Britain and Europe: Devolution and Foreign Policy
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Britain and Europe: devolution and foreign policy
KEITH ROBBINS
The outcome of the referendums held in Scotland and Wales in September has opened up the certainty of a far-reaching, even fundamental, change in the government of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, the turnout was . per cent.Three-quarters of those voting (. per cent) voted in favour of the Scottish parliament proposed by the government and . per cent were in favour of it having tax-raising powers.The proportion of the total Scottish elec- torate voting ‘yes’ exceeded the per cent hurdle which had applied in and had nullified the majority ( per cent of the electorate) in favour of the scheme which had then been before it. Moreover, in all local author- ity areas in Scotland voted strongly for the parliament and only two areas (at opposite ends of the country: Orkney, and Dumfries and Galloway) voted against tax-varying powers. In the capital, Edinburgh, per cent favoured the parliament which would be located there. In Wales, however, where the result was declared a week later, the picture was substantially different. While the four-to-one majority against devolution in was reversed, the outcome was on a knife-edge until the last moment.The majority was achieved by only . per cent. The turnout was only per cent. Only a quarter of the electorate therefore positively backed the proposals, and they were rejected in Cardiff, the capital city and future home of the assembly. In so far as ‘devolution’ has been given sufficient scrutiny, this has largely and understandably focused on domestic implications. Politicians and commenta- tors have paid attention to the powers and responsibilities to be devolved to the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly. Particular controversy surrounded the ‘tax-raising’ capacity of the Scottish parliament, made the subject of a sep- arate question in the referendum, though in the event there was not the sub- stantial variation in responses to the two questions that some observers had pre- dicted. There was some resentment among supporters of devolution in Wales that the assembly was to be inferior in its powers to the Scottish parliament,
For a historical account completed shortly before the referendums see V.Bogdanor, Devolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, ).
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though Plaid Cymru took the view that something was better than nothing. Most opponents either had a rooted objection to the notion of ‘devolution’ or felt that the role envisaged for the assembly did not merit the expense of its establishment. What has not received much attention, however, either during the course of the campaigns or in the accompanying literature, is the consequence of the outcome for the conduct of British foreign policy.It is to this aspect of the sub- ject that this article is devoted. It might be said that this lacuna is unsurprising since there is no problem to be discussed. In his preface to the White Paper Scotland’s parliament, the prime minister presented the proposals for Scotland as part of the government’s com- mitment to ‘modernize British politics’. It was right to decentralize power, open up government, reform parliament and increase individual rights. He described Scotland as ‘a proud historic nation in the United Kingdom’ and declared that it was within the United Kingdom that it would have ‘an excit- ing new role’. In his foreword, the Secretary of State for Scotland reiterated that the Scottish parliament would strengthen democratic control and make gov- ernment more accountable to the people of Scotland. Scotland, however, would remain ‘firmly part of the United Kingdom’ and Westminster would continue to be responsible for those areas of policy which were ‘best run’ on a United Kingdom basis. These included ‘foreign affairs, defence and national security and macro-economic and fiscal matters’. In his preface to the Welsh White Paper, A voice for Wales, the prime minister spoke in very similar terms about the government’s overall objectives.The assembly would be a new voice for Wales. It would enable many more matters that affected Wales to be decided in Wales. In his foreword, however, the Secretary of State for Wales did not find it perti- nent to make the explicit reference to the fact that ‘foreign affairs’ would remain ‘best run’ on a United Kingdom basis (though that is stated in section . of the White Paper itself). However, unlike Donald Dewar, Ron Davies did give the argument for the proposals a specifically ‘European’ flavour. An elect- ed assembly,it was claimed, would give Wales a voice ‘in Britain and in Europe’ after ‘years of neglect’. It would enable the people of Wales to make a new beginning ‘alongside other successful economic regions of Europe’. Such declaratory statements would appear to be clear enough. ‘British’ for- eign policy will continue as before.The responsibility for its formulation and execution will remain with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, together with the other Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) ministers. They will be advised by the FCO within Whitehall.
