ABSTRACT
This chapter-part reflection, part prognosis-will explore some of the ways in which devolutionary politics relate to, and impact upon, our romantic desires and sexual relations. Its focus is specifically upon Britain-and even more specifically upon British fiction written between 197 9 and 1997: these being the dates of when the people of Scotland and Wales were last, and most recently, given the opportunity to vote for limited self-government in a referendum. The swing by both nations from an uncertain ‘no’ in 1979 to an overwhelming ‘yes’ in 1997 has set the scene for the most far-reaching constitutional reform Britain has known since the ‘Act of Union’ in 1707. Furthermore, in May 1998, the people of Northern Ireland also voted ‘yes’ for their own Assembly: supposedly in the hope that this act of devolution would facilitate ‘the road to peace’ in what remains our most desperate centre-margin conflict.
