works and what doesn't work, and you know there was a, uh, a drive, and many of you will remember this from your experience in government to to have greater devolution with England with the the the the the Northeast Assembly but it didn't win.
 
Public backing and when we created mayors, I think a monkey got elected in Hartlepool, the first time people didn't take it seriously, just thought it was, you know, a bit of a joke and and and additional layers of government and bureaucracy so.
 
What work, but also what didn't work and what lessons can we learn from that if we wanted to do radical things under a next Labour government?
 
Thanks so much John, I really appreciate you you're bringing me in and being able to be part of today's session.
 
Thank you very much, Rachel, and I'll certainly make sure we cover both of those questions in the Q&A session we have now.
 
We're getting quite a lot of questions coming in, but please do add more and then I'll try and group them together to put them collectively on your behalf.
 
But can we just start with a quick round of the panel to answer?
 
Rachel first question because?
 
There has sort of been an underlying assumption that the Union is worth having.
 
It is quite interesting just to get from Carwin and others what the core argument is about why you know if you take the view that the Union was formed as a time that we were developing an empire and then it was quite strong after the Second World War, but things have changed that you shouldn't take it for granted.
 
So Carwin with you first.
 
What is the?
 
The key.
 
Killing argument in favor of the union.
 
A sense of common endeavour, I think.
 
One of the problems we have now with British identity is that there are too many people who have tried to portray that as meaning you know, flag waving.
 
Uhm, monocultural is not.
 
I grew up.
 
As a Welsh.
 
 
 
Very much to.
 
Me because Britishness was just it was Englishness with still some.
 
And the whole study, of course, but for.
 
A lot of young people, particularly Wales now.
 
They don't feel particularly British.
 
They don't see what what that gives them as an identity that that's not a hostile to the idea, but they're lukewarm and British identity has never been.
 
We kept in Wales than it is now.
 
There are so many many people.
 
Who feel it, of course, but.
 
What you tend to find politically is that.
 
The strong, the more, the more British people feel, the more likely they are the more conservative.
 
So if somebody had a Union Jack outside the house in Wales, you would.
 
Automatically assume that they were considering filter and that's.
 
Bad news, because that that's not an inclusive view of traditions, I think.
 
Part of the problem is that.
 
Especially the end of the.
 
70s The British state provided so much more for people. One of the reasons why devolution failed in Wales in 79 quite strongly in the referendum was that many people were employed with the British state. The British Steel Corporation, the NCP, the British state was seen as as benevolent, redistribute.
 
If interventionist in a positive way, all that was lost in the 80s and it was lost in the 90s, so the the loyalty to the to the state.
 
As a provider of services has disappeared or diminished as a result of that so that we do have to to make the case for the Union if there aren't there.
 
The British Union.
 
It's like the European Union.
 
In some ways, not in every.
 
Way it's much, much stronger, much closer, much more greater cultural.
 
But it is at the end of.
 
The day union a union.
 
Of nations and the case always has to be made for it to exist.
 
And that's what today is about.
 
To my mind, it's not a question of things that they stay as they are, or there must be independence.
 
And I take Nicholas view, I don't know the answer frankly, as to where this is too late.
 
It's given Scotland situation.
 
But what we've never done.
 
I know Gordon, tried, you know he he he tried to do this and it's his little latter years Prime Minister is is define what, what, what Britishness means.
 
So your my view, you start off by saying it's a common endeavour.
 
It's a union that delivers where help is needed the most.
 
That's a start.
 
You can build on that.
 
OK Nick nick.
 
Yeah, I mean it's a very important question because I'm you know, as as you intimated on the things that held the UK together empire and then the post war world of nationalized industries and particularly class Solidarity's. That meant that the idea that you had a, uh, a national identity.
 
It was distinct from Britain, was much less sort of prevalent.
 
Those things have gone, and I think one of the problems for the Labour Party in particular is that it has assumed that class solidarity.
 
Uh, can still pertain across the United.
 
Kingdom come even in post industrial conditions and has also assumed that issues of national belonging and national identity and demands for power and sovereignty can be subsumed behind where you position yourself on a left right spectrum on the economy, and that essentially was the kind of.
 
Korbinite answer to this that these things go away if you've got a radical enough economic agenda to appeal to people.
 
Interests and and and and clearly that that doesn't work.
 
I suppose my answer to rachels question would be that I think you do have to have questions of power at the heart of your response that people aren't simply asking to for reasons to stay in a union.
 
They're asking to express and hold power and so.
 
You have to think about how the Union embodies a democracy and a democracy of constituent parts.
 
That's one question.
 
The second is also that it has to assume that you know you can be Welsh and a member of the Union, rather than saying you're British.
 
Or you can be English and a member of the Union rather than saying the primary identity you have is British, and I think that was something that we saw in Scotland, certainly before 2014 was a sense amongst unionists that that the argument wasn't, you know, how do you defend Britain? The argument was why should it be a patriotic Scottish thing?
 
