10 - State architecture: subsidiarity, devolution, federalism and independence

Summary

Introduction

The ‘architecture’ of the United Kingdom state seems quite straightforward. Each of its parts is immensely complicated, of course, but the overall structure is clear, is it not? Governmental power is primarily exercised through a sovereign Parliament sitting at Westminster. A government is formed that is able to command the support of the first chamber (the House of Commons). Parliament has agreed to delegate its sovereign powers both upwards and downwards, with some powers being exercised by European institutions, and other powers distributed (the term used is ‘devolved’) among the nations of the United Kingdom (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). So, too, other powers are delegated to regional and local communities through a patchwork of local and municipal government. It is a liberal parliamentary democracy, with the first chamber and each of the other forms of government (national, regional and local) being elected by universal franchise. Judicial oversight seeks to ensure that public bodies (with the notable exception of Parliament) obey the law, which includes protections for civil and political rights.

Looked at this way, the United Kingdom is best described as being a classic unitary state, i.e. a state with a system of government that involves the country being governed as a single entity, with the central government in Westminster being supreme, and with the other tiers of government exercising only those powers that the central government (defined to include legislature, executive and courts) has allowed them to exercise. These tiers of government, whether supranational or devolved, are ultimately the creatures of the central government, and will be created and abolished, and their powers broadened and narrowed, by the central government. A unitary state, like the United Kingdom, can be contrasted with a federal state, such as the United States or Germany, in which the sovereign power is shared between the federal government and the states. Unlike several continental European states, like France, the United Kingdom did not arise out of the Jacobin model stemming from the French Revolution and Napoleon, and is thus not based on a strong ideology.