In my previous entry, I discussed the three main issues that have guided constitutional development in the United Kingdom. In this entry, I will discuss the nature of the UK state. In third and final installment, I will discuss the impact of decentralization on the UK state and the constituent regions.
The UK is often said to be a “unitary” state. In political theory this generally means it is not a “federal” state. A federal state is one in which sovereignty is shared between the federal authority and its federated constituents. For example, the US is a federal state: sovereignty is shared between the federal government in Washington DC and the governments of the federated states. In a unitary state, sovereignty is held only by the central authority; any power exercised by other entities is merely delegated authority, and not sovereign action.
This distinction has been relatively unproblematic as a general descriptive term, but as an analytical term it presents a number of difficulties. Regarding the UK, the main objection is the “cobbled together” nature of the British state; a second significant objection is the ethnocentric bias attached to the notion of “unitariness.”
Elizabeth Wicks, in her book The Evolution of a Constitution, argues persuasively that it is better to think of the UK as a union state, that is, as a state founded on unions between England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These unions are reflected in the UK’s very name: historically this was the United Kingdom of great Britain and Ireland; currently, the UK’s formal name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The change was legislated in the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act of 1927, which revised the name to reflect the separation of the Irish Free State in 1922. Each of these national-territorial terms has a unique history within the historical political arrangement of the UK and their relationships highlight the union nature of the UK state.
In the first instance, England itself evolved into a state, a development usually cited as having occurred in the tenth century. This resulted largely from the expansion of Wessex, the Kingdom of the West Saxons. This expansion and consolidation of power is generally linked to Alfred the Great (849-899) and his successors, Edward the Elder (899-924) and Athelstan (924-939). There is a long and complex history of political development of the English state; the important point here is that it was Athelstan who first ruled a unified England, a country shaped out of the conquests and mergers of neighboring kingdoms.
During the reign of Edward I (“Longshanks,” 1272-1307), Wales was conquered and annexed to England. Henry VIII (1509-1547) made this a de jure reality in two Acts in 1536 and 1542. The Acts ensured, in the first case, that “laws and justice” would be “ministered in like form” in England and Wales; and, in the second case, the administration of Wales as a principality of the King’s dominions. These two Acts constitute the formal union of Wales with England. In many ways, this union has been the most stable, and has shaped the nature of Welsh identity and political demands in distinct ways.
This history contrasts with that of Scotland, which was never militarily conquered by England. The nature of the relationship between England (and Wales) and Scotland is one of treaty and royal union. This relationship was negotiated and formalized in 1707 with the Act of Union, in which Scotland obtained a number of very important concessions, including the establishment of the Scottish Church (Presbyterian) and Scottish law (which shares closer kinship with Continental European civil law than with the Common Law). Both of these differ in important ways from the English Church and the Common Law, and have been important to the development and distinguishment of Scottish nationalism and identity, and therefore of the nature of political demands in Scotland, as well as the particular form decentralization that has developed there. The union of England and Wales with Scotland constituted the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The final “union” basis of the UK was enacted in 1800 with the Act of Union (Ireland). This union created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The history of the relations of Great Britain and Ireland is tumultuous and bloody. Direct rule in Ireland ended in 1921, with the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the creation of the Irish Free State, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. Six counties in the north of Ireland opted not to join the Irish Free State, and instead secured a version of “home rule” enacted in the Government of Ireland Act, in 1920. As noted above, the formal name of the UK was changed to reflect the new circumstances in 1927. The Republic of Ireland severed ties with the UK and achieved full independence in 1949.
The complexity of the unions, the particularities associated with each set of political and territorial relations, and the constitutional implications of each union make a compelling case for considering the UK a “union state,” rather than a “unitary state.” In addition, the notion of the unitary state in the UK is closely linked with English ethnic identity, and so there is a danger in thinking of the UK as (primarily) English. This ethnic bias in the descriptor has two disadvantages: it obscures the political and negotiated nature of the UK and the work involved in achieving centralization and administrative rule; and it sublimates cultural, ethnic, and national identities within the UK to a hegemonic sense of “Englishness” that doesn’t obtain in reality. It also creates the effect of “ethnicizing” the political demands that have been claimed and realized in the processes of decentralization.
In my next entry, the third of this trio of entries on decentralization in the UK, I will discuss the regional, national, and cultural distinctions that characterize decentralization and devolution.
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