Henry Hill

The problem with ‘Devo-max’

(Getty images)

A common failing of pro-Union politicians down the years has been the stubborn belief that there exists somewhere a tidy ‘solution’ to the problem of separatist nationalism. With new polling showing that ‘devo-max’ would comfortably win a three-way referendum, it appears to be silly season once again.

The history of unionism’s efforts to engineer decisive solutions to the challenges of separatism is an unhappy one. Devolution was meant to be it, after all. As Labour’s manifesto said in 1997: 

‘A sovereign Westminster Parliament will devolve power to Scotland and Wales. The Union will be strengthened and the threat of separatism removed.’

Talk about ‘not understanding how the United Kingdom works’.

Obviously, that isn’t how it played out. So the same grand promises have been made of every subsequent tranche of concessions. It was used to justify David Cameron’s policy of giving tons of ground to Alex Salmond during the negotiations on the terms of the 2014 referendum. Then it was used to justify the cowardly and counter-productive ‘Vow’.

Since all of these have failed, the same hopes are pinned to even more outlandish schemes – such as the idea of trying to wriggle out of an independence vote by offering ‘devo-max’ instead. This is an ill-defined ‘middle way’ between Union and independence. It probably owes its position in the polls to the fact nobody really knows what it means.

Broadly speaking, the idea is that the end state for the Union should be with the Scottish Government discharging nearly all domestic functions with the help of UK fiscal transfers. This would leave a hollow shell of a state, where the central government does very little of anything that affects voters’ day-to-day lives.

Devo-max is usually trotted out by people like Gordon Brown, who need a way of acknowledging that their one big idea, devolution, manifestly hasn’t worked, without conceding that its underlying logic was wrong.

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