Labour's commitment to devolution, for long half-hearted and uncertain, became complete. Yet the reasons for this commitment were essentially defensive and Unionist. On the one hand, the enactment of a measure of Home Rule was intended to arrest the progress of the SNP; on the other it was intended to prevent a future UK government — presumably Tory — from imposing policies on Scotland for which there was no (Scottish) electoral mandate. In the opinion of Labour leaders like John Smith, Gordon Brown and Donald Dewar, the Union had to be reformed if it was to survive. This view was shared by the Liberal Democrats, who advocated recreating the UK as a federal state. In England, the establishment of a Scottish parliament was ignored by most, resented by some. Those who took the latter view thought that the Scots had secured for themselves a favoured, or privileged, position within the UK. Public spending per head was some 25 per cent higher in Scotland than in England and Scottish MPs continued to vote on English affairs while English ones had no vote or even influence on comparable matters in Scotland. Moreover, resentment was sharpened by the (temporary) dominance of Scots within the UK government, this dominance being a consequence of internal Labour party politics in the 1980s. It was however reasonable for English people to think that the Scots wanted the best of both worlds: self-government financed in part by English taxpayers.

In Scotland, Labour has failed in its first aim. Devolution has not "buried the SNP", as George Robertson, shadow Scottish Secretary in the last years of the Major government, had forecast. On the contrary, the SNP is now in power in Scotland, if only as a minority administration. Given the present unpopularity of the Labour Party, it is likely to remain in office after the next Scottish parliamentary election in 2011, though probably either as a minority administration still or with a coalition partner.

On the other hand, opinion polls suggest that a referendum on independence would still produce a Unionist majority. 

That may change. Whether it does so depends in great part on the performance of what is likely to be a Conservative government after the next General Election and, even more importantly, on its attitude to Scotland. For David Cameron will be faced with the problem that Mrs Thatcher never recognised and John Major recognised but could not solve: how do you govern a country created by a Treaty of Union between two independent states, when you have not only no majority, but minimal electoral support, in the smaller of these two formerly independent states?