SHOULDN’T DEVO SAUCE FOR THE WELSH GOOSE BE SAUCE FOR THE ENGLISH GANDER TOO?
The devolved Welsh Government has submitted written arguments to the “Supreme” Court in the Brexit case. My eye was caught by part of their submissions:-
“6. As the Welsh Government recently said in its written evidence to the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s inquiry The Union and devolution, devolution has become a fundamental and effectively irreversible feature of the constitution:
(i) Whatever its historical origins, the United Kingdom is best seen now as a voluntary association of nations which share and redistribute resources and risks between us to our mutual benefit and to advance our common interests.
(ii) The principles underpinning devolution should be recognised as fundamental to the UK constitution, and the devolved institutions should be regarded as effectively permanent features of that constitution.
(iii) Devolution is about how the UK is collectively governed, by four administrations which are not in a hierarchical relationship one to another. The relations of the four governments of the United Kingdom should therefore proceed on the basis of mutual respect and parity of esteem.
(iv) The allocation of legislative and executive functions between central UK institutions and devolved institutions should be based on the concept of subsidiarity, acknowledging popular sovereignty in each part of the UK.
(v) The presumption should therefore be that the devolved institutions will have responsibility for matters distinctively affecting their nations. Accordingly, the powers of the devolved institutions should be defined by the listing of those matters which it is agreed should, for our mutual benefit, be for Westminster, all other matters being (in the case of Wales) the responsibility of the Assembly and/or the Welsh Government.”
The whole of their submissions to the “Supreme” Court can be found here >>> http://gov.wales/docs/dfm/minutes/cabinet/161125counselgeneralforwalesprintedcaseen.pdf
It is however bitterly ironic that the ‘Counsel General for Wales’ then makes no mention throughout his 28 pages of legal submissions of the dreaded “E” words – ENGLAND or the ENGLISH!
He also switches hastily to legalistic detail instead of further general statements of constitution principle.
I suspect that this is because the above quotation would lead naturally to a discussion of fairness, equality and the unfair anomaly that England has no English First Minister, no English Government and no English only Parliament – unlike Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland!