The administration of John Major (1990-1997), which came into office after the collapse of the last Thatcher government, can hardly be credited with many successes. There was one reform he introduced however that was very successful and is actually a good example and template for how those who want to maintain the Union of today can sort out the mess left by Tony Blair’s disastrous constitutional ‘settlement’ that has led to the current ongoing constitutional crisis which presents a clear and present danger to the existence of the UK as a nation.
His government introduced and rolled out a decentralisation programme by introducing an administrative devolution policy. Under this system, powers that were relevant to the running of the constituent parts of the UK were devolved to local councils. Any matter that was applicable to the UK as a whole remained under the remit of the House of Commons.
Administrative devolution within an incorporating union offers a viable alternative to the current legislative devolutionary system. It poses no threat to the integrity of a unitary (single-nation) United Kingdom. It does not devolve any legislative power (i.e. legislative authority) to the constituent parts of the United Kingdom or require the setting up of elected political structures such as devolved legislatures (parliaments or assemblies).
Furthermore, it delegates decision-making (i.e. administrative) authority to official organisations (like the Scottish, Welsh and NI Offices) local government (such as councils) or individuals (such as the Secretaries of State for Scotland, Wales and NI). Moreover, it is fair, organizationally efficient, and generally tends to cost less than the legislative variant. Thus, in this way, administrative devolution has the great advantage over the current legislative variety that it spreads decision-making out to the local parts of the UK and away from the centre. It enables local people, who know what’s best for their locale, to make decisions rather than the centralising tendency of legislative devolution that tends to take power and decision-making away from local people thus putting it in the hands of faraway central government, like Holyrood, that neither knows nor cares about local issues.
Administrative devolution is the establishment of Government Offices for the Regions, or, pre-1999, the practice of transferring responsibilities from central government departments to territorial departments and their Ministers (i.e. Secretary of State for Scotland etc) of the same Government. It is a form of administrative decentralisation.
This process of gradually decentralising power away from Westminster out to organisations and individuals (like the Secretaries (of State) and Offices for the various parts of the Union) to the constituent parts of the UK has been going on since the beginning of the Union (with Scotland) in 1707. The post was first created after the Acts of Union with Scotland in 1707. It was abolished in 1746, following the Jacobite rising of 1745. Scottish matters thereafter were managed by the Lord Advocate until 1827, when responsibility passed to the Home Office. In 1885 the post of Secretary for Scotland was re-created, with the incumbent usually a member of the Cabinet. In 1926 this post was upgraded to a full Secretary of State appointment.
Administrative devolution in Wales refers to the period beginning in the late 19th Century and culminating in the creation of the Secretary of State for Wales and the Welsh Office in 1964, during which certain administrative functions of the UK Government were transferred to Wales. This phase saw significant decision-making on how Wales was run increasingly made by Welsh institutions and individuals although these decisions were still taken on behalf of the UK Government, which retained ultimate control. The Council for Wales and Monmouthshire was established in 1949 to advise the UK Government on Welsh matters, and the post of Minister of Welsh Affairs was created in 1951, marking early steps in this process. The most significant development was the establishment of the Secretary of State for Wales as a member of the UK Cabinet and the creation of the Welsh Office in 1964, which formalised this administrative transfer
The reason for Major carrying out his administrative devolution policy was that there had been several loud and repeated criticisms from various sources that the UK was an over-centralised state and there was a feeling that local identity was suffering as a result. Some people felt that faraway London wasn’t particularly good at knowing what was best for their region of the UK. Whilst it wasn’t the case that these calls had become so loud that they couldn’t be ignored, Major’s administration was in something of a quagmire as it was riven with rifts over issues such as Europe (this was the age of the Maastricht Treaty and the Conservative Party was sharply divided between Pro-UK and Europhile factions). Major introduced this policy in an attempt to bolster his administration’s popularity, which by this time was falling more and more every day.
Unfortunately, for Major, it did little to bolster his government’s popularity ratings. However, in terms of the UK constitution, it was a tremendous success. This type of devolution (administrative rather than legislative) has two major benefits that greatly enhance the UK’s political make-up.
First, it has the obvious advantage that it answers the criticisms that the UK is an over-centralised state. The number of powers that were devolved to local councils was quite substantial and resulted in a very significant increase in local control over their affairs. The Commons was no longer seen as a controlling, all-powerful big brother type of institution (quite so much, anyway). This increased the public’s positivity towards British democracy and went some way towards revivifying the UK public’s belief and interest in democracy, which had taken something of a nosedive in the preceding few years.
