Scotland is not irrelevant.  But it soon might be

Simon Jenkins, writing in the Sunday Times echoes my belief that at this very moment the Union is fragmenting beneath our feet. This article is essential background for teachers and students on the impact of devolution

Continuing a theme that has been running through the Politics blog this week is another posting on the constitutional status of Scotland.

Jenkins writes that the first decade of the 18th century signalled the uniting of the United Kingdom, so the first decade of the 21st century signals its disuniting.

He goes on:

‘Under devolution, a new spirit of identity was emerging north of the border, into which Salmond and the SNP had tapped.

Politicians, the media, artists, professions, universities, festivals have been reinvigorated – and have become ever more Scottish.

Edinburgh has the unmistakable air of a national capital. Glasgow is a city transformed. Scotland manifests a mood common across Europe, the increasing assertiveness of sub-national territories.

In places this assertion has been bloodthirsty, notably in Northern Ireland, Spain and former Yugoslavia. It is marked elsewhere in regional movements in Italy and France and in the break-up of Czechoslovakia. In Britain devolution was long dismissed by London as a sop, a comforter to provincial egos bruised by the years of Thatcherism.

This was a serious misreading of public opinion. Devolution has become a process, not a sop.’

Read the full article here