To be within the Union still.
 
And his stories like calling Kid and others have have written very importantly on there being a kind of a A Unionist.
 
Nationalism in Scotland in its history, so I think.
 
For what one?
 
Of our challenges is then to think about how we can make it make the Union appeal to the English to the Welsh, to the.
 
Scottish and.
 
In a different way in Northern Ireland.
 
And and to think about common endeavor in that context, and I I rather agree with carving that you know, probably.
 
I mean, I, I this is a difficult question, but probably the way that we will think about a Union will of course be because it makes sense for us not to have internal borders to have, uh, to a shared currency.
 
All the things that you know, uh, pooling of resources, pensions.
 
And so on, but also that there are things in the world that we want to achieve together.
 
You know, climate change development, reducing poverty.
 
There are things that we that express a sense of aspiration for a better world.
 
It isn't going back to a kind of class identity, but is saying that our common endeavour on these on these big challenges in the.
 
World is best done together, so something of that kind would be my answer, but it's incredibly difficult, and it's very difficult.
 
When you've got the indicative role played by political parties, labour and the Conservatives, and the Liberals, liberals were national parties across the United multinational United Kingdom.
 
And when that no longer pertains in the same way, and you've got parties that.
 
Don't support that integrative function.
 
Again, it's very difficult to mobilise sentiments into politics in those circumstances.
 
Thank you nick.
 
And I'm glad you mentioned the case for the Union in England there because one of the things I often find in these discussions is that a lot of people in Wales and Scotland assume that the Union works for England, and that somehow the problem of the Union is whether it works for the other parts of the Union, whereas there's fairly substantial polling evidence, not that there's a big movement.
 
For independence in England, because it it there isn't.
 
But quite a low level of deep commitment to the Union and a A willingness.
 
And we saw this in all the Brexit polling, but it's been there for 10 years or no or more to see the Union break up.
 
If England has its own interest, so the case certainly has to be made in England as well as elsewhere Nicola, rather than bring you on, then on this one.
 
If I can come looking down the question.
 
Quite a lot has been raised about the conservative role in this debate.
 
Whether this requires the Conservatives, if you like to come onto the same territory of having a constitutional debate, which is clearly not where Boris Johnson is at the moment, so would be very interesting to have your views on whether the the more muscular unionism that we're seeing.
 
From Boris Johnson has any chance of succeeding.
 
However, you measure that presumably by the SNP losing in independence, or that the SNP and the Greens are losing an independence referendum, or whether the Conservatives may inevitably not have to come back into this debate about a different future for the Union.
 
Do you have thoughts on that?
 
Sure, uhm.
 
Well, I'm I'm I'm not entirely sure to whom the muscular unionism is directed.
 
I mean Prime Minister is clearly speaking to different audiences and different constituencies.
 
And but thinking about it from a Scottish perspective, well, it doesn't appear to be working.
 
And there's not.
 
A sign of a conservative resurgence on on the back of that, and I think one of the I suppose one of the the issues with the way that the debate around independence has developed is that it's become quite polarized between independence or this.
 
Union and it's crowded out the space in between and there is a risk.
 
I think that.
 
There's sort of more.
 
What you call muscular unionism, if it is seen to undermine the authority of the devolved institutions, then risks alienating that group that we might think of as in the middle for whom self government was an important achievement.
 
But they might be.
 
I am not quite convinced or or not have the same strength of feeling our commitment to independence as an outcome, but and so I think there are.
 
There are particular risks in that kind of of territorial strategy, but but I agree it does appear to be.
 
The one that's there.
 
And of course there are opportunities for other parties to step up and step in, and the Constitutional Commission appears to be one possible Ave to that.
 
But I think it's it's.
 
I suppose I've written a lot of Labour politicians here and I I suppose I would want to encourage.
 
Recognition that the constant.
 
Issue is important and it is linked to all of those other issues.
 
The social and economic issues that certainly labour in Scotland gives the impression of really wanting to talk about instead of of the Constitution.
 
They are now bound up quite closely together.
 
Thank you a number of people Roy Perry amongst others on the question and answer had put in a sense of sort of question that Nick put in his opening thing which was that normally you get.
 
There's a rewriting of a constitution after you've been defeated in a war you've had a revolution, or you've become independent or or you're a a sort of colonial state settling down.
 
On the other hand, that analysis can lead us to a position where it feels like the chance of the United Kingdom finding a new basis depends entirely on whether the people who's got them vote for independence or not in a process in which nobody else is involved.
 
So a question to come back to to Nick and then to Carwin.
 
Is is there?
 
We've heard from the labor.
 
Points of view and the Constitutional Convention.
 
