State of the Union

[rich_jacko]

Is it just me, or are politicians on all sides going about this Scottish referendum business completely backwards?

What they should be doing is holding a UK-wide referendum on whether we should have a federal UK, with equal levels of tax and spending powers devolved to each of England / Scotland / Wales / Northern Ireland, and other things (e.g. foreign policy) remaining central. If, after that, the Scottish Government wanted to hold a separate independence referendum, they could do so with the Scots voting in full knowledge of what was on offer if they stay part of the UK.

Or is that too sensible?

For what it's worth, I'm rather fond of Scotland and would be sad if it became a foreign country. But I think it's right that if the UK stays together, it does so by choice.

Comments

[pharrap.livejournal.com]

If we're going to become small quasi-independent federated states, why not do that under the auspices of the EU instead of the UK?

[rich-jacko.livejournal.com]

Because, and I may be wrong here but I don't think so, no one likes the EU.

[grok-mctanys.livejournal.com]

The EU probably isn't ready yet for that level of federation. e.g. I don't think "The EU" has a foreign policy. And given how half-hearted our integration with the EU has been to date, I'm not sure that we'd be in a particularly good position to drive that sort of thing.

Speaking of our half-heartedness, if we were to do federate under the EU, we'd probably have to adopt the Euro. Given how well that's currently working out for the existing participants, I don't think anyone would be particularly excited about that prospect.

And personally, although I'm generally in favour of a European Union, or even World Union at some level sometime in the future (comes from reading too much SF in my early teens), I'm not really in favour of the current European Union. It's just too... unwieldy.

[rich-jacko.livejournal.com]

The EU does have its own foreign policy. Specifically, it has a grandiosely-titled "High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy", which was one of the more controversial creations of the Lisbon Treaty, as it was seen as transferring too much power and influence from member states to the Brussels machine.

Devolution is about distributing power down to as local a level as is practical and sensible. This is to give smaller electorates greater say over the matters which affect them (and only them). Centralising powers which are currently held at a national level to the supra-national EU level would be the opposite of devolution.

[grok-mctanys.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK. I mostly picked "foreign policy" as you'd used that in your original article, and I didn't recall them having one off the top of my head. I imagine there is some other part of central government that would be required for an effective federation, but which the EU does not currently implement.

As for the centralisation/devolution dichotomy, I think Bruce Schneier's article criticising the creation of the US DHS has a recommendation that sounds like the direction I currently think governments should be headed - centralise co-ordination as globally as possible; distribute responsibility and implementation as locally as possible.

[longhairedhippy.livejournal.com]

I've got to be honest with you, I would much rather see a federal UK than the half-assed mess we have currently...

[grok-mctanys.livejournal.com]

It's not half-assed. It's just that there are obscure hysterical raisins for everything.

[rich-jacko.livejournal.com]

It's not half-assed. It's just horribly inconsistent and unfair to different parts of the UK. The "West Lothian" problem really needs to get resolved.