Scotland’s parliament, Cm (London: HMSO,), pp. v and vii. It is characteristic of the ambiguity which surrounds the question that while the prime minister had no difficulty in recognizing Scotland as ‘a historic nation’ within the United Kingdom,The Guardian ( September ) chose to make its banner headline above its front-page account of the referendum result in Scotland ‘The rebirth of a nation—or still a united kingdom?’ Endless legerdemain with words such as nation, state, self-govern- ment, independence was indeed characteristic of the media throughout this period, to an extent which might lead any political scientist to despair of ever achieving conceptual clarity. A voice for Wales, Cm , ,p..
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Ambassadors abroad will continue to represent the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and to be referred to, in shorthand form, as ‘British’ ambassadors. Other bodies, from the British Council to the Confederation of British Industry,will continue to speak in their different ways for Britain on the world stage.Yet,though it is still too early to speak with cer- tainty about the long-term implications of September , it is at least possi- ble to be sceptical about the extent to which it will altogether be ‘business as usual’ in the conduct of foreign policy.
*
The rationale for the foreign policy of British governments has naturally been supposed to be to discern, advance and defend ‘British interests’. There has always been dispute about what, in particulars, such interests may be held to be. In general, however, for most of this century, what ‘Britain’ itself is has not been contentious as far as foreign policy is concerned. The exception is the degree to which ‘Great Britain’ carried a responsibility for ‘Greater Britain’ of some kind, in the decades both before and before . It is arguable that there was an inherent tension in the demands placed upon foreign policy between those deriving from a view of Great Britain as primarily a European power and those driven by the assumptions of imperial/global power.This is not the place to examine what that meant in practice. It is sufficient to assert that in the world as it existed in at least the first half of the twentieth century ‘Britishness’ was bound up with the British empire in all its complexity. A sense of imperial mission may have been replaced, over time, by a sense of weariness, impatience and indifference—and of course there was no unifor- mity of sentiment on these matters—but, whatever particular individuals felt, there was a ‘British world’ stretching from Canada to Australia in which British politicians felt to a large extent ‘at home’. Different though ‘the Dominions’ were from ‘the mother country’, they were not ‘foreign’. Indeed, it has been noted, paradoxically, that it was in ‘the Dominions’ that Britishness flowered perhaps most fully.There, settlers from different parts of the United Kingdom mingled in the new colonies in a way that did not happen to the same degree in Britain itself. No doubt this was itself only a transient phase in their devel- opment, one that would give way,in time, before national sentiment, the asser- tion of indigenous peoples and ‘non-British’ immigration. However, we may broadly suggest that this ‘British world’ still persisted for a time after , though to a diminishing degree.
I have written elsewhere on aspects of these issues: Keith Robbins, The eclipse of a Great Power: modern Britain, ‒ (London, New York:Longman, ); History, religion and identity in modern Britain (London, Rio Grande: Hambledon, ); Great Britain: Institutions, identities and the idea of Britishness (London, New York:Addison Wesley Longman, );‘“Experiencing the foreign”: British foreign poli- cy makers and the delights of travel’, in M. Dockrill and B. McKercher, eds, Diplomacy and world power: studies in British foreign policy, – (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ). See also A. G. Hopkins, The future of the imperial past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).
