An outburst of confident and enthusiastic joy in Scotland yesterday greeted the results of its referendums on devolution and taxation. Many institutions and pressure groups welcomed the news and looked forward to a new era of government closer to the people and capable of representing Scotland within the United Kingdom and internationally, not least in the European Union. The result gives a further boost to Mr Blair and his government as they seek to convince Welsh voters to give a similar endorsement for an assembly there and continue their project of modernising the UK's constitutional arrangements.
This result gives a firm mandate for the legislation setting up a Scottish Assembly to be passed over the coming year and for implementing it in 1999. Voting for the 129 member body will be by proportional representation, thereby setting a significant precedent for possible change in the voting system for Westminster elections. The campaign was marked by close co-operation between the Labour Party, supported by about half of the Scottish electorate, the Scottish National Party supported by about one quarter and the minority Liberals. Now that it has been carried, they may revert to a more competitive stance; but it is likely that they will continue working closely together to ensure a smooth passage for the legislation. It will be intriguing to see whether Scotland, as a result of this constitutional experiment, sets further precedents in coalition government for Britain as a whole once the assembly is set up. In the meantime the Conservatives have suffered a further humiliation, as the electorate rejected their advice to vote against both proposals.
This result probably makes devolution irreversible by a future Conservative government in Westminster - difficult though it is to conceive of such an eventuality in the light of Mr Blair's political buoyancy and the sheer pace of legislative change introduced by Labour. But the result, decisive though it is, will certainly not put an end to the debate about devolution, supported by Labour as strengthening the UK, and the independence advocated by the nationalists and foreseen by their Conservative opponents. Both cannot be right in the long term. Much will depend on how effectively Scotland is governed under the new dispensation. But even if this too goes smoothly, flaws in Mr Blair's constitutional design are likely to emerge. It is calculatedly uneven in its responses to Scottish, Welsh and English decentralisation. Northern Ireland stands out as yet another model of decentralised government, according to the blueprints set out in the documents agreed between London and Dublin. Over time the anomalies built in to such a patchwork are bound to become more difficult to handle. The most coherent means of dealing with them would probably be to adopt a more explicitly federalist approach in which competences would be clearly set out relating to imbalances between Scottish and English representation. But this would provoke another convulsive round of political argument over sovereignty and political identity, especially as it would coincide with the working out of Britain's future role in Europe.
In the meantime Mr Blair rides high, his authority greatly strengthened by skilful and sensitive handing of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, as well as by this victory. From the Irish point of view it is good to see Scottish national identity being affirmed once again and the generally positive reception this has had elsewhere in the UK. A more equitably governed Britain, more at home in the European Union, is very much in Ireland's interest.