But is there more that can be done if you like to get control of the political agenda so the debate does become a Union wide agenda without and there may have to be a Scottish referendum, but without it being determined by the outcome of a Scottish referendum, Nick.
 
Yeah, I think I I I'm I think that's a really important point and it relates to one that I think Martin Kettle has asked in the chat.
 
Which is, you know what happens in all of these discussions.
 
Without the Conservative Party, and you know, in in our history because the Conservative Party has been such a a successful political party.
 
Uhm, you know its attitude to questions of constitutional change has been profoundly important. It was before the First World War in respect of Ireland and and it, it was in the 1970s and so on.
 
So so one question about these issues I suppose is you know how does liberal left opinion and, broadly speaking, progressive opinion, start to kind of engage with conservative views, whether they're in the Conservative Party.
 
The OR in or small city conservative, and you know.
 
And there will be ministers in this current government who will be thinking about what to do if the SNP wins a majority in in and and and calls for another referendum.
 
And there'll be voices like those of George Osborne in the Evening Standard the other day, saying Boris Johnson just has to say no.
 
No second referendum.
 
That's the end of it.
 
Otherwise you know the risks are two.
 
Right there will be others who say no, we need to make the case for the Union much more forcefully and there will be others who say actually, it doesn't matter if the Union collapses that actually, you know we we can be sanguine about that prospect and one of the questions I think for for politicians.
 
And others engaging on these issues is how do they begin to understand, interpret, and work with those different forms of concern.
 
Relative views and what do they mean for reform and in in truth?
 
I suspect that the you know any Conservative government and party will be relatively minimalist about these things.
 
It will not want radical constitutional change.
 
They've it's never favored written constitutions.
 
It's never favored settlements that.
 
Undermine the existing distribution of power and and and therefore you know the the sort of the idea that there's a sort of political mobilization of a conversation in England and other parts of the Union outside.
 
Scotland, it has to run through an engagement with that conservative opinion, but in in ways that at the moment look you know, like they can be very hard to achieve.
 
The alternative is you get the election of a of a Labour government that just decides it's going to do these.
 
Things, but you know. Again, that's we store in 1997 that it could produce lots of radical change, but does it?
 
Produce a process where you, the nation, or multi nations of the UK can move forward together.
 
Thank you Carwyn.
 
How would you set the agenda?
 
Yeah, thanks John.
 
Let's hope again.
 
I think.
 
Well first of all.
 
I would.
 
I wouldn't say that that there is a blanket view in the Conservative Party against change.
 
Well, what I've surprised me.
 
Was I've spoken to some were very strong Brexiteers people who I would have, you know, immediately thought of as being in a quite an English nationalist camp in terms of their thinking who are actually very open to the idea of constitutional change.
 
And I I'd misread them for IBM melamet that, and I've been quite surprise.
 
Things that those were regarded as you know, real old style nationalists from the British sense are actually open to this.
 
I think it varies, I mean Wales for example, which conservative parties is going strong, anti devolution element in it because they can't win elections so we can't win an election to run to run the government.
 
Let's just get rid of the institution.
 
There's that element of it, but I think.
 
There are openings within the Conservative Party.
 
I think the Conservative Party is.
 
Monolithic in terms of.
 
It's you.
 
And in terms.
 
Of the stakes here.
 
Well, yes, it it was because it was because of the actions of conservatives and liberal unionists that Ireland went from being a country that would have been content.
 
With devolution to a country that ended up in a war both against the British state and in a civil war, and subsequently becoming a Republic if home.
 
Rule had been delivered to Ireland propping up before the beginning.
 
The First World War.
 
It's quite possible items will.
 
Be part of.
 
The UK.
 
No, the question for us saying is what happens with Scotland.
 
Can't keep on saying to people when I keep on voting for a party and it's in favor of a referendum you can't have.
 
It that that's a recipe for trouble.
 
You know he wants to see that happen, but it, but that's a recipe for conflict at the end of the day, people just I'm just going to go away and say, alright then, that that's not going to happen, and you then have voices who are far more hardline who come forward and say, well, if they're not going to give us a referendum.
 
Perhaps we need to fight for.
 
In Northern Ireland it gives us an example of where that can happen, although of course the history is is different, so it's not so many questions saying you can't have it tough like.
 
You can't have, for example, a Conservative party saying we were elected in 2015, and a manifesto promised to have a Brexit referendum.
 
And that promise was delivered and then say to an SNP government elected on a promise of having a referendum in Scotland.
 
No, you can't have.
 
That it's just double standards, and that's not going to work in.
 
In the longer term.
 
And this one small point at the end, and Nick raised very properly the issue of.
 
You know what his identity looked like?
 
You know, I.
 
I've never gone abroad and said to people when I'm asked my nationality.
 
I'm British because he'd meet with English and.
 
It takes some.
 
