“Holyrood needs to revive its commitment to power sharing and subsidiarity. At its inception, the Scottish Parliament could legitimately claim to be bold and innovative. It can be again.”
Federalism
Binary choice and multi-party politics
‘.Like the Bourbons, the Conservatives have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. But Labour are in danger of the same. Time is running out for a reasonably well developed alternative option that might be included in a future referendum. Not only would this enrich a stale debate but would allow Labour to escape the potentially lethal embrace of working with the Tories again.’
A new strategy for the Union
‘The Sewel convention will need to be revived and reformed, with stronger guarantees that Westminster will not rewrite the rules of devolution without agreement.’
A new post-Brexit UK of quasi-independent member states?
‘Just as the nation-state replaced Empire, so the plates delineating optimal, governable units within larger, common systems are again moving.’
Brexit lessons for #indyref2
Hence in the same sense that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ is a meaningless statement (without defining Brexit), then so too would ‘Independence means Independence’ be.
Popular sovereignty and written constitution
‘Perhaps, therefore, Brexit might prove a constitutional moment for the UK, leading to the creation and adoption of a codified constitution so aligning Britain with almost every other democracy.’
Brexit, devolution and local government
‘One thing is clear – the days of a neat division of powers between UK, Scottish and local government are gone. Brexit will paradoxically make these multilevel dynamics very much like those of the regionalised states in the EU27,’ the bead of COSLA office in Brussels writes.