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Such a ‘British world’, which has been no more than lightly sketched here, was of course a common enterprise of ‘the British people’. Its acquisition and defence was a ‘British’ achievement in which, in different ways and to different degrees, all had played their part. Domestically, two consequences can be dis- cerned, pointing, however, in opposite directions. On the one hand, the com- monality of the British empire strengthened ‘Britishness’ within Great Britain itself. It was Britannia that ruled the waves, no matter whether the sailors were Englishmen, Scotsmen or Welshmen.To draw attention to national differences within the United Kingdom itself could be presented almost as pedantry.It was not a climate in which talk of devolution was propitious. So long as the British empire continued, ‘Britishness’ would wax and ‘local differences’ wane. It was the British/imperial parliament which alone could discharge this external responsibility. Yet a quite opposite conclusion could be drawn: that this task could not be properly discharged because Westminster was too much occupied with domes- tic issues and could not give adequate attention to pressing imperial/external problems. It was a point of view which surfaced quite prominently in the decade before . It was only by devolution that the Westminster parliament could deal effectively with imperial/foreign policy. ‘Home rule all round’ allegedly also had the benefit of providing a solution to the ‘Irish problem’ because its implementation would remove Irish exceptionalism. Ireland and other parts of the United Kingdom (however they were identified) would all look after their own internal affairs. The benefit would be that Westminster could run foreign and defence policy properly. It would be the British Parliament which managed the British foreign policy. Indeed, to go further, Irish MPs would have become more willing to participate actively in ‘British’ foreign policy and feel they really shared in its formulation if Ireland ran its domestic affairs. Sir Edward Grey,for example, had no difficulty in recognizing the distinct national feeling that existed in the different parts of the United Kingdom.The management of the foreign policy of the British empire would not be jeopardized by comprehensive devolution. Such ideas failed for two fundamental reasons.The possibility of ‘Home rule’ did not solve the Irish question.Whether it could ever have done so is a question that moves into speculative terrain; but it was the supposition that it might do which had fuelled ‘Home rule all round’ for, although there was some support for home rule in both in Scotland and Wales it was not sufficient to make the issue of substantial political significance (for another half-century or so, as things turned out). Then there was the problem of England. To make a quasi-federal United Kingdom work, argued Winston Churchill (among others) at the time, England would also have to undergo devolution, involving perhaps half a dozen separate areas. There was some vigorous opposition to such a possibility. Scotland and Wales might have ‘home rule’ not because there was a specially compelling administrative case
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but because in some sense they constituted nations. But was not England a nation? It was repugnant to consider its virtual dismemberment by inventing ‘regions’. The details of these contemporary views need not concern us further. Devolution effectively disappeared for half a century or so as a significant issue in the politics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.The Irish Free State took its course away both from Great Britain and from the British empire/Commonwealth, culminating in the declaration of the Republic in and the departure from a Commonwealth which was losing its ‘British’ prefix more or less contemporaneously. After Dublin consciously and deliberately took steps in formulating a foreign policy for the new state to find a role in the League of Nations and elsewhere in order to escape from ‘Britishness’. Neutrality during the Second World War was a further symbol of the same intent. Devolution, how- ever, came unexpectedly to ‘Northern Ireland’—an outcome desired neither by advocates of Irish unity nor Ulster advocates of British–Irish unity.The government of Northern Ireland, however, expressing the wish of the majority in the ‘province’ to be ‘British’, had neither the desire nor the political muscle to use its domestic authority to develop an embryonic ‘Ulster’ foreign policy. It was conceivable, indeed, that there were matters on which there was an ‘all-Ireland’ interest over against a ‘British’ interest—but such an interest had no chance of political develop- ment.A devolved government in Belfast wanted simply to be British. Foreign pol- icy had no general significance so long as Belfast was able to keep the British gov- ernment on side in warding off efforts made by Dublin, in the United States or elsewhere, to undermine the legitimacy of Northern Ireland. Unionist MPs at Westminster, closely aligned though they then were to the British Conservative Party,were not likely to find themselves in ministerial positions in the foreign pol- icy/defence area. It was only a peer, the marquess of Londonderry,who can be said to have played a kind of dual role (though he was a rather English Ulsterman). It was entirely possible, therefore, in to see in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland a single country whose sense of national solidarity had been strengthened by the common experience of war, both at home and overseas. It was not necessary to burden the outside world with any analysis of what ‘Britain’ really was. British life and thought, a collection of book- lets published by the British Council in , found Lord Derby speaking admiringly of ‘the achievements of the British race’. It was a volume, however, in which writers attempted to convey only the essence of that part of the race constituted by ‘The Englishman’ (Earl Baldwin) and ‘The Englishwoman’ (Cicely Hamilton).The ‘Scotch’ were credited with ‘an intense belief in educa- tion’ but made no further appearance in the volume.The geographer Dudley
J. E. Kendle, Ireland and the federal solution: the debate over the United Kingdom constitution, – (Kingston, Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, ). Kendle’s recent Federal Britain: a history (London, New York:Routledge, ) provides a wide historical context. M. J. Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations (Shannon: Irish Academic Press, ).
