The slow demise of the United Kingdom is suddenly gaining speed. The proximate cause is Andy Burnham’s statement last Wednesday that Scotland and Northern Ireland are in ‘exactly the same’ constitutional situation and that majority public support was sufficient for either to secure a border poll.

However, longer trends brought us here, from historical population movements to the decline of Empire to the dawn of devolution. We’ll set aside the first two because plenty has been written about them already and focus instead on the third.

Devolution is the Trojan horse the Trojans built themselves

Devolution is the Trojan horse the Trojans built themselves

Today, the first ministers of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have said that ‘Westminster’s time is coming to an end’ at a meeting in Cardiff Bay, in which they pledged to break up the United Kingdom. This was an inevitable consequence of the decision by the Major and Blair governments to agree to conditional sovereignty over Northern Ireland in exchange for peace. Part of that condition was the restoration of provincial self-government in the form of devolution, a consociational calamity.

Progress on anything substantive is impossible because Sinn Fein and the DUP are shackled to one another. Quangos proliferate, subsidies swell, and the second state, the taxpayer-supported network of charities, activists and peace industry hangers-on, continues to grow. Sinn Fein is now the dominant party and is naturally pursuing its primary policy of a........

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