Devolution or revolution? From the rise of the individual to the supremacy of the community

Abstract

The devolution of power to Scotland and Wales is no marginal adjustment. Not only has the relationship between Westminster and the periphery been redefined, but the 1998 Wales and Scotland Acts have also introduced a form of quasi-federalism into British government: Scotland and Wales now enjoy a large measure of legislative and financial autonomy. Not to mention the impact in the long run for England herself and, of course, the Union. It is however probable that devolution has had other implications for Britain as a polity to the extent that it actually amounts to a major U-turn in the way one approaches the questions of belonging, democratic rights and duties, national solidarity, i.e. the question of citizenship. The 1707 Union, on the one hand, has resulted in a formal equalizing of rights and duties; otherwise, naturally, England, Scotland and Wales would have remained three separate national entities. In other words, functionality, not nationality, has been given pride of place as a means of organizing society. Devolution, on the other hand, has introduced an altogether different paradigm. In the words of Welsh thinker John Osmond, ‘the politics of devolution are about the projection of community into the debate where formerly its reference points were confined merely to the state and the individual.’ As a matter of fact, power has, in some cases (education, health), been devolved on the basis of nationality as a carrier of rights. Answers to problems have therefore been clearly re-territorialized, i.e. naturalized, within the UK. Devolution is then a real revolution as it fundamentally alters a 300-year-old relationship between the individual and the central state in Britain, and challenges the notion of equal citizenship.