Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Cameron's developing vision of a future Union?

I mentioned a couple of days ago that I think there is a wider Conservative strategy being developed at the minute, one which will have a most meaningful impact on both the constitutional future of the United Kingdom and, by obvious extension, the Union.

1.The ongoing strengthening of links with the UUP in Northern Ireland.
2.The subtle acceptance of necessary realpolitik involving any future relationship with the SNP minority administration
3.The (apparent) acceptance of the concept of English MPs only voting on “English” measures.
4. And this morning, the pledge to scrap “regional government”.

Far too much happening at the minute for me to deal with it fully (and I’m pretty sure I’d struggle anyway to cobble together a bigger picture); but still, there’s an interesting situation building here- a few more pieces of the puzzle to fall into place yet though.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The shadow Scotland Secretary "Fluffy" Mundell was on Newsnight Scotland last night saying a Cameron government would allow a referendum on Scottish independence as long as the Scottish Parliament voted for one. He said the Conservative's would not try to declare it ultra vires.

Whilst I am sceptical whether the legislation would get through anyway, at least the acceptance of the principle of some sort "soveriegnty" of the Scottish people through the Parliament on this issue has now been de facto accepted by the Tories.

Concerning English votes etc, I agree with the principle although I would consider it cleaner for there just to be a stand alone English parliament in federal UK.

How much demand for that exists I do not know.

Anonymous said...

"3.The (apparent) acceptance of the concept of English MPs only voting on “English” measures."

Oh dear. Another form of assymetry is not going to solve the problem of assymmetry.