A constitutional balancing act

The ‘no’ majority in the Scottish referendum may have averted one vast constitutional upheaval – but new, competing plans for further devolution across the UK are likely to lead to substantial change across the union. Devolution has already created a very uneven landscape. “The distinctive thing about the devolution arrangements is how asymmetric they are,” says Akash Paun, a fellow at the Institute for Government. “There are significant differences in each settlement for each part of the country. That makes it naturally unstable.”