Scotland Ends the American Revolution

I did not expect yesterday's Scottish vote to go for independence. But it was hard not to feel that the English deserved that result. It would have only been the last domino in a process begun over 200 years ago, a truly epic example of historical obstinacy: the English refusal to accept the idea of federation. Which is to say, I fear, the English refusal to accept that other men are the equals of Englishmen.

Had England accepted a federal parliament in the early 1770s, the United States would still be run from London. The cry of “no taxation without representation” could never have been raised. And, when the Americans immediately formed a federation among themselves, can anyone doubt that this was the model for what they had sought within the empire?

Yet that same obvious mistake was made, again and again, with every one of England's colonies. As a democracy herself, she could not deny democracy to her colonies. The hypocrisy was too plain. Yet self-government without federation was necessarily and automatically independence.

And so all the colonies slipped their moorings, even though many of them, certainly including Canada and the West Indies, never really wanted independence, and would have always preferred federation. Throughout the nineteenth century, Ireland could have been satisfied with Home Rule; in the end, England essentially rejected any ties whatsoever rather than allow this. Why? Surely only because it would have implied Irish equality with the English.

To make the whole thing more pathetic, almost as soon as England had gotten itself rid of the last of its colonies, it accepted federation within Europe, as part of the EU. Having thrown away the chance to be the center of a world federation, it then, finding itself weak alone, agreed to be on the periphery of a smaller regional federation. And they still had to live through the humiliation of the Scottish vote. Has there ever been worse folly?

It is probably now far too late to rescue what was lost. On the other hand, the promises made to Scotland during the current referendum campaign finally, 250 years later, offer the foundations for a British federal system. One essential ingredient, now at last proposed, is for England to have its own separate parliament—involving the crucial acknowledgement that England is one among equals.

One can wistfully imagine that, with this federation of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland constitutionally established, and with Britain's more or less inevitable exit from the European Community, it might yet be possible for a larger federation to be built, involving some of the rest of the “Anglosphere”/Commonwealth. It would be to everyone's benefit: free trade and the free movement of peoples, not to mention a military force capable of keeping some order in the world.

Here are the populations of the “Commonwealth Realms”--the nations which have preserved the allegiance to the British monarchy. This is a reasonable indication of their closeness to the mother country.

England: 53 million
Wales: 3 million
Scotland: 5 million
Northern Ireland: 2 Million
Canada: 35 million
Australia: 23 million
New Zealand: 5 million
Jamaica: 3 million
West Indies: 1 million
Papua New Guinea: 7 million
Oceania: 1 million

So here we might theoretically form a new federation of 138 million people, more than twice Britain's current size, including two of the world's ten largest economies. Even if the capital did not end up being in London, this would certainly increase the prestige of English-speaking culture.

Other reasonable candidates for joining:

USA: 314 million
Ireland: 5 million
Philippines: 98 million
Singapore: 5 million
Puerto Rico: 4 million
Guyana: 1 million
Trinidad: 1 million

We now have a possible federation of 566 million. Certainly the world's most powerful nation for some time to come. Although of a certainty the centre of balance would shift to America.

That might, on the other hand, be good for the English soul. It is only English intransigence that has prevented it from being the reality for the past two hundred years.