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Stamp noted that strangers found it ‘difficult to understand the remarkable con- trasts...between England and Wales’, but British life and thought did not concern itself with such matters. Devolution, in such a climate, was scarcely at the top of the agenda of an incoming Labour government.To put it perhaps too simply, the thrust of the administration was towards national (i.e. British) provision.The disparities and inequalities within and between different parts of Great Britain were to be evened out.The Health Service would be ‘National’ (British) and industry was to be ‘nationalized’ in the interests, it was supposed, of the British nation. Arguably, under Tom Johnston, the Scottish Office had a freer hand while Churchill, as prime minister, got on with ‘winning the war’ than it had from Westminster thereafter. Influential non-English voices in the Labour Party, not least Aneurin Bevan, framed their politics in the interests of a working class which was pan-British.This was not the moment to be debating separate paths to socialism within the United Kingdom.The Conservative opposition, weak in Wales though still strong in Scotland, had no interest in (because it had no realistic prospect of) creating a non-socialist and devolved ‘Celtic fringe’. Britain, therefore, as an integrated and centralized polity, seemed settled, despite some surfacing of calls for ‘parliaments’ in Scotland and Wales. In these circumstances, Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison, both very much Englishmen in their different ways, both representing London constituencies, cannot be said to have felt any embarrassment in delivering ‘British foreign pol- icy’ or to have felt any necessity to unpack its ‘Britishness’. A strong sense of insular compactness and secure identity (at least as perceived from the English location of Whitehall/Westminster) set the postwar parameters for British European policy.There was no more attraction in ‘federal Britain’ than in ‘fed- eral Europe’. Churchill’s years as a Dundee MP had left him with no expansive sense of Britishness, and his successor as Conservative leader, Anthony Eden, was as English in his own way as Bevin and Morrison, albeit from a very dif- ferent social and cultural milieu. Early in Eden’s career he had formed a settled opinion: ‘I do not like the Welsh. Under-sized little humbugs with radical instincts.’ The idea that a British foreign policy required a truly British dimen- sion would scarcely have occurred to him. In the interwar period as a whole, in a legacy that lingered, Foreign Office experience of one such under-sized little humbug (David Lloyd George) suggested that, if possible, British foreign policy was best left in the hands of Englishmen. It is not possible to date precisely when attitudes and assumptions began to change. However, a quarter of a century or so after the end of the Second World War, the emergence of the Scottish National Party in Scotland and Plaid
British life and thought (London: Longmans Green for the British Council, ), pp. vi, , . Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Macmillan, ), p. . Keith Robbins, Britishness and British foreign policy, the FCO Annual Lecture (London: Foreign and Commonwealth Office, ).
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Cymru in Wales as significant, though localized, political factors began to alter the climate.To pick on one single explanation for these developments would be misleading. In the s, in a gathering sense of socio-economic crisis, con- fidence in those myths which had so sustained ‘Great Britain’ in the recent past ebbed away. If indeed Britain was not working, one reason might be that it was structurally malformed. In various quarters there was talk of ‘the break-up of Britain’. More or less simultaneously, too, the ‘Irish question’ entered a new phase.The devolved parliament in Belfast came to an end and was replaced by ‘direct rule’. Issues of identity and allegiance, of the compatibility or incom- patibility of ‘Britishness’ and ‘Irishness’, again came to the fore and issued in protracted violence. It was evident also that ‘Greater Britain’, for so long con- ceived as the projection overseas of ‘the British race’, was very largely a thing of the past. In so far as ‘the British empire’ and ‘Great Britain’ were mutually reinforcing notions, the disappearance of the one destabilized the other. Developments in ‘Europe’ leading up to and beyond the Treaty of Rome, pre- sented ‘British foreign policy’ with its greatest postwar challenge.The ample lit- erature on this matter makes it unnecessary to discuss the remorselessly repet- itive debates in detail.As commentators and politicians debated whether Britain should become ‘a member of the Common Market’ or ‘join Europe’ it became steadily (though in many quarters unwelcomely) apparent that ‘Britain’ was becoming as problematic as ‘Europe’ had always been. Although Britain did become a member of the European Economic Community, deeper issues of identity were left unresolved.The domestic British aspect of the question appeared to peter out when the Labour government’s pro- posals for Scotland and Wales failed in the referendums and the Labour gov- ernment itself came to an end.The proposals for Welsh devolution were decisively rejected by the Welsh electorate, in such a manner that commentators sometimes supposed that the prospect would never return. In Scotland, however, that majority of those who voted which had supported the proposals felt frustrated by the outcome and was determined that the opportunity