Explaining right when you say Wales, quite often you get blank stares, blank looks, but the euros in 2016 were marvelous in that regard. Because I now live in a country called Wales comma Gareth Bale, which is far more far easier.
 
To explain to, but that's my primary attempt.
 
Yeah, that's not a conflict, Madam.
 
Doesn't mean I'm hostile the Britishness.
 
But my wife.
 
And you know, I know her view, and she'd she'd be happy.
 
With me saying which she'll never feel British.
 
Whatever, she's a.
 
Belfast Catholic and she would never ever ever few bridge in any way, shape or form.
 
And you know when you're told, as a child, never to go into areas where the Union Jacks flying 'cause.
 
They're dangerous.
 
Or that kind of has an effect on you.
 
And the one thing that's left in my family, annoyingly for me, is.
 
That the other three members of this family have Irish passports.
 
Boy, I'm trying with Irish government but.
 
It never quite.
 
Worked out, but.
 
It shows that that if we're talking about, uh, creating a new British identity in some ways, it has to be a functional identity practical, functional identity rather than emotional one, because those days are gone.
 
Let's pick up from there, so giving us an Irish passport now has much more practical significance than it did.
 
It did 4 weeks ago.
 
What about Northern Ireland?
 
In this discussion?
 
Quite a few people have raised in the questions that.
 
You know you can have a discussion.
 
You talk about.
 
Northern Ireland is one of the four parts of the United Kingdom, but as as Nick said earlier on, it's very different circumstances.
 
Very different situation and political history so.
 
How do we engage Northern Ireland in this discussion about the future of the Union?
 
Can I could I go to Nicola first on on that for some thoughts then then Nick and Carwin?
 
Yeah, I think I mean, it's been really interesting over the last year.
 
In particular where this discourse of the Four Nations has emerged, and even Boris Johnson seemed very comfortable talking about the Four Nations and the idea of.
 
And describing Northern Ireland as a nation is is obviously quite problematic because it's a territory where nationhood is disputed and we're different feelings of national identity is clearly clearly in evidence.
 
I think it's very difficult.
 
I think Northern Ireland is engaged in its own conversation.
 
It doesn't have an easy outcome.
 
There is a constitutional process, unlike in the case of Scotland.
 
And the the Good Friday Agreement.
 
Well first agreement, whichever terminology you want to use and and the legislation that that flowed from it does provide for a border poll all be it that the process that would trigger that is very ambiguous.
 
Still, there is at least a recognition of the prospect.
 
Of reunification, but that in itself wouldn't be an end because that would create a different set of issues and a different set of of.
 
Challenges in accommodating minorities in whichever state structure.
 
So I don't think you involve Northern Ireland without seeing it in an All island in a in a these islands perspective, because I think the place in the role of Ireland and the sense of attachment that many in within Northern Ireland have to Ireland.
 
It has to also be.
 
Part of that story, and maybe that is one way around this, is to not.
 
Think this just as a British exercise in a way of saving the Union or saving Britain, but to think about how the territories of these islands it will continue to work together, whichever their constitutional future, because in the context of.
 
Dealing with a global pandemic or in the context of dealing with big issues of climate change, well, it doesn't really matter what the constitutional.
 
Outcome is or what the constitutional framework is.
 
The territories and the governments that lead them will still have to coordinate and communicate and work together in some shape or form.
 
So I think maybe broadening the perspective is one way to bring Northern Ireland into it in a way that isn't going to alienate a substantial section of the population.
 
Thank you.
 
Yeah, it's a.
 
It is a very important but difficult question and for the reasons you've given, John and Nicola has just described.
 
Uh, I mean obviously in this sense the story of the recent history of Northern Ireland is one of creative flexibility about political evolution and change.
 
Uhm secured.
 
Obviously the good fight in Belfast Agreement, but subsequently.
 
Uh, which took place within the context of the European Union and Brexit's obviously changed that. You know, we now have an international withdrawal agreement which has the Northern Ireland Protocol, so we have that.
 
Legal document we have the, the, the, the Good fire agreement itself, and as Nicola said, provisioning that for a border poll or on reunification, which of course means that you know you have a certain part of your population which has a sort of.
 
The right to secede from any federal union in its own political settle.
 
So I suppose that you know just being very political about this.
 
You know the key thing is not to disturb those arrangements in ways that threaten peace that that can't gain consent that that will aggregate our obligations internationally to the Republic of Ireland and the European Union and and that.
 
That would mean, I think.
 
That some of the kinds of proposals we've been discussing for a a more of a federal or quasi federal United Kingdom.
 
I have to proceed incredibly carefully when it comes to anything that disturbs the settlement in Northern Ireland, but you can imagine, for example.
 
Pull that.
 
If we had a Senate a rather than a House of Lords that it would be possible to find the place for Northern Ireland within that Senate, just as it was that Northern Ireland returned MPs to the European Parliament and returns MPs to the Westminster Parliament.
 
