Politics and Power in Scotland and Wales from 1966 to 1999 – The Devolution

Exposé Politique & international Sciences politiques

Date de publication :

07/12/2007

Langue :

Anglais

Format :

.doc

Nombre de pages :

75 pages

Niveau :

expert

Consulté :

4 fois

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Sommaire :

Sommaire

The 1960s-early 1970s as Turning Point
1. The State of the Economy Britain-wide and on the Periphery
2. A Protest vote?
3. The identity question
4. Decolonisation of the Nation and Mind
5. A Critical Assessment of the Foregoing
Devolution: first Attempt
1. Business as Usual?
2. The Kilbrandon Report
3. Devolution as a Last Resort, or Labour's Big Dilemma
4. A Divisive Issue
5. The 1979 Referendum and its Aftermath
The 'Ice Age' (1979-1997)
1. A Radically New Agenda
2. Concessions
3. Playing the Economic Card
4. The Gap Widens
Devolution no matter what
1. The Campaign for a Scottish Assembly / Parliament, the Scottish Constitutional Convention and the Campaign for a Welsh Assembly
2. The European dimension and the New Nationalism
3. Limits and Contradictions
The dream come true
1. The Referenda
2. The Scotland and Wales Acts (1998)
3. Devolution: à success?

Résumé :

Since 1997 and New Labour's landslide victory, there has been a flurry of legislation in the UK, eg with relation to the House of Lords, party funding and freedom of information, in an attempt to change and modernize the institutions of the country. What is known as 'devolution' is very much part of the move.
devolution means deputing or delegating of power or authority. devolution is different from federalism, which is a constitutional settlement in which power is not devolved by the centre to the periphery (with, again, the centre remaining ultimately the locus of supreme power), but shared between two entities, as in America, Australia or Germany (though in the latter case the federal system is centralised when it comes to money matters, the poorer ones being subsidised at the expense of the richer ones; wherever regions try to by-pass their obligations towards each other, as does Catalonia in Spain eg, the federal system is resented by the poor regions). The new regional assemblies in Cardiff and Edinburgh are totally dependent on Westminster politics (i.e. the British or Union Parliament), which, as we shall see, remains supreme; sovereignty, indeed, is not shared / divided between Westminster and Edinburgh or Westminster and Cardiff. devolution is not independence either, i.e. separatism; it is not intended to affect the unity of the state or the form of government in the rest of the United Kingdom.
To Tony Blair and New Labour, separatism is out of the question as it would 'tear asunder the common ties of kinship and friendship and the bonds of common history which tie us together in this country'. Federalism on the other hand, may prove dangerous for the periphery since England has over four-fifths of the UK population and would therefore yield considerable power.
devolution, therefore, is about revising the Union (not abolishing it), redifining the British constitution, the relationships between the various components of the UK, ie. a redefinition of the British nation state, in a context transformed by pressures partly escaping the control of the state, both from below (peripheral nationalism; this is the internal challenge - see below) and from above, on account of the UK's membership of the EU, the GATT, the OMC and the IMF (all of which acronyms stand, rightly or wrongly, for 'globalization', or external challenges).
According to Prof. V. Bogdanor (1999) however, it 'is the most radical constitutional change this country has seen since the Great Reform Act of 1832. This is because it seeks to reconcile two seemingly conflicting principles, the sovereignty or supremacy of Parliament and the grant of self-government in domestic affairs to scotland, wales, and Northern Ireland.' Broadly speaking, devolution has actually entailed the creation not of independent, but of new interdependent layers of government.
The specific structures and functions of the three new assemblies (scotland, wales and London) have been designed to deal with the particular political, cultural and historical circumstances of the relevant region within the British constitutional framework, to combine flexibility with stability. In the words of Lynda Clark (Advocate General for scotland from May 1999 to January 2006, i.e. the UK Government's principal legal adviser on Scots law, who provides legal advice and opinions to Government Departments on a wide range of legal issues including human rights, European and constitutional law; and MP) in 2003: 'It is a partnership that recognises diversity and distinctiveness. The diversity of four countries within the United Kingdom, with shared cultures, shared values and shared interests, but with distinctive needs and priorities.'