UCL Constitution Unit Conference 2023: Devolution and the Union
Uncertainties over the UK’s future territorial politics are great. The SNP is in turmoil, and the UK government’s block on Holyrood’s gender legislation is being challenged in the courts. Labour’s Brown Commission has recommended major changes, and further proposals are being developed in Wales. Renewed devolution within England is on the cards. Is fundamental reform of the UK’s territorial arrangements needed? If so, what might this mean in practice?
Speakers:
Dr Anwen Elias - Reader in Politics at Aberystwyth University, and member of the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales
Kezia Dugdale - Director of the John Smith Centre at the University of Glasgow, and former Leader of the Scottish Labour Party
Professor Michael Kenny - Director of the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, University of Cambridge
Chair: Professor Alan Renwick - Deputy Director of the Constitution Unit, UCL
Listen to the podcast version of this event: the-constitution-unit.simplec...
Пікірлер: 1
The fundamental issue undermining all these discussions is that any powers Westminster gives to devolved administrations can be taken back at any time with an ordinary Bill passed by simple majority. There will always be UK governments that want to undo some facet of devolution, and whose own electoral interests are served by doing so. Under our constitution that can never be changed unless we somehow adopt a written constitution because we have supremacy of parliament and a parliament that cannot tie itself in future. There's no remotely foreseeable future in which the UK creates and adopts a written constitution, let alone doing so only for the purpose of giving secure powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The devolved administrations will forever be forced to choose between a devolution that's given at the goodwill of the UK government or seeking independence - or in Northern Ireland's case, reunion with the south. And all the talk in the world about devo-max or anything else makes no difference.