Second, it also bolstered the sense of local identity, without endangering the unitary nature of the UK. This is an extremely important point to emphasise. There is a great inherent danger in ill-conceived constitutional reform that it can over-emphasise local over national identity, resulting in a growing feeling in the regions of a unitary state that they are different from the rest of the country, even though that isn’t the case. These false feelings of separateness can then be manipulated and magnified by the synthetic grievances of modern aggressive anti-UK separatism (those who want to break up the UK, such as the SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales and IRA/Sinn Fein in Ulster) into forcing that region to break away from the unitary state and become separate from the rest of the UK, despite the lack of support for this amongst the population. Administrative devolution avoids this trap neatly as it gives separatism no platform on which it can attempt to play its separatist games.
The biggest drawback to the legislative variety of devolution is that it enables modern aggressive anti-UK separatism to rise to power and provides it with a platform to push its agenda. It does this by setting up a ‘national’ parliament, or assembly, that has the power to initiate primary legislation. Consequently, separatism is given the ability to get into power in the devolved institution and begin campaigning for separation referenda. This has clearly been the case in Scotland today after the introduction of legislative devolution by Blair’s New Labour nearly three decades ago.
In 2007 when, as pointed out above, anti-UK separatizm, in this case the SNP, managed to insinuate itself into power at Holyrood after a campaign of lies and intimidation of their pro-UK opponents. Even though they had no mandate from the population for a referendum on separating Scotland from the rest of the UK (support for this fluctuated between 25%-28% at the time), they ignored both this and their devolved remit, which reserved constitutional matters for the House of Commons, and began an extremely aggressive campaign for a separation referendum. They managed to get one held in 2014, in which they were decisively beaten by the pro-UK side with a 10% margin of victory 55% ‘no’ to 45% ‘yes’. The administrative devolutionary model completely avoids this problem and indeed when a referendum was held on English regional assemblies being set up in November 2004 it was virtually completely rejected by the voters by a massive 77.93% ‘no’ vote on a 47.71% voter turnout. Clearly, administrative devolution had done its work and satisfied the electorate’s concerns over local democracy. They felt no need for further reform. It had worked.
The only substantive criticism that can be levelled at Major on his decentralisation policy is that he didn’t take it far enough-literally. It was only introduced in England and not in any of the other regions of the UK. Why he did this is uncertain. Perhaps he was too preoccupied with holding together the Conservative Party which was split over Europe. What’s important is that Major’s failure to extend his success to the entire UK had very serious ramifications for the future of the UK, the effects of which are still being felt today.
If Major had extended his administrative devolutionary reforms to the entire UK, he could have forestalled Tony Blair and New Labour and their disastrous legislative devolutionary constitutional reforms of 98-2001. As described above, administrative devolution would have satisfied any concerns in the regions of the UK over such matters as local democracy and regional identity. Power over local matters would have been de-centralized from the House of Commons and given to local councils so the misconception that the regions were being ruled by an out of touch London elite would be addressed and, just as importantly, modern aggressive anti-UK separatism would have been prevented from rising to power and going on the march for ‘independence’ as they would have had no platform from which to do this.
As things happened, Major failed to have the foresight to extend his reform Northward, Westward and over to Ulster. Tony Blair and his gang of cultural-Marxist saboteurs were able to exploit the misconception in the constituent parts of the UK that the constitution needed to be changed and the result is now all around us-an ongoing constitutional crisis that threatens the constitutional integrity of the UK. The UK is being progressively Balkanised by the forces of modern aggressive anti-UK separatism. The integrity of a unitary UK is under increasing threat.
Legislative devolution has singularly failed to push back these nationalist forces and create a stable UK polity. All it’s done is provoke a constitutional crisis.
So much for the past. Looking to the future, the lessons of Major can be applied to guarantee the Union today. It’s now crystal clear to see that legislative devolution isn’t the answer to creating a strong, stable, viable and fair UK constitution. In fact it’s done the polar opposite and created a volatile brew of instability and synthesised separatist grievance which has merely put the very existence of the UK into grave doubt.
Administrative devolution, on the other hand, has been shown to work in practice in England since its introduction there in the 1990s. If the current legislative devolutionary constitutional ‘settlement’ of New Labour was repealed and replaced with a new administrative devolutionary model then the UK could have a viable, durable and fair constitutional system in place that serves the needs of all the constituent parts of the UK.
© 2017-2025 Stephen Bailey
