Letter: UK is best served by one central government which encourages us to think of ourselves as one British nation
A letter from R G McDowell:
I trust that most people in the country will wish our new prime minister well and hope that he has a successful term of office.
I have to confess a degree of concern however at the focus of our new prime minister on increased regional devolution for the UK.
I often feel that the benefits of devolution are overrated and can be a bit of an easy gimmick for a government to embrace under a pretence of giving more power to people.
The quality of government is principally influenced by the quality of policy and the calibre of people in government regardless of which level it comes from.
If you live in a large country like the USA or Canada then some regional government is necessary. I believe a country the geographical size of the UK can easily be run by one central government in conjunction with local councils.
When we had just Westminster and councils it was clear where accountability lay. If you didn’t like something it was Westminster who was responsible.
When you have multiple tiers of government Westminster blames the regions, Europe and councils. The regions say they are under funded etc. Every tier blames everybody else for short comings or difficult decisions.
Devolution also stops coordinated national policies as rival parties end up running different bits and coherent policy becomes impossible.
There is often an anti-London narrative but we should be grateful we have a capital city that remains a centre of world affairs, culture and finance and we should view it as an engine to power the entire country and generate wealth to provide public services throughout the UK.
Regardless of whether devolution is good or bad for general policy, there is no doubt that it is bad for the Union. Scottish devolution has been particularly bad for the Union.
No matter how far down you devolve people can aways be divided again. If you have a North England Parliament would Manchester and Liverpool always have the exact same interest. You can always sub divide people further.
While it may be a minority opinion, I remain a devolution sceptic and continue to believe that the UK is best served by one central government which encourages us to think of ourselves as one British nation and not as regions.
R G McDowell, Belfast BT5