ABSTRACT
In the latter half of the twentieth century the British grappled with two major constitutional concerns. The first involved the centuries-old question of what the relationship should be between the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. The second centered on the nature and extent of the United Kingdom’s involvement with Europe. The latter discussion began in the late 1940s and continues to the present day, while the debate over domestic constitutional arrangements surfaced in an acute form in the sixties and seventies and still attracts ritual attention in the post-Thatcher nineties. In both instances, the federal solution has been suggested as a means, on the one hand, of creating unity while protecting diversity, and, on the other, of protecting unity while allowing diversity.
