There are historical precedents for the abolition of legislative devolution (devolved legislatures such as Holyrood, Stormont and the Welsh ‘parliament’) when it has been proven to be a failure.

The Parliament of Northern Ireland (like its current incarnation, also based at Stormont) was created by the ‘Government of Ireland Act’ of 1920 and sat from 7th June 1921 to 30th March 1972, after which it was suspended due to its inability to restore order during The Troubles which broke out in the late 1960s and so was abolished under the ‘Northern Ireland Constitution Act’ of 1973. It was replaced by direct rule from Westminster.

The short-lived Sunningdale Agreement assembly of Northern Ireland met for the first time on 31st July 1973. Following the Sunningdale Agreement, a power-sharing executive was established from 1st January 1974. It collapsed on 28th May of the same year, having achieved virtually nothing. From the beginning, the assembly was beset with difficulties from all sides, Unionist, and nationalist [separatist]. It had solved very little and clearly had no future. Continuing with it was transparently manifestly pointless, so it was abolished.

The Northern Ireland Assembly was set up in 1982 and was an unsuccessful attempt to restore the devolution to Ulster that the Sunningdale Agreement had attempted to set up, which had been suspended 10 years previously. Like its predecessor, the assembly was also beset by difficulties of various kinds, never achieved a properly functional status and so was abolished in 1986.

Devolution: Lessons Learned from Northern Ireland

Lessons can be learned from these failed earlier attempts at legislative devolution in Ulster and applied to the current constitutional crisis created by Tony Blair’s clearly disastrous legislative devolution ‘settlement’ of the late 1990s in Scotland, Ulster, and Wales.

The evidence is conclusive and mounts up every day-the current legislative devolution arrangements have failed miserably and needs to be abolished.

At its inception nearly 30 years ago, the proponents of legislative devolution (setting up devolved legislatures with the power to enact primary legislation, e.g. Holyrood, Stormont and the Welsh ‘parliament’) vehemently insisted that it posed ‘no threat whatsoever’ to the integrity of the Union as there was absolutely ‘no way’ that it could be used to break up the UK. Indeed, Labour politician George Robertson even claimed it would ‘kill off [anti-UK] nationalism [read ‘separatism’] forever’. They equally vehemently insisted time and time again that it would be the ‘thing that saved the United Kingdom from [anti-UK] nationalism [read ‘separatism’] and from being broken up’.

History has proved them wrong, time, and time again. In reality, legislative devolution has had the diametrically opposite effect to that set out by its originators. It has enabled anti-UK separatism, especially the SNP in Scotland, but also IRA-Sinn Fein in Ulster, to rise to political dominance (or given them much more prominence in the case of Plaid in Wales) displacing pro-Union parties and allowed it to use its devolved legislature as a platform to advance its separatist agenda, so putting the UK in obvious clear and present danger of being forced apart, against the will of the majority of the public as shown in most opinion polls on separation. This culminated in the SNP managing to push David Cameron into holding a referendum on ‘independence’ in 2014 when support for it varied between just 25%-28%, very obviously a real and severe threat to the Union.

This has undeniably been the case in SNP-dominated Scotland, where that party has very aggressively ignored any reserved remit which states that matters like the Constitution (’independence’) and international trade/relations (which covers Brexit) are reserved for Westminster’s consideration only.

‘Domino Effect’ on Other Parts of the UK

It’s equally true that anti-UK separatists elsewhere in the UK (the Irish separatists and Plaid in Wales) do this, as both have become increasingly emboldened by the SNP’s antics (in a knock on ‘Domino Effect’) to become more actively bellicose in demanding the separation of their part of the UK from the rest of the country.

Indeed, Plaid have publicly stated that they will ask for an ‘independence’ referendum if Scotland asks for a second one and the Irish separatists (IRA-Sinn Fein) have made one public call after another for a referendum on separating Ulster from the rest of the UK since they captured the First Minister position at Stormont.

All the devolved legislatures have also interfered in Brexit, another supposedly reserved matter. Time and time again, they’ve tried to change the UK’s policy on Brexit, despite having no authority to do so under the devolution ‘settlement‘ (a misnomer as it’s actually led to division in the societies of the devolved parts of the UK, especially Scotland) or mandate to do so as it was a UK wide vote that favoured leaving the EU and more Scots voted for Brexit than for the SNP at the 2016 Holyrood election.

The UK: 4 Competing Quarrelling Statelets?

This glut of interference by the various anti-UK separatists has culminated in a severe constitutional crisis as anti-UK separatists have forced the UK into a dysfunctional state of being a set of 4 competing quarrelling statelets with no co-ordination that is drifting slowly apart, putting the Union into more and more danger of splitting up.

Save the Union? Kill (anti-UK) nationalism [separatism] off forever? Legislative devolution has had a diametrically opposed effect to this. It has been the agent of the decline and near-collapse of the UK, and a very powerful tool for anti-UK separatism to utilize in its efforts to break the Union and destroy the UK. No amount of tinkering with Blair’s legislative devolution ‘settlement’ will correct these fatal intrinsic flaws (they’ve been trying to fix it for nearly 3 decades now and failed, as it’s incapable of repair).

There are clear historical precedents for solving this crisis. It’s manifestly clear that the only viable solution is to get rid of the mechanism that enables anti-UK separatism to cause this crisis-legislative devolution, Holyrood, Stormont and the Welsh ‘parliament’.

(Does not represent the view of Scotland Matters)