Our unwritten Constitution is past its sell-by date. If the Union is to be preserved we must recognise the UK as a federal country along the lines of Canada and Australia, and soon.
Such is the argument made by Brice Dickson in this lucid and timely intervention to the debate on Britain’s political future. A federal structure, he reasons, could maximise the benefits of cooperation between semi-autonomous regions while at the same time paying due respect to the nationalisms that exist within constituent parts of the country.
The devolution of powers to the home nations, coupled with the trials and tribulations associated with Brexit and reform of the House of Lords, point to grave risks in the UK’s current constitutional position. Dickson proposes a Constitutional Reform Act which would federalise the nation, provide a modern Bill of Rights, formalise allocation of public expenditure to devolved regions, and contain a clause setting out the ‘purpose’ of the UK.
The UK has an enviable record in rising to a variety of challenges down the centuries, but the fallout from our recent history makes greater certainty and predictability imperative. This urgent analysis by one of our leading constitutional experts points to how that might best be achieved.
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Bill Jones is a Research Fellow in the Department of Government at the University of Manchester and is a former Director of Extra-Mural Studies at the University of Manchester
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