Eurosceptic Atlanticist

Peers: Devolution has damaged Union


A new survey has found that 80 per cent of peers believe devolution has damaged the Union.

A decade on from the Scotland and Wales Acts and the Good Friday agreement, designed in part to see off the threat of separatism, the poll of members of the House of Lords found a vast majority believe the opposite to be true.

Three-fifths of peers (60 per cent) said that establishing the Holyrood parliament and Stormont and Welsh assemblies had boosted nationalism slightly, while 20 per cent said it had done so greatly.

Three quarters of Labour peers (75 per cent) and half of Liberal Democrats (50 per cent), the two pro-Union parties who pushed through the legislation, also agreed.

In contrast, just 11 per cent of peers said the process had strengthened or slightly strengthened the Union.

The results of the first ever Dods Polling peers panel were published by ePolitix.com on Monday.

Other findings included the fact that 59 per cent of peers think there should be a selective amnesty allowing illegal immigrants to earn British citizenship and stay in the UK.

Just over a third of members of the second chamber (35 per cent) said no such amnesty should be granted.

A narrow majority of peers (51 per cent) also agreed or strongly agreed that the government should make new laws that would require supermarkets to responsibly price alcohol. Only a third (34 per cent) disagreed or strongly disagreed.

And a majority (57 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed with the chancellor's decision announced last year to tax non-domiciled residents £30,000 per year. A third (34 per cent) disagreed or strongly disagreed.

Dods Polling interviewed 155 members of the House of Lords from March 6–27 by online and postal methods.

Source: ePolitix.com - Peers: Devolution has damaged Union

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BonnieDundee

It depends how you define damaging the union or what the union is to you. To me it is simply that our island has the same head of the state and borders etc.

You could say devolution strengthened the union by at least temporarily lowering the wish for independence in Scotland and Wales. It is also far more democratic.

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"In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument..."
Milton Friedman

People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George they simply do not know it.... He who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Leopold Kohr.

Little Englander (sour)

"it is also far more democratic"

What is democratic about disenfranchising 85% of the population?
What is democratic about English patients dying because they nare denied the drugs available in Scotland?
What is democratric about the Welsh getting their prescriptions free of charge and the English paying £7 45 per item.
What is democratic about ... of fcuk off you pillock.

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Little Englander (bigoted)

arden forester

And you were going so well!!

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g hall

Nice to see the peers are on the ball the in-breeding sorry, hereditary principle working well

I see Little Englander is now taking marketing slogans for rubbish companies like French Connection

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BonnieDundee

I was talking about Scotland obviously you moron. That the English haven't devolved their own parliament is unfortunate and they should as soon as possible this doesn't change3 the fact it hzas been mopre democratic in the countries it was introduce. You are a rude and ignorant ******, **** off.

__________________
"In my opinion, the least bad tax is the property tax on the unimproved value of land, the Henry George argument..."
Milton Friedman

People do not argue with the teachings of Henry George they simply do not know it.... He who becomes acquainted with it cannot but agree.
Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

Leopold Kohr.