Devolution is a fundamental historical change within the UK whose outcome is far from certain. It is a radical experiment because it seeks to reconcile two principles which appear to conflict: the concession of self-government in domestic issues to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland on the one hand and the supremacy of the Westminster Parliament on the other. Moreover, devolution has now been accomplished in one of the world's most centralised countries with little experience in power-sharing or managing relationships between inferior and superior legislatures. With devolution the United Kingdom state has embarked on a journey with an unpredictable destination.
Two scenarios compete for attention in the case of Scotland. The first is that the establishment of a Scottish Parliament was a necessary renegotiation of the Union of 1707. The Union relationship had to be made more acceptable to Scottish opinion if the Union was to be maintained into the next millennium. Giving the Scots more say in their own affairs was to be the saviour of the UK. According to this argument, devolution, in the words of Vernon Bogdanor, can be interpreted as "a policy of strikingly conservative character". The second scenario is more familiar and has received most attention. Devolution is a process not an event; far from shoring up the UK state it will inevitably lead to greater demands for more self-government and eventual independence. If opinion polls are to be believed the majority of Scots believe that this will indeed be the reality in around 10 to 15 years time.
Tom Nairn's new book is much the most eloquent and sophisticated analysis of the validity of this second prognosis to be published in recent years. Nairn's polemic leaves little room for equivocation: the "old house of Britain" is already a shambles and will soon disintegrate completely, a process which will ensure that the Scots then recover "de facto independence". The United Kingdom constructed on the rock of the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707 will endure for little more than a generation because of the confluence of powerful historical forces which are driving forward its inevitable dismemberment. Nairn points out how a number of factors have come together to ensure such an outcome.
The end of the Cold War, which had severely constricted national struggles and independence movements, released aspirations for more autonomy throughout Europe. The Scots, one of the ancient nations with a history stretching back more than a millennium, could not remain unaffected. The foundations of Unionism, Empire, shared industrialisation, militarism, the monarchy, the Welfare State and the Conservative Party either faded into the past or lost much of their former potency. In the meantime, the Scottish people have become much more confident in their capacity to run their own affairs as witnessed by the decisive referenda results of 1997 and will not easily accept existing constraints on the powers of their new parliament in the future.
As Nairn points out, there is an intriguing volatility among the electorate. Whatever Labour ministers might have thought, devolution has not killed nationalism stone dead. On the contrary, some opinion polls last year suggested that Scottish Catholics, the bedrock Labour vote in Glasgow and the surrounding districts, were now more likely to vote for independence than non-Catholics. As Nairn argues, if this bastion of Labourism is changing then "it is no longer an exaggeration to say that everything will".
But will it change in the way that Nairn suggests or is there much more uncertainty built into the course of Scottish and British history over the next few years than he is prepared to allow? Are his intimations of UK mortality premature? Only the most die-hard Unionists could now assert that the Union is safe. Possibilities for friction and dispute between Edinburgh and London in the post-devolutionary era are endless. Any one of them could provoke a movement towards separation, especially if governments of different ideological conviction held power north and south of the Border.
For instance, few economic powers have been devolved and this could easily lead to frustrated expectation as the Scots begin to realise how little impact their new Parliament can actually have on such crucial areas as poverty, inequality, employment and welfare. The substance and public reaction to the recent Cubie report on student finance indicates that Scottish civil society has not lost its taste for state intervention to redistribute resources and opportunities. In due course it may well expect the people's elected representatives to move towards a strategy which will not find much favour in Downing Street.
But to conclude that the future is fraught with difficulty does not mean that the breakup of Britain is inevitable. In Catalonia and the Basque country devolution has weakened the demand for independence, not strengthened it. We may indeed be seeing the first stages of a general reconfiguration of relationships within the British archipelago which, inter alia, disperses power from Westminster and by so doing maintains the political links between England and Scotland. If London can respond positively and sympathetically to such a dynamic, the best bet for the future is probably a framework of federalism, rather than "Scottish independence" in the classic form delineated in Tom Nairn's stimulating book.
T. M. Devine is Director of the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen. His most recent book is The Scottish Nation, 1700-2000