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United Kingdom: Treaty of Union

Well, it goes deep in certain respects, my Lords, such as sport and one or two other things. However, there is ultimately a willingness to come together that over-rides all that. I often hear it said—as it has been several times today—that the British constitution is at risk from the anomalies and contradictions of the West Lothian question or whether Scottish MPs should vote on English matters. The British constitution is essentially a series of contradictions surviving through the practice of tolerance. That is what has probably made it by far the most successful constitution that the world has ever seen. It works largely because it is, at times, a contradiction. Other, written, constitutions appear logical, but logic does not always translate into practice. The most obvious examples are ones such as the old Soviet Union constitution, from which you would have thought you were living in heaven when, in reality, you were in hell. The American constitution’s opening statements, with all men being created equal and all the implications of that, did not apply to the negroes. Many of them—this is not well known—used to flee to Britain when they escaped slavery. At the front of the tract against slavery by William and Ellen Craft is the famous saying about when the slaves reached the English coast: "““They touch our country, and their shackles fall””." Nor did the words of the American constitution apply to the North American Indian. Logic is not always a good driving force for constitutions. The majority of people in Britain understand that there are going to be contradictions if you have one large country—England—with two neighbouring smaller nations as part of the same land mass. The same applies to Northern Ireland, but in a different context. People might grumble and groan about it at times, but it does not go that deep. There is and always has been a strong case for English regions. I do not accept the idea of an English parliament for reasons to which I have alluded. That is where the logic argument falls down. There may be a simplistic argument for an English parliament, but it does not work as a constitutional settlement given the relationship between these parts, whereas regional government within England does, as do the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. I strongly commend to this House the continuance of the union and the recognition that our constitution is not a logical document, but one that is joined together by tolerance, which is what makes it so successful.