The Wuhan lab of British politics

Scotland and small Anglophone country syndrome

Almost exactly 30 years ago, in late June 1996, the Labour Party announced its plans for devolution in Scotland and Wales, following a report by the University of London’s Constitution Unit. As George Robertson, the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, had put it a year earlier, devolution would kill Scottish nationalism ‘stone dead’.

As with so much of the Blair-era constitutional revolution, things didn’t quite turn out as planned. Sold as a way to quash Celtic separatism, as of this May all three of the United Kingdom’s devolved authorities are led by nationalists. The SNP held onto power in Edinburgh after 19 years, despite their recent scandals and the failure of so many flagship plans. Indeed, the quality of lawmaking in Holyrood has often been embarrassing, and last December the BBC asked why the Scottish Parliament is so bad at drafting legislation which proves unworkable.