Aren’t we already losing Scotland?

Westminster has been gripped by talk of a referendum this week. But the excitement hasn’t been about the vote in ten months’ time that will decide whether Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom, but about the possibility of an EU referendum in four years’ time. South of Hadrian’s Wall, Scotland’s vote on independence is fast in danger of becoming the forgotten referendum.

If the Scottish referendum is the forgotten one then the Welsh one is the one ‘nobody’s ever bloody well heard of’. Last week, David Cameron announced that there would be a vote in Wales to decide whether the assembly there should be able to vary the rate of income tax. This is, by any reasonable standard, a significant change to the fabric of the United Kingdom. Yet, in a sign of how inured we have become to constitutional tinkering, it was not front-page news in the London press.

This diet of constant constitutional change is putting the Union in danger. Too often these new arrangements are being pushed through for tactical, rather than strategic, reasons. When I pushed one senior Cameroon about the rationale for devolving income tax varying powers to Wales, he responded by pointing to the number of marginal seats there.

Nowhere are problems being stored up for the future more than in the Scottish referendum campaign. Better Together, which is running the effort to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom, have been at pains to stress that a No vote is not a vote for the status quo. Why? Because they know that more powers for Holyrood is a popular position. They responded to the news of more devolution for Wales by proclaiming that not only is the Scottish parliament receiving more powers because of last year’s Scotland Act but that ‘all of the parties are currently working on proposals to strengthen Holyrood even further.