Phase 3 of UK devolution?
Whilst not producing outcomes which massively defied the polls, May’s elections to Holyrood and the Senedd did produce results which pose a fresh and fundamental challenge to the consensus which has (just about) held over nearly three decades of UK devolution. Three of the four UK nations are now led by a First Minister who wants to scrap the Union; a situation which polling indicates is unlikely to change after next year’s Stormont elections. This should – but too often hasn’t – come with a health warning that whilst the three First Ministers lead nationalist parties, polling indicates that there is no clear evidence of a majority in Wales or Northern Ireland for secession from the Union, whilst polling in Scotland remains mixed and unsettled.
Nevertheless, this overlapping agenda between all three First Ministers marks a clear new ‘third phase’ of devolution within a UK context. Over time, we have seen the political imperative for the three devolved governments shift from ‘let’s show that these new institutions can work’ (1999-2010) to ‘let’s define our devolved government’s approach in opposition to what’s happening at Westminster’ (2010-2026) to what I now think will be an era of ‘let’s work together as Celtic nations united against Westminster rule’ (2026 onwards).
This is certainly not the first time that the UK Government has found itself in a minority post-devolution. COVID and austerity were both good recent examples of where the devolved governments took broadly similar policy positions in opposition to the Westminster consensus. Nevertheless, the sustained nature of a likely desire amongst the devolved nations to work together more than ever before will mark out this new dynamic as different.
This new era is also framed against the backdrop of a shift in the tectonic plates of who identifies as “British” across the four nations (see the work of Ailsa Henderson FAcSS and Richard Wyn Jones FAcSS) and the splintering of traditional politics within Great Britain which is seeing broad coalitions swinging behind loosely-defined blocs on the left and right rather than the traditional two main parties (see recent analysis by Jane Green FAcSS, Rob Ford FAcSS, Tim Bale and others). Aside from the huge media challenge of reporting objectively and in any detail about the choices in a five- or six-party democracy (see Stephen Cushion’s excellent analysis of the Senedd election), it also means that multiple parties across all four nations will have a leading role to play in dictating the future direction of the Union in a way which has not previously been the case. This, in turn, makes the future of the Union less predictable than ever before.
Not unrelated is the rise in English nationalism spearheaded by Reform, as explained excellently by Ben Wellings in a recent CfSS / PSA event covered on this hub. From this, we can anticipate that there will be loud and prominent voices within England who will be arguing in favour of allowing the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish to go their own way – again, a substantive change from what we’ve seen previously where the establishment Westminster parties have held a united front on ‘saving our precious Union’.
Meanwhile UK Labour’s technocratic solution of English regional devolution – although well-intentioned and no doubt effective in meeting some of its policy ambitions – is highly unlikely to adequately answer the perception amongst English nationalists that they have a democratic deficit (see, for example, the work of Michael Kenny FAcSS on this). This is particularly true for the large swathes of England where there may well be English-identifiers who do not feel that a regional identity embodied by their local mayor or combined authority is an adequate substitute. It seems unlikely that a proud Englishman/woman in Chatteris or Bath will have their nationalist appetite sated by knowing they have a directly elected mayor for Cambridgeshire & Peterborough or the West of England.
So what does all this mean? Well, in essence:
- Recent Scottish and Welsh election results – and the likely outcome of next year’s Northern Ireland elections – will see growing demands for secession across all three nations, even if a strong residual unionist voice remains present in each.
- The three devolved governments will make their secessionist and anti-Westminster arguments in a more concerted and orchestrated manner than we have seen hitherto.
- Those arguments will be heard in England by a large and growing English nationalist movement with less binding loyalty to the Union.
- English regional devolution, meanwhile, is still in its infancy and it remains to be seen whether citizens in the less-homogenous areas now being given new bodies and powers feel their lives are improving as a result.
With the UK Parliament’s two traditional major pro-Union parties both in retreat, there is an open question about who can make a compelling and inclusive argument for the Union, and an even bigger question about whether that argument would have the potency and appeal that it once did.
As the year goes on, I would welcome suggestions from readers about how these questions might be unpicked and interrogated within the devolution hub!
About the author
Dr Ed Bridges is Head of Policy & Public Affairs at the Academy of Social Sciences. He has a strong interest in devolution and social policy, and has spent the majority of his professional career working in Wales and Northern Ireland, including a sustained period in local government. As well as his role with the Academy, he also teaches about devolution on an apprenticeship course for policy officers.
Photo credit: Adrian Raudaschl on Unsplash