The West Lothian Question

It seems that the Conservatives are about to follow Kenneth Clarke's solution to the problem, with a dog's dinner of different bodies involved at different stages in debating and voting on English matters.

If I have understood the proposals correctly, the end result will be that Westminster MPs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will still have an ultimate veto over English legislation. In other words, the anger felt over issues like tuition fees, where Scottish MPs voted on English legislation without being accountable to English voters, is still possible.

The potential anger in this solution will be obvious if it were applied in reverse, - that Scottish and Welsh parliaments could debate and decide on all issues, but would require Westminster approval. This would be an unacceptable solution and a weakening of their powers of self determination. If it is unacceptable, why should the modified West Lothian situation be acceptable to the English.

The genie is out of the bottle, so unless the Scots and the Welsh decide to repatriate powers to London, it seems that some kind of federalism is inevitable to bring England up to the level of self determination enjoyed in Scotland and Wales. A model could be the German one, with the national government at Berlin, but with each constituent Land having power over things like education and social policy.

The fallacy is the desire to hang on to the present devolution but to keep a large and important chamber in London. If Westminster decided defence and international policy and overall economic policy(which it is fast losing to thwe EU anyway), other policy could be devolved to an English Parliament in Birmingham, or elsewhere in London perhaps.

It would mean that we could manage with fewer MPs in the UK parliament, which is being fast replaced by Brussels. Perhaps it could become the second chamber for all devolved parliaments?