You know the the the the fiscal settlement is possible to terraform, embracing not Northern Ireland.
 
Dispute resolution, even codification of rights and so on.
 
Those things are, I think, amenable to change is just that, in the context of Northern Ireland, they have to be done so against a set of obligations and political realities, which are very, very different for those for the rest of the United Kingdom.
 
Thank you, thanks very much, sorry come in.
 
Did you want to?
 
Add anything on this or.
 
I I agree with what Nico said only there.
 
OK fine.
 
Is inevitably complicated, but the biggest shock.
 
Of course in Northern Ireland would be Scottish independence.
 
But that takes away a chunk of.
 
Unionist identity because so much of it is linked with Scotland rather than with inland in terms of its unionism, and that that you know what effect that.
 
Would have is difficult to.
 
To predict.
 
OK, I'd like to ask Nick in particular now about the Central Union state and it's come up in this conversation in a in in Cohen's description of dealing with the Treasury. But there are an awful lot of questions in the Q&A about English devolution, and of course, it is essentially the Whitehall state.
 
That is most resistant to English devolution and what we've seen over the last 20 years at best, is what some people called Elite Cooption where you get local council leaders and businesses and others to deliver Whitehall priorities so.
 
The question I think.
 
I wanted to raise here is.
 
Is the reform of the Union state and challenging its centralized power?
 
Is it in an integral part of this constitutional process, or is it something that's going to have to be dealt with differently if we want to see devolution in England?
 
I mean, if you took the view for example, that devolution in England would be a good thing, even if it wasn't as.
 
Part of the formation of an English national system of governance and all the rest of it or or so is it is it is this a an internal process to be dealt with in England with the Union state or do we have to make reform of the Union state part of this constitutional process?
 
Sorry, John said to me.
 
Yeah, yes, if you don't mind.
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
So I think I'm.
 
Yeah, yeah, that's all come up.
 
So I think there will be some contradictory processes here.
 
I mean, I'd be I would not be surprised that the COVID pandemic pandemic lead to more calls for centralization, despite all the problems we've had in central government.
 
And actually the the the really innovative response we've had from local authorities and.
 
And of course, as Rachel was mentioning the kind of demands for greater power and responsibility and respect from Whitehall that Andy Burnham and others have been arguing.
 
But I do think, and one of the lessons.
 
From the the.
 
The Scottish referendum on independence in 2014 was this very difficult to as it were, insulate.
 
England, from the debates that take place in Scotland, so of course it was immediately after Scotland voted to stay in the Union that David Cameron then announced English votes for English laws, and that process then took.
 
Placed and so and and.
 
I certainly think that if if we are to address this question of England place in the Union, and if that if the answer that we've had from royal commissions and from many proponents in recent years of these kinds of reforms that English regions should be the equivalent.
 
I think some people in the questions have raised this too.
 
Should be the equivalent unit as it were in a federation with Wales, Scotland and all.
 
And that if you're going to contest and challenge that and have a different answer about England, then you know you've got to address this question of its powers and the Union state and how it relates to.
 
New England place in the Union and then devolution with England within England itself.
 
Obviously one of the big lessons of the labor period in office was that the kind of pressures for change that led to devolution to Wales and Scotland.
 
Uh that preceded the election of the Blair government.
 
The Constitutional Convention in Scotland and soul.
 
On those kinds of processes had not taken place in England in the same way, and the pressure for local devolution that had been mobilized in civil society with politicians wasn't there.
 
It's an open question whether it is now, and I think there are signs that it is, and the kind of messy asymmetric devolution we've got at the moment with English metro mayors and others.
 
May lead in turn in time to sort of force itself into this conversation in ways that weren't perhaps.
 
True, in the post 1997 period. But I do think that you know, and I I know you shared this view.
 
John, I do think that you know a lesson is that the English regions did not have any enduring status for the English people that their identity history forms of political attachment were insufficient and it was very easy for the incoming Conservative government to abolish Rdas.
 
And to put that, regional level of government to one side so it can't be that answer in my view.
 
Calvin in your model?
 
Uhm, I mean you described your problems with the Treasury.
 
But in your model for the foreseeable future.
 
It will be.
 
English resources and primarily southeast England and eastern England and London.
 
Resources that provide the financial underpinning for the Union and my view is England has to accept that if you want to continue.
 
A union for the foreseeable future.
 
But how do you restructure the financial parts of the state in the model of your equivalent national parliaments and sovereign states that you put forward?
 
Given that financial asymmetry?
 
Well, you have to make the process subject.
 
To rules and there are no rules at the moment.
 
The Treasury can do whatever it wants.
 
Uh, and it's obscure.
 
It's not clear how they take the decisions.
 
They can ignore the Barnett formula when they want in the same way as the UK government ignores the civil Convention if it's expedient to do so.
 
