Boris Johnson made an interesting point about Scottish devolution – what a mistake

The prime minister’s comment would have made a lively column but it was foolish for a politician to say it, says John Rentoul

The PM made his comments to the Northern Research Group of Conservative MPs (AP)

Devolution of power to Scotland was “Tony Blair’s biggest mistake”. Discuss. It sounds like an exam question my colleagues and I would set our students on the “Blair Years” course at King’s College London. 

It is an important subject for historical inquiry. When the Labour government legislated for a Scottish parliament in 1998, the consensus was that it was the right thing to do. Opponents warned that it was the slippery slope to separatism, but the settled view of the Labour establishment, especially in Scotland, was that it would clip the wings of the Scottish National Party. 

Blair himself was unenthusiastic, but he regarded it as inevitable and sought to manage it, learning the lessons of what happened when the issue tore the 1970s Labour government apart. It did turn out to be a slippery slope – the consensus, of which I was part, turned out to be wrong – but most of that slide happened after Blair had stood down. The question our students have to answer now is whether resisting devolution would have made it more or less likely that the UK would be poised on the edge of breaking up 22 years later.