In recent weeks we have seen the power of the sovereign nation state deal with a crisis in a way that has not been seen since
1945. The British Government has been able to spend almost without limit to
keep our people safe. It has taken other extraordinary measures to keep us in
our homes and to keep essential services running. Other European countries have
taken similar measures. Some have gone further by closing their borders, though
others have been unable to do as much as Britain because they have a shared
currency. There have been two lessons. The sub-national and the supra-national
have become irrelevant.
Nicola Sturgeon may give press conferences and she may try to give a Tartan tinge to the crisis, but in essence she is either repeating the advice she heard from the British Government or else she is failing to implement initiatives such as the volunteer scheme in England that would be useful here too. We have discovered that the Scottish Government is not really a Government at all. In time of crisis it is Rishi Sunak who controls the money that will pay Scottish wages and help Scottish businesses keep going. It’s hard to see how the Scottish Government is contributing anything except getting in the way of a united British response to a deadly disease.
Devolution is failing the people of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The devolved parliaments are saving no lives. The last thing we need is confusion and separate health care. We need a single National Health Service for the whole of Britain. We don’t need division and those who want to split our country. We likewise don’t need those who have spent the past decade concentrating on Scottish independence rather that Scottish hospitals.
There are quite a lot of people in Northern Ireland who would like to be governed by Dublin. Are these people going to refuse the money that the British Treasury will be giving them in the coming weeks and months? The Irish Government frequently has an opinion about Northern Ireland, but it will not pay the wages of anyone in Northern Ireland and it will not help any Northern Irish businesses. Perhaps the Irish Government should promise to pay back any money that we give Northern Ireland before making any more murmurings about unification. Could the Irish Government even have met the expense of both subsidising Northern Ireland and dealing with the present crisis there?
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See Also:
(4) State pension is rising next week but thousands could see pensions cut by up to £70 a week
(5) Coronavirus crisis: Trust in French government dwindles as virus toll continues to rise
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