Devolution has worked to keep Scotland imprisoned

Direct Democracy is the key to free us from the failing UK

Published in The Scotsman, June 19th, 2024, and in The National, June 23rd, 2024.

Sir Tony Blair, a man who like Dorian Gray ends up with the face he deserves, admits that devolution did what it was intended to do - keep Scotland imprisoned within the failing UK.

“Devolution had to happen, otherwise you’d leave Scottish people with the choice of status quo or independence, and Scotland is still part of the UK, which was part of the design - so devolution has worked as far as I am concerned.”

Blair introduced devolution under duress. He was pressured by the European Commission to rectify the UK’s glaring democratic deficit where power was grotesquely centralised in Westminster, with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland effectively having no voice.

So sleekit Blair crafted a devolution settlement that gave the appearance of more democracy but one that kept Scotland firmly tethered to the Westminster leash. If the Scottish dog tries to run away from its colonial master, Westminster merely tugs on the leash to bring it smartly back into line either with a Section 35 order or simply by removing any of the limited powers it granted to its colony.

The genius of devolution is that power devolved is power retained. That’s why it’s proven to be a dead-end for Scotland.

The UK remains a highly centralised state. Political power resides in a London-based Parliament whose members are elected every five years via the unrepresentative first-past-the-post voting system, a system used by just one other European state - Belarus. There’s no effective separation of powers, just the executive comprised of the Crown and the Government that has carte blanche to do whatever it wants. It’s why there’s so little democracy or public accountability and is why the UK is failing.

Devolution is a UK mini-me, based on the UK’s centralised parliamentary sovereignty model, but with far fewer powers. Scottish independence-supporting political parties have failed to articulate a different constitutional approach for an independent Scotland, but cling to parliamentary sovereignty, ignoring the fact that Scotland’s constitutional basis is popular sovereignty where the People are sovereign.

Popular sovereignty entails devolving real power to the regions and municipalities where the People actually live and applying the principle of subsidiarity: anything that can be done at a lower level - education, healthcare, law enforcement, and taxation to fund these functions - should not be done at a higher one. Defence, transport networks, the energy grid, communications, foreign affairs, immigration, currency and the central bank would be federal responsibilities.

Popular sovereignty means trusting the People to know what’s in their own best interests. Direct political rights are how they exercise their sovereignty and include the ability to launch Referendums to accept or reject proposed legislation, and Initiatives to write a new Constitution or propose constitutional changes. The People, not the government, are in control.

Decentralised direct democracy would fit a newly independent Scottish state like a glove and return power to the People. It’s the key that can free us from the failing UK. That’s why we urgently need to start talking about it.