If Cameron doesn’t talk about greater powers for England, Labour will

Action over Scotland is certainly producing a reaction in England. It’s not what you’d call an ‘equal and opposite reaction’ yet, but it’s there — and it’s crystallised by Tim Montgomerie’s article for the Guardian this morning. I’d recommend that you read it in full, but Tim’s basic point is that David Cameron could score a ‘triple crown of political victories’ by moving towards a more federal UK:

‘By offering to extend Scottish devolution he can be the Conservative leader who saves the union. By promising to balance Scottish devolution with a commitment to new arrangements for the government of England, he can radically improve his own party’s electoral prospects. And through these changes — with the introduction of city mayors and greater localism — he can be the PM who replaces one of Europe’s most centralised states with a political architecture fit for the 21st century.’  

As for whether this move towards federalism will happen any time soon, I’m not sure. It is likely that we’ll see more detail from No.10 on the first of Tim’s suggestions — after all, Cameron is already hinting that a Scottish ‘No’ vote comes with greater devolution in the future, and he’ll need to set out just what that means at some point. But I suspect there’ll be less enthusiasm for making England more its own political entity. For starters, this would run counter to some of the demands of the coaltion, which, as Tim notes, have already sacrificed a Tory manifesto commitment to ‘introduce new rules so that legislation referring specifically to England, or to England and Wales, cannot be enacted without the consent of MPs representing constituencies of those countries’. And it could also complicate the delicate political battle over the Scottish referendum, introducing questions about who’s voting for what, when and why, which Alex Salmond would be eager to exploit.

This is why, when I blogged about the subject of English powers last Friday, I wrote about it as part of Cameron’s ‘longer term’ agenda. It would be ideal if he’d deal properly and finally with these questions now — but, of course, the ideal often doesn’t happen.

That said, Cameron still ought to at least talk about greater powers for England now, perhaps setting them up for the Tories’ offering in 2015. And for a very simple, political reason: if he doesn’t, Labour will. Ever since the general election, there has been much discussion in left-wing circles about reconnecting with England. This began with David Miliband’s New Statesman article in July 2010, saying that ‘Labour needs a revived politics of Englishness rooted in a radical and democratic account of nationhood’, and it’s continued right through to last month’s IPPR report that investigated ‘England as an emerging political community,’ and which I’ve mentioned before. Given Labour’s current position, Ed Miliband would be foolish not to develop this as a theme of his own. David Cameron would be foolish not to pre-empt him.