The British Union State: Imperial Hangover or Flexible Citizens' Home?

By Simon Partridge.

Catalyst pamphlet 4.
Published: February 1999
ISBN: 0-9533224-3-2
Paperback: 36 pages

"The current asymmetry between the assemblies and parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the regions of England is in danger of encouraging a nationalist backlash in England. The new constitutional settlement must be equitable. Devolution should be extended to the English regions. New Labour has embarked on an ambitious programme of decentralisation and constitutional reform., but it lacks strategic vision. The Government must signal its intentions more clearly in this area." Simon Partridge.

"Catalyst has provided us with a timely and far reaching analysis of the dangers of stopping the devolution process half way through. They point out that the current constitutional difference between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the regions of England is just not sustainable. If Labour is to win out over the Nationalists in Scotland and Wales, Catalyst’s recommendations need to be carefully considered" The Rt Hon Derek Foster MP, former Labour Chief Whip and member of the Steering Group of the North East Constitutional Convention.

In this radical pamphlet Simon Partridge links cultural constructions of ethnicity and nationality to the actual democratic structures by which we are governed. He makes the case for a new Union based on a recasting of Britishness, currently identified with an increasingly unitary and over centralised state. Many assume that, with devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Britain will inevitably divide into its ‘natural’ nation-states. This pamphlet takes a different view. The British Union needs to be reformed and decentralised and the concept of Britishness as a civic identity - a common citizenship - must be enhanced as the population becomes ever more diverse. The 19th Century rhetoric of "One Nation" must be superseded by language which explicitly recognises Britain’s multi-national, multi-ethnic and multicultural nature.

Simon Partridge argues for a enhanced role for the British regions within Europe. A reformed and devolved British Union, allied to the proposals of the Good Friday Agreement, offers the best hope for these islands to become a beacon for the sustainable, pluralist, multi-level European polity of the new millennium.

Simon Partridge is a London-based political analyst and writer. He is author of Beyond Nationalism in These Islands (1996). His work focuses on British-Irish relations and devolutionary issues. He was at the forefront, in collaboration with Professor Richard Kearney, University College Dublin, of promoting the idea of a Nordic Council-type "Council of the Isles", now embodied in the Good Friday Agreement.

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