by Charles Kennedy
In the second part of this article Kennedy explains why we must fight for a Britain of the Regions.
The greatest political revolution of our times has been the establishment of the Scottish Parliament and the Assemblies in Northern Ireland and Wales. Having entered the 1990s as one of the most centralised states in the Western world, we have begun the new century as a country well on the way to giving its excluded nations and regions a clear voice. With a Parliament in Edinburgh, Scots think of themselves as a country not merely when sports team run out at Hampden Park o Murrayfield but also through their politics. The fate of Scotland's schools and hospitals now lies in the hands of Scots. To a lesser extent, the same applies to wales. With an Assembly in Cardiff, the Welsh have more responsability for their own affairs. And in Belfast, at Stormont, there is the potential for a legislative assembly sharing power throughout Northern Ireland in all its diversity.
Do the English not deserve their own Parliament? For many years, people born and brought up in England used the terms "England" and "Britain" inter changeably. It always used to amuse and annoy the Scots to see how the English used the Union Jack - just as much a Scottish flag as an English one - at England-Scotland football matches. There are some signs that this is changing. The Cross of St George has replaced the Union Jack at many events. Once a flag rarely seen beyond Anglican churches and heraldic textbooks, is now a sign that the English are more aware of their identity. Yet England has no representation as a political entity. Some have argued that a separate English Parliament is the answer. This is an incorrect diagnosis and the wrong prescription. Under the current devolved framework, the Scottish Parliament has more powers than the Welsh Assembly, and both have different powers from the Northern Ireland Assembly. This means there are certain areas where Westminster legislates for England alone, but others where it legislates for combinations of England, wales, and Northern Ireland. To tackle this problem we might not need just one extra Parliament but, conceivably, several, dealing with English, English and Welsh, English/Welsh/Northern Irish, and even English/Northern Ireland matters. The consequence would be a proliferation of bureocracy, inefficient spending and the creation of a huge gulf between government and the governed. The second problem is that an English Parliament would do nothing to give voice to the serious regional differences within England. We can view the political map as being a waterbed.. Apply pressure on one area and you will get a reaction somewhere else. We have devolved to the Celtic fringe but as an extra consequence, some regions within England are now pressing for a greater autonomy.
A national Parliament within the UK is all very well for the Scots with a population of five million, but will the 46 people of England get a more accountable body than Westminster if an English Parliament is established? Moreover, would the people of Newcastle, Cumbria or Cornwall feel an English Parliament was more representative of their specific interests than the current UK Parliament? The North East, Yorkshire and Humberside have a per capita income 10 per cent less than the national average. Meanwhile London has a per capita income 41 oer cent greater than the natioal average. Taxes taken from Londoners are estimated to provide the rest of the UK with £14 billion a year. But while some rich people live in Chelsea and Mayfair, London also contains some of the poorest wards in the country, and its transport network are permanently crying out for investment. Not surprisingly, some London politicians argue that local taxation might be the way forward, so that a greater proportion of the taxes coming from Londoners is spent in and on London. Certainly, many federal countries - such as germany and the US - alklow much more local autonomy over taxes, and they profit greatly from it. Nor does it, as anti-federalists claim, always result in higher taxation.
We need to address the different needs of the different parts of the UK much more effectively. We need , in other words, to rethink the idea of Unionism. The New Unionism in Britain should establish practical relations between the regions of England, and the other nations of the UK, in which the North East works with the Scots, and the South West works with the welsh, and both work with Europe, just as much as they look to London. How might that work? There are several models in other countries that we could learn from. They are often allowed to vary the level of taxes that they levy, giving them a significan degree of autonomy. That allows levels of spending on public services that reflect different attitudes, aspirations and needs in different areas. For instance, in rural areas such as Cornwall, poor public transport is causing the break-up of communities. So transport would be a key issue. In densely populated Merseyside, this may be less of a priority. But inner-city initiatives, providing job training and childcare, would be more important. The most appropriate system would be as flexible as possible. If we look at he North East, or the North West, we can see fairly distinctive regions which would want significant powers. On the other hand, it is difficult to see the South East as a distinctive region, and given its proximity to Westminster, it may feel it does not need its own level of governemment. That probably rules out some more flexible systems - such as Germany, where 16 states have all the same powers over a range of policies.
