INTRODUCTION

In the referendum vote on 23 June 2016, two of the four nations of the United Kingdom voted to remain, and two to leave the European Union. The combination of Scotland and Northern Ireland's votes to remain, along with the prospect of a centrally-driven ‘hard Brexit’ exacerbate political complexities internal to the UK at a time when its external relations are in such flux. The vision of the ‘one United Kingdom’ appealed to by the Prime Minister appears, constitutionally, to be that of a unitary state. But this vision of a unitary UK is profoundly out of step with the perception of the state not just by the independence-focused Government in Scotland, but in Wales too, where the forces for independence have less of an influence.

Indeed, the orthodoxy of the UK as a unitary state has been fundamentally challenged through the experiences of the past two decades of devolution. The incoming 1997 Labour Government relaunched previous attempts to bring a degree of self-rule to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and was set to include the English regions in this too. Whilst devolution to the English regions has been a patchy, very limited affair to date, devolution to the nations has appeared a more deeply profound and significant constitutional development. In a series of statutory steps, each different for each of the devolved nations, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast have acquired their own governments, and their own parliaments with legislative powers, confirmed in the underpinning primary legislation as permanent features of the UK constitutional order. More recently, the first steps in fiscal powers for the devolved nations have been taken, coming into an established, though disputed, system of funding under a block grant for each devolved region.

But the devolution settlements are creations of the Westminster Parliament, and each of the settlements contains a statutory acknowledgement of the Westminster Parliament's continuing legislative power, which runs in parallel to those of the devolved parliaments and assemblies, and has the potential to override them.