ABSTRACT
Potentially, New Labour’s election victory in 1997 marked a critical juncture for politics in the UK. Tony Blair and his colleagues hoped that the incoming administration would herald an era of ‘New Politics’ whereby sleaze and incompetence, which had hitherto dogged the latter part of John Major’s premiership, would be consigned to history. In addition, just as the Labour Party had done, the state itself should undergo ‘modernization’. Modernization, it was expected, would act as the antidote to the malaise that had come to afflict politics in the UK. From the Modernists’ perspective, government not only required greater transparency and accountability, its efficiency and efficacy also needed to be enhanced (see for example Hassan and Warhurst 1999). More particularly, the relationship between the state and its citizens needed to be put on a sounder footing. As far as the latter was concerned Labour’s reforms ensured that from henceforth the European Convention on Human Rights would be enshrined in domestic legislation in the UK. There was also new Freedom of Information legislation. As far as the territories on the UK’s ‘mainland’ were concerned, however, the above were somewhat eclipsed by New Labour’s plan to decentralize a measure of authority from the ‘Centre’ to devolved institutions of government. In so doing, ‘power’ would be brought closer to the people in Scotland and Wales and, initially, it was hoped also the English regions. As far as Northern Ireland was concerned, however, the situation was more complex due to the ‘Troubles’. The actual implementation of New Labour’s programme of asymmetric
devolution (i.e. territorial government varied across the UK) was initially not without success. But it was by no means a simple format. Its asymmetric characteristics were a by-product of the underlying drivers for constitutional change in the respective territories. In practice, territorial empowerment in England failed to take root on either a coherent basis (e.g. the creation of one assembly for the whole of England) or incoherently (i.e. the creation of assemblies in those regions which supported such a development). The issue appears to be laid to rest after November 4 2004 when the electorate in North East England rejected proposals for a regional assembly in a referendum. On a turn-out of 47.7 per cent, just 22.1 per cent were in favour and 77.9 per cent were against.1 As the North East appeared to be the region most amenable to
devolution, the result of the referendum effectively curtailed the possibility of it being introduced elsewhere in England. However, London now has its own elected assembly and directly elected mayor but this arrangement is somewhat distinct from the devolved bodies elsewhere in the UK. Primarily that is because the assembly’s influence over the mayor is limited at best, thereby calling into question the issue of democratic oversight and accountability. In Scotland, where the consensus for autonomy was more extensive, the
UK government proposed that there should be a Scottish Parliament, with limited tax-varying powers, which could enact primary legislation.2 That came to pass. But the National Assembly for Wales would have neither a tax varying power, nor (initially) would it possess the authority to enact primary legislation; in part this was because in 1999 the demand for autonomy appeared to be rather less clear-cut (however, see p. 191). In some respects, therefore, to begin with at least, the Assembly’s powers could be conceived as being rather akin to that of a local authority, albeit that it possessed the democratic authority to articulate the concerns of the Welsh principality in its entirety. With regard to Northern Ireland, the new arrangement was first and fore-
most designed to bring the long-running conflict between the two communities to a conclusion; effectively, therefore, it was primarily a peace settlement. That said, The Agreement (1998) ensured that Northern Ireland would once again have its own Legislative Assembly at Stormont. Although the latter did not possess tax-varying power, it did have the authority to pass primary legislation. Northern Ireland’s governmental arrangements were complicated further by two cross-border Councils. The North/South Council linked the Northern Ireland’s administration with that of the Irish government in the South; this body’s European dimension was relatively modest. The British-Irish Council, running east to west, was designed to appease the Unionists. Its constituent members included the Irish government, the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, as well as representatives from the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. Both entities appeared to lack any substantive European dimension.3
