The UK

Question 1

Unitary state definition

Answer 1

State in which all political power and legal authority = concentrated in central institutions.

Question 2

Federal state definition

Answer 2

Power and legal authority is divided and or shared b/w multiple levels of gov (central institutions and regional institutions). Each gov = sovereign within its own sphere of influence, and the central gov cannot interfere in the regions and vice versa.

Question 3

What kind of state is the UK?

Answer 3

• not a federal state
• not a unitary state
• union state = first proposed by political scientists Rokkan & Urwin in 1982, and has been much developed since then by constitutionalists.

Question 4

Union of crowns?

Answer 4

1603 (but S and E remain 2 separate countries)

Question 5

Union of parliaments

Answer 5

1707 (constitutionally more significant than Union of Crowns 1603 and created a new state of the UK of GB, abolishing the S and E parliaments and creating a new British parliament at Westminster, new currency, customs, fiscal union, Union Jack flag. The Kirk, the judiciary and Scottish private law = preserved).

Question 6

Incorporating union view or union state? What is the former?

Answer 6

Incorporating union = territorial expansion of English state w/peaceful incorporation of Scotland (some concessions to Scotland eg the Kirk). The new state of GB’s constitution = continuing constitution of England as amended by English Act of Union, inc institutional reform to increase representation of Scottish MPs and peers. Scottish parliament abolished itself w/the enactment of the Act of Union; exhausting the legal force of the Scottish Act of Union. Hence the English parl and Constitution became those of the new Union (albeit w/Scottish representation) & the only legal basis of the Union became the English Act of Union. But, as Dicey said, this enjoyed no more special or constitutional status than any other act of Parl.

Question 7

Incorporating union view or union state? What is the latter?

Answer 7

The Union agreement negotiated b/w Scottish and English commissioners in 1706, and subsequently separately enacted by the respective parliaments. Union = consumed on 1st May 1707 by the summoning of the new parl of Westminster.

Articles XVIII and XXV set out the autonomy of Scotland within the Union. The effect of these was firstly to override all existing law, inconsistent w/the Article of Union