would come again. In , however, no one could know that a long period of Conservative gov- ernment was beginning, headed by a prime minister who had set her face against the ‘balkanization of Britain’ and jettisoned an earlier Conservative will- ingness to contemplate some form of Scottish devolution. It was no accident that hostility to devolution was paralleled by a foreign policy which had as its underlying motto the assertion of ‘Britishness’ globally and in particular with reference to Europe. It was, however, a Britishness asserted by a prime minister who was herself emphatically English. Gone were the days, a decade earlier, when British foreign policy had been directed by an Anglo-Scottish aristocratic ex- prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who sat once more, as he had done in his youth, for a Scottish constituency.The s and s witnessed the erosion, with fluctuations, in the parliamentary strength of the governing party in both Scotland and Wales. In the Conservatives held seats (out of ) in Wales and (out of ) in Scotland. In they were wiped out completely in both countries and in the interval had remained a diminishing minority.
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It was in these circumstances that an English Conservative-dominated United Kingdom government conducted ‘British’ foreign policy. The Foreign Secretaries of this period, with the exception of the final one, (Sir) Malcolm Rifkind, all sat in the Lords or represented (southern) English constituencies, although Sir Geoffrey Howe was an English-educated Welshman. It is not therefore surprising, despite what we may infer to be greater personal subtlety on the part of Howe and Hurd in particular, that it was an English audience that British Foreign Secretaries had overwhelmingly to take account of in for- mulating foreign policy—and European policy specifically. It may be, too, that the European policy of Rifkind had to be moulded more by English concerns than by those of his Edinburgh constituents. He lost his seat in . Of course, it is a generalization, but broadly persuasive, to divide the United Kingdom in such a fashion that England can be portrayed during this period as hostile to ‘European integration’ in contrast to its other constituent parts.The majority community in Northern Ireland has tended to see ‘European integra- tion’ as a threat to a prized ‘Britishness’.At different moments, both the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru have shown a certain ambivalence before lat- terly seeing both Scotland and Wales as ‘nations in Europe’.A willingness to live with this concept, indeed to relish it, may be explained by the extent to which for most people living in Scotland and Wales (to different degrees and in dif- ferent contexts) a duality of identity is inbuilt, if sometimes uncomfortable and spurned. It comes from a context of centuries of assimilation/absorption/ accommodation/participation in an inevitably English-dominated British state. ‘Getting the best of both worlds’ is a familiar pattern outside England which has not been replicated in the English experience.The notion of England as a ‘nation in Europe’ has most often been approached politically in England in terms of ‘either/or’ rather than ‘both/and’. At issue, here, has been the meaning to be attached to the word ‘independence’. For some elements, ‘independence in Europe’ might in practice allow no more scope for ‘self-government’ than an existing ‘dependence in Britain’. Others, however, have envisaged a kind of seamless web of governmental structures evolving from Wales/Scotland through a (rather different) Britain to ‘Europe’ with all having their appropriate levels of decision-making: no country, Scotland or Wales or Britain, can or should be ‘independent’. It is uncertainty in this area which perhaps characterizes the ‘British question’ after the referendums with a Labour government in power. The referendum outcome in Scotland has been followed by the assertion from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties that the United Kingdom has been strengthened and by claims (from opposite perspec- tives) by both the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Conservatives that a major step towards inevitable subsequent ‘independence’ has in fact been taken. In Wales, ambiguity about just what was being attempted may explain both the low turnout and the narrow margin of victory. It is against this background that British foreign policy in late needs to be revisited.There are, we might say, both incidental and fundamental aspects
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of the present situation. We might list as ‘incidental’ the following. There is a United Kingdom government in power which has more seats (leaving Northern Ireland aside) than its opponents in all the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. It is, therefore, in a position to deliver a British (rather than English) foreign policy (in the sense that it can claim to embody,in some sense, the collective aspirations of Britain as a whole) in a way that was not the case between and . Of course, the translation of such a general statement into some kind of reality is another matter, as will become evident in what fol- lows. It is, however, no longer a theoretical impossibility. For the moment, it is incidental that in the Labour government the Foreign Secretary is a Scot who sits at Westminster for a Scottish constituency (as do his other senior colleagues, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Defence Secretary).Whereas Rifkind was one of a small band of Scottish Conservatives, Cook is one of a large band of Scottish Labour MPs. It so happens, therefore, that this potent trio, where European policy is concerned, are all Scots. It must be stressed that they do not hold their offices because they are Scots, though it may be noted that their position of eminence in the Labour Party is in part at least a reflection of the relative weakness of the English Labour Party at Westminster after . If they were to continue in their offices in a United Kingdom which was not undergoing devolution perhaps no issue would arise.The Labour Party is a British party. As has already been mentioned, it has a majority throughout Britain. How a Cabinet is composed is therefore, we may suppose, simply a mat- ter for the prime minister on the basis of individual quality.