Britain Rebooted

Great Britain, (abbreviation: UK) England, Wales and Scotland considered as a unit. The name is also often used loosely to refer to the United Kingdom. reboot, ri-bu:t , verb to restart or revive give fresh impetus to federal, fed ar-al, adj. having or relating to a system of government in which several states form a unity but remain independent in internal affairs. Would federalism work in the UK? Wouldnt England dominate a British federation? How would powers be distributed between federal and home Nation level? What about the House of Lords? In the run up to the historic referendum on Scottish independence there has been a plethora of tracts, articles and books arguing for and against, but there remains a gap in the literature: the case for Scotland becoming part of a rebooted federal Union. It is an old, usually Liberal, dream, but one still worth fighting for. It is often assumed that federalism is somehow alien to the Scottish and British constitutional tradition but in this short book journalist David Torrance argues that not only has the UK already become a quasi-federal state but that formal federation is the best way of squaring the competing demands of Nationalists and Unionists. He also uses Scotlands place within a federal UK to examine other potential reforms with a view to tackling ever-increasing inequality across the British Isles and create a more equal, successful and constitutionally coherent country.