That that's part of the problem.
 
How would you?
 
How would you do it?
 
We look at other countries.
 
Look at Germany for example.
 
Where you've got a physical evolution, we've got that already, but there's also an understanding that there is a set of rules in place that governs how the Treasury takes decisions around the lawless situation that we have at the.
 
Moment so if.
 
You have a constitutional framework that determines the decision making process for how many?
 
Is to be distributed when you don't.
 
You don't put a formula in the constitution, but at least you've got a a set of rules then that people can understand in terms of how money is destroyed and how it goes.
 
Now you know one.
 
Of the issues, you're quite right, Johnny people say well.
 
England is the cash cow of of the UK.
 
Well London actually London SE of England.
 
They're they're.
 
They're the main financial drivers of the UK and London and the Southeast of England could be a very, very prosperous, independent state if it if it's so if it's so chose.
 
But if we accept the idea of.
 
A union of people have, if we accept the idea that that that a hugely important part of that Union is a fiscal and monetary union, so not as a common currency, but the redistribution.
 
This is the problem with the euro is it's a managerial, not fiscal union, but a mechanism for redistributing money to where it's needed on a fair.
 
Yeah and transparent basis, which it isn't at the moment, he said from a Welsh perspective.
 
Then I think you've got greater clarity and I think that creates greater trust in the system as well.
 
OK, and Nicola from a Scottish point.
 
Of view where where you're working?
 
One of the great untouchables in the Unionist case has always been the Barnett formula, which is not satisfactory for Wales and at a more popular level amongst people who've never heard of the Barnett formula.
 
Real resentment, about free prescriptions and other things which are on offer in in Scott.
 
And how?
 
I was.
 
And well, just indeed.
 
Yes, it's it's funny.
 
I my.
 
My experience is that people seem to moan much more about it happening in Scotland and Wales, but that may be just the people I meet, but it but in in going forward in Scotland.
 
Is there any way for a Union debate to take place of the sort that we've been talking about?
 
Which doesn't immediately hit the buffers and that will mean changing the Barnett formula.
 
I think there probably is.
 
In the Barnett formula, in effect has been changed or its effects have been changed quite a bit. Anyways, through the fiscal framework and through the partial autonomy of tax raising powers, and I think I mean there was in 2016 there was a substantial increase in the fiscal autonomy of the Scottish.
 
But in a way that I suspect is quite problematic because so much emphasis now is put on one tax alone and that's income tax.
 
And it's not even income tax devolution.
 
It's devolution of the the responsibility for setting the rates and the thresholds, but within an overall tax framework, that is.
 
Reserved to the UK Parliament so you don't?
 
I think it's it's I'm not an economist, but it seems to me to be quite problematic to have.
 
Such a reliance on one tags without the basket of options that you might otherwise have with that, and so I think there is.
 
I mean there there is a review of the fiscal framework due quite soon.
 
I would have thought anyway, so it's entirely possible for these.
 
Issues to come up and I think there would be a weariness within the current climate, not least with what appears to be happening with the shared Prosperity fund, which is a centralization of resource and spending power.
 
And stemming from the powers that UK government gave to itself to spend in devolved areas.
 
So I think it's difficult to have a debate that could have buy in from everybody unless you address the wider issues that are on the table as well.
 
Can I just go back briefly to to the questions that Nick was reading about the English question and the Government of England?
 
And it also came up in the chat a bit about the role of citizens assemblies.
 
I had some experience of this as a member of the Stewarding group for the Citizens Assembly of Scotland.
 
That's just completed and I I would love to see a citizens.
 
Assembly in England to explore issues.
 
That and how?
 
England could be or should be governed, and I think we're we're past this stage now.
 
We're past the era now where it's OK for all of this to be dealt.
 
With in a.
 
Lead level or even a political party level.
 
I think it does need much wider deliberation and much wider buying from you.
 
You know a representative body of the people.
 
Thank you very much and I.
 
I very.
 
I'll echo that point because I get quite frustrated by a line of argument where English voters in polls are given five options for running England, and not surprisingly, none of those apart from English votes and English laws produces an absolute majority, and people say, well, there you are.
 
They don't really want change, but actually, if you actually analyze.
 
The polls correctly.
 
It shows that most people want change, it's just there hasn't been a debate yet that allows a settled view of having them get should be governed to emerge.
 
So I I very much hope that some sort of English discussion takes place.
 
I want to go on now for what I think I'll make the last question, UM.
 
And apologies to people, I hope we've raised most of the issues here that we're clearly going to need to run another event specifically about England because we can't deal with all the English devolutionary questions, so I acknowledge that I promise that will be coming down the line very shortly from the Centre for English identity and and and politics, but some we'll.
 
We'll obviously capture all of this.
 
In our, when we write up the event.
 
It's really going back to a point that I think it was Nicola raised at at the beginning, which is one of.
 