‘Territoriality’ is not a relevant consideration. Scottish prominence, on this account, is fortuitous and beyond reproach.What is being delivered is British policy by Scots and that fact makes no difference to its formulation or execution.We might add that the fact of their Scottishness—in the case of Mr Cook and Mr Brown—by no means entails complete concurrence on European policy. However, if we look into the future, to the time when the Scottish parlia- ment becomes operational, and if we assume for the moment that the above- mentioned trio remain in office, a new and unprecedented scenario arises.They will be members of a United Kingdom cabinet sitting in a United Kingdom parliament, but will be shorn of a personal role in that large range of domestic Scottish matters which will be the business of the Scottish parliament.Attempts may be made to limit or even exclude Scottish MPs from voting on English domestic matters at Westminster. If that were to happen, ipso facto Scottish MPs at Westminster, whatever their ultimate number, would be primarily, if not exclusively, there to attend to matters which are ‘best run’ on a United Kingdom basis: that is to say,foreign, defence and macroeconomic policy.Given the fact, one supposes, that they will be largely if not completely cut off from attending to the domestic matters which, one might also suppose, have in the past been what has chiefly featured in their relations with their constituents, Scottish MPs may willy-nilly constitute a corps of foreign policy/defence spe- cialists capable of wielding an influence beyond their numbers on the forma-
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tion and execution of foreign policy. English MPs will have many more things on their minds and this may be a source of resentment. What needs further to be considered, though it can only be speculated upon, is the extent to which, de facto if not de jure, the Scottish parliament will begin to evolve something akin to a ‘Scottish’ foreign policy—primarily, of course, in the context of the European Union. SNP spokespersons have long spoken with envy of the role played by Ireland or Denmark, as independent states, in the European Union.That aspiration will not disappear.The White Paper, con- scious of the importance of the matter, devoted an entire chapter to ‘Relations with the European Union’ and has attempted a delicate balancing act. ‘Relations with Europe’, it declares, ‘are the responsibility of the United Kingdom Parliament and Government.’ Nevertheless, the Scottish parliament and executive would have ‘an important role’ in those aspects of European Union business which affected ‘devolved areas’. It is stated that UK departments would ‘necessarily’ take the lead role in EU matters and Scotland would con- tinue to benefit from the fact that the UK was a major member state. However, since EU policies and legislation would have a considerable effect on many of the matters for which the Scottish parliament would be responsible, the UK government will wish to involve the Scottish executive ‘as directly and as fully as possible’ in the government’s decision-making on EU matters.The chapter then goes on to sketch ways in which it is hoped to accomplish this involve- ment. It might be that Scottish executive ministers could speak for the UK in European ministerial councils. Scottish ministers and officials, however, would be expected to support and advance the single UK negotiating line which they will have played a part in developing. Of course, this issue is not virgin territory as things stand now; but the for- mation of the Scottish parliament and executive, one suspects, is bound to increase the already existing pressure for ‘direct representation’ in Brussels.The White Paper notes that it is the norm for regional governments within the EU to have representative offices in Brussels, and states that the Scottish executive ‘may well consider’ that such an office would assist Scotland’s direct relationships with regional governments and with institutions in Brussels. It is sternly stated, however, that such an office should not ‘cut across’ the work of UKREP which would remain responsible for representing UK views to the European institu- tions.The chapter concludes by stating that the UK government would seek the ‘closest possible working relationships and involvement’ with the Scottish exec- utive. It adds, however, that provided the Scottish executive was willing to work in a spirit of ‘collaboration and trust’ there would be an integrated process. Scotland, within the UK, could develop its role in the European Union. Since these arrangements are not yet operative, it is not possible to say whether ‘collaboration and trust’ will be forthcoming. If they are, one might say
Scotland’s parliament,pp.–.
