The United Kingdom faces a dual sovereignty problem over the next decade as its government and peoples choose how to deliver on the promise to give deeper devolution to Scotland and whether to withdraw from the European Union. These internal and external decisions about the powers and levels of governing will have major consequences for Ireland North and South.
The British constitutional tradition takes sovereignty extremely seriously. It is conventionally defined there as the final and absolute political authority, with none existing elsewhere. This doctrine is built into the idea of the crown in parliament and has driven the development of the British state in its imperial and post-imperial phases. It is exceedingly difficult to escape from, even if in practice sovereignty has been shared internally through devolving powers and externally divided with other states.
Scotland and the EU sharply pose this question. The Scottish referendum campaign on independence hardened public support for all powers of taxation and spending to be held there, with only foreign affairs and defence exercised through Westminster. The vow made by the three pro-union parties acknowledged that and promised to deliver it by January next. But the parties disagree on whether and how to do this, allowing the Scottish nationalists to cry betrayal and open up the independence issue again.
The decisive 55-45 per cent No outcome is therefore conditional on more powers being transferred. And as the vow implies, such a transfer must be constitutionally entrenched if it to convince the Scots it will not be later withdrawn. But that involves departing from the absolute sovereignty doctrine by making a transition towards a federal one involving a combination of shared rule with self-rule.
It is far from clear that Britain’s constitutional culture is capable of this transformation, whether doctrinally or in terms of its party system based on first-past-the-post voting for Westminster elections. This is despite the flexibility with which these norms were varied for others – former colonies and devolved administrations. The historical merits of muddling through have reached their limits here; more radical change is required. A British public opinion which wants the union to survive in a looser format is actually well ahead of its political class on the issue.
This internal sovereignty question is intimately linked to the external one concerning EU membership, on which the Conservatives under David Cameron are pledged to hold a referendum in 2017. Since they are more likely to win next year’s general election than Labour the vote will be held then – and Labour may also agree to hold it too, even without the EU treaty change they now say is necessary first.
The United Kingdom would probably not survive withdrawal from the EU because this would be decided by an English majority over-ruling presumed preferences to stay in the EU by Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland voters. That would reopen the Scottish question, and probably result in a Yes to independence.
An important Ipsos-Mori opinion poll this week showed that British opinion has shifted in favour of staying in the EU by a margin of 56 to 26 per cent, the highest once since 1991. Analysts say this is directly in response to the surge of support for the United Kingdom Independence Party, involving a rejection of its narrow English nationalism and xenophobia.
But much depends on the political, diplomatic and economic contexts in which a referendum is held. The Conservatives are desperately competing with Ukip for marginal seats and on immigration. Cameron is bidding up the terms of EU renegotiation to undeliverable levels, which will affect the government’s credibility. And although the EU is low on current lists of the most important issues facing the UK, immigration lies second after the National Health Service and is closely linked.
If muddling through does not promise to resolve the dual sovereignty problem, the UK faces a choice between federalising or breaking up. Its peoples may prefer the former but its leaders may not be able to deliver that.
Ireland faces major consequences either way, for which it is ill-prepared. A federalising process would expose Northern Ireland’s 40 per cent annual deficit between local taxation and public spending to unfavourable attention elsewhere in the UK – as would Scottish independence.
Both options would change the North’s constitutional power-sharing structure, involving the Irish Government in fresh negotiations. At some stage Northerners would have to ask whether they might get a better federal deal from a Dublin in the EU than from a London outside it.
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