Consent and it has been raised in the Q&A what?
 
What does consent look like?
 
Is it I mean at the moment, consent would be taken to be the Westminster Parliament, saying we've had a look at the issues and.
 
We've decided what to do.
 
A referendum?
 
Ah, were established by the Blair government as the normal thing you do.
 
If you're going to have a constitutional change, so are we looking for a consent to the Union that has a series of referenda in each nation or a union wide referendum?
 
Or do you have the sort of consultative process which one could imagine that?
 
Sort of legitimates the outcome, even if there's not a formal popular decision.
 
In my sense, if you have sovereign nations, then the sovereignty actually has to lie with the people, which raises a number of questions about the monarchy, which we won't go into now.
 
But but how does? How does consent look in the sort of changes? Broad as assuming for the moment we're looking somewhere in in Carwin's worldview here?
 
Not saying that everybody on the palate signs up to that, but assuming we were in that role, what would consent look like?
 
And Nick, I'll start.
 
With you then I I'll go to Nicola and then Carwin I'm going to invite you to answer that question, but perhaps if you would respond to the overall discussion 'cause you've got us going so well.
 
Nick, yeah so.
 
So I think if we are in car wins world and we're not in the world of sort of incremental change that takes place in Westminster in negotiation between uh.
 
I think I'm gonna I'm gonna.
 
Come back to you and I can say 'cause you, but what I would call that.
 
I've always advocated strategic incrementalism a series of changes that leads in a direction, but so I'm gonna request you to ask that question to suppose you did.
 
You know a.
 
Reformed House of Lords.
 
Suppose you had a full form of English votes and English laws.
 
Bits of English devolution in your model of change.
 
Is there a consent process there at all, or do you just do something?
 
Hope it works and move on to the.
 
Next thing so.
 
I'm going to challenge.
 
Your approach as well as car wins perhaps.
 
Yes, well, I mean I, I'm I.
 
I would like to see a written Constitution and I'm in favor of a more radical processes will reform them, perhaps as implied by my reference to strategic incrementalism.
 
I was simply.
 
The realist in me was.
 
Just, you know, thinking about ways in which change might happen plausibly, I think if you do have more radical change, then you know the the model that we've seen emerge in places like the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere is to try to combine deliberative processes through citizens assemblies, the kind of things that Nikola was talking about with referenda.
 
To to, as it were, gain wide public support for a big change.
 
And then.
 
The legislative change that needs to follow it and and and that process then means that you link both the deliberation with the direct referenda with the formal legal legal change of in a representative democracy.
 
So if we were in the in the realm of radicalism would be that if we were not if we were moving much more in.
 
Mentally, obviously you know this takes place against the Battle of the of the Scots asking for a another referendum.
 
But if we were to move more incrementally, I think it's possible to have a reform of the House of Lords without a referendum.
 
And I I think as you start to widen this out towards the codification of these changes in the Constitution.
 
I think you do get closer to needing some kind of popular referendum, but if we want that referendum to be.
 
One that is genuinely securing the informed consent of the different peoples of the nations of the United Kingdom.
 
Then it has to be conducted in a way that builds in a much more deliberative elements to it.
 
If it's like the Brexit referendum, then I think it won't secure the deeper popular legitimacy.
 
You'd need if you're really seeking to refound the constitution of your state, that would be my main argument.
 
I agree.
 
With all of that, uhm.
 
And I would just add, I supposed that the lesson from the 2014 independence referendum is that a referendum by itself can be deliberative.
 
Now I know that that was a very painful experience for some, but it was a deliberative exercise.
 
I mean, I know that from the engagement that I, my colleagues.
 
Had in the process and there was a lot of public engagement.
 
There was a lot of learning as much as was possible with what is inevitably an uncertain future anyway.
 
But I also think it's incumbent on.
 
The option, the alternatives that are put forward in a referendum to be explained and and that.
 
To some extent happened in in 2014. It didn't happen in 2016 and so we were left with this sort of long running.
 
Explanation of what Brexit means Brexit actually was ever going to mean, so I do think it's important that before the decision takes place that there is a clear sense of what we are talking about, what the outcome might look like now that doesn't mean legislation before a referendum, 'cause that that raises other issues and other.
 
Problems, but something more substantial within the context of a deliberative debate.
 
Now I think the problem, though with having an idea of a referendum for the whole of the UK for a whole new UK constitutional framework, is that it has to recognize the UK as a plurinational state, so you would need to have consent.
 
In the different territories that make up the UK, it wouldn't be sufficient to secure the future of the state if you're using the overwhelming majority of 1 territory within it to to represent consent for the whole.
 
Thank you Cohen.
 
I think Nicola is right you would.
 
This would have to be ratified by the people I think would have to be done on a per nation or territory basis and for example, very difficult to see.
 
You know, if.
 
