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The Covid-19 pandemic could do us a favour if it provides the pressure for a once-in-several-centuries reboot of our constitution and governance. This reboot is essential if we wish to

remain a stable society and continue to prosper as the fifth global economy. We should wake up when a former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, sounds the alarm and warns that a “constitutional

revolution is needed to save the Union”. It is needed for every region he says, not only to prevent Scotland from seceding. Resentment and regional inequalities are approaching breaking

point, with a London-centric “unitary state that won’t let go”. The pandemic health emergency has brought into sharp relief the tensions and dystopian government decision-making and

execution, from Whitehall down the chain to the nations, regions and local authorities. The poor handling, coordination, and public communication of the detail of lockdowns, tailored

economic support and test and trace, for example, demonstrates national and local government not working well together. The gulf between us and other exemplary federalists, such as the Swiss

and Germans, is worthy of serious study. Plenty of grandees, active politicians, senior law lords and other experts concur that major constitutional reform should be a top priority. The

historian and biographer Sir Anthony Seldon has said that the virus spotlights the wholesale failure of the British State for years. Respected Conservative and Labour figures are calling for

a shift to a federal or quasi-federal system, and the House of Lords recently began to consider this, with Lord Lisvane’s Act of Union Bill.  Despite such mounting pressure and no shortage

of sensible ideas, fundamental constitutional reform is not getting traction at the heart of government. Other issues – managing Covid, Brexit, the economic recovery plan, and now the

“reset” – have consumed the entire “big ideas” bandwidth of this Government. This is a huge mistake which threatens not only the Union, but our stability and prosperity, because the pandemic

comes with major economic and social consequences. This mega-crisis is pulling the United Kingdom further apart and fuelling narrow identity politics over sound political delivery and

administration. The last few months have also reinforced the case for more “big state” intervention – when real clout is required (national level lockdown, exceptional emergency fiscal

support), and more regional and local control by people and organisations who know their area best.  In military parlance — with our present semi-devolved arrangements, a hotchpotch of

different regional devolved powers yet Whitehall still controlling everything – we have a command and control, and a coordination and public communications self-inflicted cluster****. This

has to be sorted out sharpish if we are to shorten our miseries.  Here is how it can be sorted out. 1. Get the penny to drop among the Prime Minister’s powerbrokers that major constitutional

reform is the central enabling priority of the post-Covid and Brexit reset and levelling-up exercise – after all, successful delivery the other priorities can only occur if we reset our

political process and delivery transmission to make it functional (genuinely “world class”) again. 2. Appoint Ruth Davidson (or if not her, someone of her generation, experience, intellect,

energy, and public appeal, who is not a Londoner) to head up a Constitutional Convention that consults every nation and region of the Union and produces two “way forward” options for

Parliament to consider, as soon as post-pandemic and Brexit pressures permit. 3. Explicitly require every governmental body and leader (first minister, city region mayor, unitary and local

authority leader) to contribute their recommended ways forward to the convention. 4. Every nation and region should establish citizen assemblies to provide the islands-wide and bottom-up

thinking and engagement that is required to help re-energise our politics and democracy and to assist in healing divisions. It will be fiendishly difficult. Winston Churchill proposed a

federal union already in 1912, but along with other PM’s efforts, it came to nothing. The Blair government was rebuffed by 78 per cent to 22 per cent in 2004 when it proposed a Northern

regional assembly. Nick Clegg’s attempt to introduce proportional voting was overwhelmingly rejected. Lord Hennessy has described House of Lords reform as the “Bermudian triangle of British

politics”. So, it is understandable why major constitutional reform has remained stuck in the “too difficult” tray. There are, however, three reasons why now is precisely the right time to

put major constitutional reform at the centre of the reset. First, support for Scottish independence has reached 58 per cent. Blocking and ignoring calls for another independence referendum

will only increase passions and division. Full independence needs to be faced up to and challenged on practical principles and detail. Set this in train now, take ownership away from the

“one trick pony” extreme nationalists and get the citizen assemblies working to bring people together in common endeavour. The pain that will flow from not doing this will be greater than

the pain from doing it. Second, instead of regarding this important work as a second priority to the urgent work of levelling-up the regions, see it as the way and means of doing the latter.

Thirdly, we have seen, first-hand, that our political system is not up to handling a really serious crisis as well as many other nations (democracies, not just authoritarian ones). Our

world is getting more dangerous. War, conflict, and unprecedented natural disasters are on the increase and it has been demonstrated that our tiers of government are not working well

together, even in lesser crises. We have to become more resilient and the 21st-century way to achieve this will be with London having less “one size fits all” control of so much of our

national thinking and resources. I remain open minded, but, if I had to opt right now for one model, I would go for a new federal structure, with a leaner Whitehall dealing in detail with

the truly federal-level big issues. A much smaller senate than the present House of Lords should represent the nations and regions. It should include some appointees, while ending prime

ministerial patronage, to help achieve first class scrutiny of the executive to replace the Lords. A new joint ministerial council and robust extreme national emergency and war command and

control arrangements will be important too. Gordon Brown is spot on when he says the big issue is that the UK is dysfunctional. Cue Boris Johnson to put constitutional reform centre stage of

the upcoming reset and, who knows? Let’s hope he succeeds in creating a “world class” federal UK — something even his hero, Churchill, was unable to achieve. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We

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