Devolution

Worth the wait? Reforming Intergovernmental Relations

Author / Creator: Nicola McEwen

Media type: Article

Date published:

Intergovernmental relations (IGR) have long been the weak link in the UK’s system of devolution. Overall, the reforms carry the potential for significant improvements to the system.


Brexit and Beyond: the union

Author / Creator: UK in a Changing Europe

Media type: Report

Date published: February 2021

What happens to powers that were formerly exercised at the EU level, but which fall within devolved competence, has been a recurrent source of disagreement between the UK Government and the devolved administrations.


The dilemma of devolution – more powers but potentially worse off

Author / Creator: Richard Parry

Media type: Article

Date published:

Increments [of devolved powers]...expose yet more anomalies and disadvantages to Scotland that only the full powers of independence would resolve.


Devolution

Author / Creator: Malcolm Harvey

Media type: Book

Date published: 2020

Devolution has caused a de facto decentralisation of the UK, although such arrangements as the Sewel Convention can be over turned by the Westminster government.


Twin Tracks: Cultural and Political Nationalism after 1967

Author / Creator: Scott Hames

Media type: Book

Date published: 2020

The idea of Devolution arriving on a wave of artistic Renaissance and rising national ‘confidence’ is too simplistic, and obscures important disparities between the ‘twin tracks’ of cultural and political nationalism.


Scottish devolution at 20: some hits, some misses and that eternal maybe

Author / Creator: Christopher A Whatley

Media type: News Media

Date published:

Many hoped devolution would kill nationalism stone dead. Labour colleagues failed to grasp Scots’ powerful sense of nationhood. Although a Labour man argued that devolution could lead to independence. Alex Salmond  asserted that independence was “rendered inevitable when the Scottish parliament was established”. 


A Sign on the Road

Author / Creator: John S Warren

Media type: News Media

Date published:

A critique of "Strength in Union: The Case for the United Kingdom", and especially Alister Jack's view of Scotland in the Union.


Strength in Union: The Case for the United Kingdom

Author / Creator: Alister Jack

Media type: Collection of essays by a Conservative Think Tank

Date published: September 2021

Is Scotland a Nation or a Region. MP David Cameron called Scotland a Nation in September 2014 in the run up to the Referendum. In 2021, Alister Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland, refers to Scotland as a region.


An Unequal Kingdom: The Barriers to Federalism in the UK

Author / Creator: Craig Dalzell

Media type: Policy Paper

Date published: April 2018

Federalism will not work without constitutions for all the parts of the UK and most importantly England.  Without defined powers England can undo any federalism.