But there is another model that may well work for Britain. Spain has had very similar experiences of regionalism to our own. Just as Londoners are likely to have less antipathy to a Westminster government than Tynesiders, the Spanish have had to deal with markedly varying attitudes to regionalism in different parts of the countr. Their solution has been flexibility. Under the Spanish Constitution, the national government retains exclusive control of 32 clearly defined areas, such as defence, foreign trade, monetary policy and banking. But with the agreement of local government in regions, regional governments can take control of all other areas if they wish. That provides a system whereby distinctive regions may operate significant control of their own affairs. And they can do so on a timescale that suits them. It's possible to imagine Tyneside, Yorkshire and Merseyside opting for regional government very swiftly. This would probably spurs the regions to the South to join the scheme, as the benefits become apparent.
Of course, we already have local governments. And we need to establish very clearly how this would interact with regional government. But there is no reason to assume the relationship would be anything other than beneficial. Cooperation is the only method of achieving this. Local government has knowledge and expertise acquired through decades of practice - regional governments will be "new to the game". Conversely, we might expect the regional assemblies to have more clout when it comes to dealing with Westminster and effecting change at a national level. The first steps towards a Britain-of-the-regions came about, curiously, as a consequence of the 1997 Good Friday Agreement. For it created the British-Irish Council, more commonly known as the Council of the Isles. It is a multinational body, including representatives from two nation states - the UK and the Republic of Ireland. But it is about far more than London-Dublin relationship. The UK is represented in all its diversity, with representatives from not only the Westminster government but also from Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh. The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are represented too. Its brief is to promote harmonious relations between all the people of the British Isles. Given that the Good Friday Agreement talks about the "totality of relationships", why shouldn't we envisage the Council having a key role in the politics of the future - directing the partnership between the three nations of mainland Britain and the two parts of the island of Ireland? Currently, it has a limited remit and exists largely as a talking-shop. But it provides a structure under which co-operation between the regions could be enhanced. The Council could direct gradual devolution of England into self-governing regions - and provide the framework for England to relate to all the other parts of the new Union. Imagine - Cardiff, Dublin and Belfast working together over pollution in the Irish sea, an important issue given that the Irish government has appealed for the Sellafield nuclear plant to be shut down because of its environmental record. Or Belfast and Edinburgh liasing ove communication and transport between Scotland and Northern Ireland, regions with strong community links. To that equations the English regions should be added. A powerful North-est assembly would have a clear interest in both of these issues.
The Council of the Isles would also help to regularise our relations with the Republic of Ireland. It is our closest neighbour in Europe, the only country with which we share a land border. There are nearly five million people in Britain with at least one Irish parent and who thus qualify for Irish citizenship. An estimated 5 per cent of the Irish populaton lives in London. For all our historic differences, there is probably no other country in Europe with which we have so much in common. Our "civil links" could multiply and develop, through the auspices of hte Council of the Isles, into a more stable political relationship. We need a body like this, because national identities have been so diverse and complex. The 1991 census revealed that nearly 20 per cent of the population of Wales, for instance, was born in England, and nearly 8 per cent of the population of Scotland. Meanwhile, nearly three-quarters of a million Scottish-born people were living in England, and more than half a million Welsh-born people. For that reason, it makes far more sense to talk of us having a mutual "British-Irish" identity. For many European countries, becoming a federation of regions is a natural step. The Germans, with their strong regional bodies, have no problem with this. Nor do the spanish. Throughout their history, different parts of their countries have related to other parts of Europe in different ways. The same can also be said of Britain, but all too often we do not recognise it sufficiently.
The first steps towards devolution have been made but a long journey lies ahead before the regions of England are given autonomy on an equal footing with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. If the process is not speeded up, England could be isolated from Europe, and Westminster governments risk increasing isolation from their voters.
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