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that British European policy will become more truly British than it has been hitherto, though by the same token that might make it less palatable to the English majority in a UK parliament. It is quite possible, however, to envisage alternative scenarios. However Scotland is represented directly in Brussels, it is both like and unlike ‘regional governments within the EU’. Scotland is not a German Land. It is a nation. It has in the past been an independent state. Control of its domestic affairs, as already indicated, may lead to a demand for control of its foreign affairs—at least in the context of a European Union where the boundary between foreign and domestic can be clearly drawn only with increasing difficulty. And, before ‘independence’ is reached, if it ever is, there may be a period of increasing disputation between the Scottish executive and UK departments on EU matters. Pari passu, the same fundamental question is relevant to Wales, even allowing for the different responsibilities and powers of the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly.The Welsh White Paper addresses the question in a similar vein. The UK minister would remain responsible for coordinating and settling the UK policy line in negotiations, but the Secretary of State for Wales would be able to participate in relevant meetings of the Council of Ministers. On those issues for which it had responsibility,however, the assembly could make its own judgements on the issues and communicate these effectively to Whitehall.The assembly will be able to decide the form of its own presence in Brussels. It will take over from the Welsh Office functions relating to European structural funds. ‘Foreign policy’, it is stated, will remain the responsibility of the UK govern- ment, but there will be a need for the assembly to be ‘involved as closely as pos- sible in developing UK policy on European matters’. However, it is far from clear what that will mean in practice, and the language is far more vague than in the Scottish context. As in Scotland, of course, this is territory that has been tramped over before. The Welsh Select Committee published a report on Wales in Europe in October which surveyed relationships in general. More recently, the Institute of Welsh Affairs published Wales in Europe: the opportunity presented by a Welsh assem- bly, which put forward a wide range of suggestions. One of the authors was a former British ambassador. In its cautionary conclusion it counselled against superficially radical solutions if they were not acceptable in London, Brussels or elsewhere in the EU. If there was deep-rooted opposition, reforming zeal should be ‘throttled back’ in favour of compromise.This represented a recognition that, without support from partners elsewhere in the UK and in the EU,Wales would be able to achieve very little on its own. It remains to be seen just how struc- tures will evolve, but it is likely that there will be fresh or deepened channels whereby influence can be brought to bear on British foreign policy.
A voice for Wales,pp.–. Sir John Gray and John Osmond, Wales in Europe: the opportunity presented by a Welsh assembly (Cardiff: Institute of Welsh Affairs/Welsh Centre for International Affairs, ), p. .
