Devolution means local decisions, which is good, yet it does indeed pose risks for the United Kingdom

Boris Johnson said yesterday that devolution has “absolutely not” been a disaster for the United Kingdom.

The prime minister was speaking in Wales, and seeming to contradict comments that he reportedly made last year to Tory MPs — that devolution had indeed been a “disaster”, and was Tony Blair’s biggest mistake.

In moving away from seeming to endorse a negative assessment of the parliaments in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast, Mr Johnson yesterday made two points that were non sequiturs.

He said that he had himself benefited from devolution by being mayor of London. He also said that the Covid vaccine success showed the strength of the Union.

The first point is irrelevant to the constitutional integrity of the UK because there is no question of the capital city breaking away. The second point does indeed highlight the strengths of the Union but says nothing about the potentially countervailing influences of the devolved powers.

The devolution question is a tricky one. There are definite advantages to people being ruled in a transparent fashion at a local level on a range of important matters.

However, when a region has substantial numbers of determined separatists — as do the three of the four home nations that have assemblies — they can take advantage of such arrangements to make their country a place apart.

The problem is exacerbated when those three local parliaments oversee economies that are net beneficiaries of Treasury funding. All three of the legislatures angrily demand funding from London, then rarely express gratitude for the said largesse that they get. Rather, they claim credit for any political successes made possible by that national funding.

Is it any wonder that people begin to think their area might be able to break free from the rest of the UK? And things are hardly helped when the PM himself inserts an internal UK trade border to placate nationalists who want such a division.

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