If GB voted one way in northern.
 
Another how that would be stable, because there is then the question of what if three votes to vote in favor.
 
One more suggests what happens then.
 
That's the question we can't answer today.
 
How would the process work first of all?
 
I I'm not.
 
Somebody who seized the royal Commission approach and elite approach as being the one that's suitable has to be a broad approach.
 
Involving as many people as possible, but a referendum would have to be on a particular package.
 
I think the problem with multi question referendums that people don't often know really what what questions they're being asked.
 
It has to be made fairly clear to people.
 
One of the great.
 
At messages of the Brexit referendum was take back control, you couldn't want the easiest slogan and that right?
 
Doesn't need a referendum. Was the 2011 on primary powers now the actual question?
 
On the referendum ballot papers, 3 paragraphs long and it mentioned training seven of the Government of Wales Act and it was.
 
I mean it had to be that way.
 
'cause legally the question had to be that way.
 
But but I just said if you look this this is 1 simple.
 
Question do you believe?
 
That all the laws that only affect Wales.
 
To be made in.
 
Wales full stop.
 
That's it.
 
And we were there was two to.
 
One on that basis.
 
So I think it's a question of.
 
Getting together a package.
 
That most people are agreed on and then thinking about how that can be explained to people.
 
Because most of the money and interest in the Constitution and sadly risk and the way it operates, they need to just have a strap link that explains what exactly they're being asked to vote for or against, or a long way from that.
 
And I'm afraid the the worry that I have is that.
 
Much of the discussion to get today might not even be relevant in a few years time, but Scotland would have gone, and this description should have taken place.
 
You know, at least five or six years got beyond that.
 
We're having a conversation because we're facing an existential challenge. That's part of the problem. One of my great worries in 2014, when England is ignored in the conversation quite often is if Scotland left.
 
What happened to the rest of the UK?
 
What do you call it first I?
 
Conquered Britain because.
 
Northern Britain as expressed by Scotland would have gone.
 
Was it the United Kingdom in Wales, Northern Ireland?
 
OK, what do you call the the citizens of that nation?
 
What are they unique in the world?
 
Northern Ireland?
 
I don't know what's the flag and kind of.
 
A flag where.
 
You know you've got three nations, one of which is mainly not in the UK, the other was completely off the UK.
 
It left the UK and the other nation.
 
Isn't represented on the flag in the.
 
1st place or I don't think it would be stable and there's another issue that I.
 
Think we would have faced.
 
In 2014, which is still there?
 
Without some kind of managed change and that's the issue of English identity, if Scotland had gone, I think you're right.
 
Job people tend that the.
 
The annoyance people express with what happens outside England tends to be expressed in terms what happens in Scotland.
 
Known season notice happens in Wales.
 
I can see in Scotland gone the rise of people in England saying we want an independent England.
 
England can leave the UK and there's nothing to stop England leaving the UK like and.
 
You could have seen.
 
You know something utterly implausible, which we thought after the implausible, not a decade beforehand.
 
Starting to grow as people said.
 
Oh, you know, if we won't stepped with Wales, all they do is take our money.
 
If we weren't stuck with Northern Ireland, they're just trouble.
 
People in England, more money would be more money for people in England.
 
Look at the money we could save if we weren't subsidizing Wales and Northern Ireland.
 
Less of an independent England.
 
And that was that was an issue.
 
You know that, but Peter Robinson and myself discussing this, so you know what?
 
This was it seemed.
 
So unlikely, but then the more you thought about it, the.
 
More you start to worry about it.
 
And so the stakes are high and I like to just end with.
 
The point that.
 
That that Nick made about you know it's it's profound change that usually causes the creation of a new constitution and he's waiting to cookbooks.
 
Usually it is, you know, a Declaration of Independence or some more conflict.
 
Absolutely right.
 
But what we're facing?
 
Here is not violence, a violent civil war, but we are facing the impending.
 
Possible collapse of the UK and so being able to take a as it were printed preemptive position and to be able to offer something now, even though it may still be too late.
 
But we have to do and offer something now.
 
It is designed to stave off any kind of problems in the future, so yeah, we're not fortunately facing violence.
 
We haven't come out of a history of violence, but we are facing.
 
Huge challenges, the greatest challenges ever to the existence of the UK state.
 
Karin, thank you very much indeed, and to Nick and Nicola, I think that's been a fantastic webinar and grateful for all the people who stayed with us.
 
I think just to close it, the enduring legacy of this discussion, I think, is that the the political strategies to get this discussion on the agenda.
 
Is actually the most important question that we face beyond the detail of what the future looks like?
 
Because as Carmen says, we we otherwise lose control of events on the debate that could have happened earlier.
 
Please lookout for other events at the Center for English identity and politics and those who've registered for this one will obviously get notified about those.
 
 
 
Thank you very much indeed.
 
Thank you.