How Unionists can battle against devocrats

This week, the government published its first Union Connectivity Review report. You’d be forgiven for mistaking this for another boring sounding Whitehall transport initiative that inevitably fails to get off the ground. But this seemingly inoffensive review has triggered the latest round of allegations from the devolved administrations that Westminster is engaging in a ‘power grab’.

Doesn’t the Prime Minister know that transport is devolved, they cry? If the Treasury has extra money to spend, it should simply hand it over to the governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast to spend as they see fit.

But there is an obvious problem with the ‘transport is devolved’ mantra. One can see the logic (if not necessarily the wisdom) of granting Mark Drakeford and Nicola Sturgeon responsibility for transport within their respective territories. But what about the maintenance and development of routes between them, and joined-up thinking about the needs of the whole British economy?

Even in a federal system (which, of course, the UK is not), this would likely be the responsibility of the federal government – and those responding to the government’s review recognise this, with most supporting a UK-led transport plan.