National Identities: The Constitution of the United Kingdom

This book considers the government of the United Kingdom and relationships with Ireland in the light of the sense of identity of each of the nations and regions. It examines the extent to which this receives satisfactory institutional expression and whether these institutions need reform, both internally in each case and in the totality of relationships and interrelationships; and analyzes the impact of 1992 and moves to European integration. The various authors examine two matters that have run in parallel, but have rarely been discussed together in any depth. They are, firstly, the arguments that the constituent nations of the United Kingdom need more appropriate, democratic national institutions; and, secondly, the arguments for reform of the UK constitution, including the notion of a federal devolution that provides for national parliaments in Wales and Scotland, and for power-sharing government in Northern Ireland in some new relation with the Republic.