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Keith Robbins
The language of the documents quoted here is, as has been noted above, opti- mistic.The devolution that is being implemented in Scotland and Wales is at least presented as stemming from a central conviction of the UK Labour government. It is not, as was the case previously,being prised out of the Westminster adminis- tration by fear that separatist sentiment would otherwise become unstoppable.To that degree, while ‘collaboration and trust’ may not be quite as overflowing as the documents anticipate, the process which has been outlined may have a fair wind. Both in the Scottish parliament and in the Welsh assembly, the present UK gov- ernment will, in all probability, find its own party in charge if not totally domi- nant. It seems inevitable that at the beginning of the new millennium the process of foreign policy will be more complex (again thinking in a European context); but by the same token the resulting foreign/domestic policy may be one with which all the peoples of Britain will feel more comfortable. The change, however, is fundamental.The incidentals referred to earlier could alter very significantly.The future return of a United Kingdom Conservative government with a majority only in England could herald sharp conflict. Recent history suggests that a Conservative majority in the Scottish parliament or Welsh assembly is virtually inconceivable. Conservative hostility to devolu- tion in Scotland and Wales has not yet abated, though reversal of devolution against the wishes of Scotland and Wales is also virtually inconceivable. At the same time, under the leadership of William Hague, the party firmly sets itself against anything which in his view jeopardizes the British nation-state. He does not want ‘them’ to take it away from ‘us’. Yet at present, in Westminster par- liamentary terms, it is paradoxically only in England that the Conservative vision of the ‘British nation-state’ finds any purchase. The Labour government has also yet to find a way of tackling the government of England in the new constitutional context. To find a way of ‘regionalizing’ England may prove as difficult in the late s as it was in the decade before . Some columnists hostile to the idea have indeed concluded that the Welsh result has been historic for the United Kingdom as a whole.‘The Welsh vote’, Lord Rees-Mogg concluded,‘makes it much harder, if not impossible, to break up England into regional assemblies. If an assembly cannot win a reasonable majority in Wales,which is a nation, nobody can rely on winning a majority in the East or West Midlands,which are certainly not nations.’English nationalism, he opined, could not be destroyed in favour of a new European patriotism. Indeed, a criticism of the whole process thus far might be its ‘bitty’ character or, to use more elevated language, its British pragmatism.The ‘British race’, if it exists, has not had an opportunity as a whole to take stock of the raft of inter-
The Daily Telegraph, October . Even The Times, in a leader of September , had noted dur- ing the Scottish campaign that ‘The party of subsidiarity within the European Union has not well explained why the principle should not be applied within Britain.’ William Rees-Mogg, The Times September .The Independent in its leader of September con- cluded that ‘English regionhood’ was a false trail:‘the truth is that directly-elected mayors for big cities would be more relevant to most people’s lives than a layer of regional government’.
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Britain and Europe: devolution and foreign policy
locking developments and offer a verdict on the Britain that is emerging. According to a MORI poll in The Times on August , nearly half of the English public would have liked the chance to vote on the Scottish and Welsh proposals, arguing that the outcome would affect them too. In this sense, per- haps Britain has already ceased to exist in the form which would have been recognizable in . In the light of what has been said in this article, let us conclude by posing one possibly destabilizing but not altogether far-fetched scenario in present cir- cumstances. The United Kingdom government, perhaps prodded by a Chancellor who is a Scot against the advice of a Foreign Secretary who is a Scot, decides that it is in the ‘British interests’ to join a single European cur- rency and to do so at what may now (October ) be thought a surprising- ly early juncture.The recommendation of parliament is put to the people of the United Kingdom in a referendum.The English-dominated Conservative Party campaigns vigorously against the proposal and is successful. Against the advice of the UK government, the ‘British people’, it becomes clear, do not wish to lose the pound. In Scotland, however, and possibly in Wales, there is a clear majority in support—as much on political grounds as on economic grounds. The UK majority against the proposal therefore comes from England, supple- mented probably by Northern Ireland.Were this situation to arise, how would foreign policy in a devolved Britain then be shaped? Could it be claimed, one way or the other, that it was British?
Further reading on the substance of this article can be found in Martin Kolinsky, ed., Divided loyalties: British regional assertion and European integration (Manchester: Manchester University Press, ); Barry Jones and Michael Keating, eds, The European Union and the regions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ); Roger Brubaker, Nationalism reframed: nationhood and the national question in the new Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ); Ian Budge and Kenneth Newton, The politics of the new Europe (London:Addison Wesley Longman, ); Lord Beloff, Britain and European Union: dialogue of the deaf (London: Macmillan, ); J. Redwood, Our currency, our country (Harmondsworth: Penguin, ).