Alan Trench: The English cannot have an English parliament because England is too big

Alan Trench:

Sorting out the West Lothian question is easier said than done, though. There are three basic solutions to the problem. One is an English Parliament, within a federal structure for the United Kingdom. However, that is problematic if the goal is to maintain the Union, as so unbalanced a union (England is 85 per cent of the UK’s population) would not be stable and would probably not be sustainable. No similarly unbalanced federal system has lasted more than a few years.

Personally I don't think such an unbalanced federation has been attempted in a mature democracy like the United Kingdom, so I find this 'England is too big' defence of the Status Quo rather tiresome. Not least because even if an English parliament does destabilise the United Kingdom, that's no reason to deny the people of England their own parliament. Many people argued that a Scottish Parliament would destabilise the United Kingdom, but that didn't stop Scotland getting its parliament.

Trench recently defended his view in response to a comment I left on his blog. He bases his 'England is too big to be self-governing within the Union' theory on an analysis of Czechoslovakia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Prussia.

The English were told by those in favour of a Scottish parliament that devolution would strengthen the Union (see Labour Manifesto 1997 or Devolution has strengthened the Union) but that turned out to be a pack of lies. Quasi-federalism has in fact damaged the Union. Objecting to an English parliament on the grounds that it will destabilise a Union whose current instability must be in part attributed to its lack of an English dimension seems to me to be beyond insanity. The English deserve a pop at turning an unstable quasi-federal United Kingdom into a stable federal United Kingdom.