John Lloyd, a Scotsman, argues that the devolved assemblies must stop trying to squeeze what they can from London if the British union is to survive

Scots politics has, as ever, much to fear from those who claim most ardently to be a friend to its separate nature. Writing in the Guardian on 10 May, Roy Hattersley, Labour's former deputy leader and now scourge of Blairism, wrote that a coalition in the Scottish Parliament would strengthen the ability of the First Minister, Donald Dewar, to resist new Labour "tyranny" and "ensure that policies north of the border remain a good deal more progressive than those to the south".

Hattersley, with others, now offers the line that carries most danger to a union which has the best chance it has ever had of emerging as a civic agreement among different nations and cultures. That line is that Scotland (and neither the Welsh Assembly nor, if and when established, the Northern Ireland one can afford to be far behind) has a special culture and particular demands that can be satisfied only with special provisions. The implications for the union are catastrophic.

This is well illustrated by the argument over university tuition fees. As explained in the editorial (page 4) for this issue, their introduction can be defended as a progressive policy. Only the better-off pay the whole fees, and even then on easy terms. To scrap them in Scotland would cost £50 million. Since Labour has taken a vow of abstinence on tax-raising in its first parliament, that money would come out of Scotland's block grant from the exchequer. So Scots students - including those studying in England - would receive British subsidies for a Scots-only privilege. Families from relatively poor Newcastle - the largest English city near the border - would see families from relatively affluent Edinburgh relieved of payments of £20 a week with the aid of their taxes.

On the counts of equity and civility, tuition fees are a bad place on which to pitch a point of principle. But the political culture, so far, penalises the kind of approach that emphasises either of these virtues. The reason is that Britain is not a federal state; it is a seriously asymmetrical devolutionary one. Two regions have devolved parliaments (three, if the Northern Ireland impasse is settled); England, with 50 million people, has nothing.

Precisely because England is so nearly coterminous with Britain, the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish have no built-in impetus to regard it otherwise. Were England regionalised, the "Celtic" assemblies would have to deal with similar assemblies on more or less equal terms - as do the German Lander or the US states. But the psychology of their political systems - squeezing as much as possible out of London/England - has not lessened, but deepened. To the natural ministerial and bureaucratic lobbying of the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish Offices has been added the immeasurably more powerful lobbying of democratically elected representatives who, on the government side, have nationalists breathing down their necks. To argue for restraint for the union's sake in these circumstances is to expect too much of most.

If Britain is to avoid the drain on its political culture suffered by Spain and Canada - in which much leadership time is taken up brokering agreements between different parts of anomalous federations - the Scottish Parliament must respect the idea of Britain as well as the idea of Scotland. Yet the latter cannot be taken for granted any more than the former. A 58 per cent turnout for the first Scottish Parliament for almost 300 years does not speak of huge enthusiasm. The rhetoric of a "new politics" has been confined to the political and intellectual classes.

The infamous West Lothian question remains. It asks: why should the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish have a say and a vote over issues such as health, housing and education in England when these have been devolved to separate parliaments? During Stormont's 50 years, the Northern Irish MPs solved the problem by not turning up for most debates - though they served as lobby fodder, usually for the Tories. The Scots may do the same; for sure, they will have time on their hands. Some three-quarters of an MP's working life is generally taken up with the issues now devolved; apart from those who decide to become "super-MPs" and bone up on foreign, defence and macro- economic matters so as to hold ministers to close account, the temptations of the bar and the golf course will loom large.

In those countries with a settled federal system, the upper house usually plays a critical role. The German Bundesrat, the US Senate and the Russian Federation Chamber represent the states, and are a large part of the machinery through which the states relate to government and to each other. The British tradition, this century, is that the upper house does very little. Dr Uwe Leonardy, of the Friedrich Ebert think-tank in Bonn, says that the British tend to think that an upper house can either be strong or useful, but not both. In federal systems, however, "the more clearly and visibly the second chamber represents the federal principle as distinct from the democratic principle represented in the first, the stronger and more useful the entire structure will be".

The British second chamber is in a state of flux, and is presently neither strong nor useful. It is not clear what shape it will take. Nor do we know how the inter-governmental business will be conducted. In Canada, a federal minister co-ordinates the business between states, which is often rather fractious, given Quebec's constant tugging at the limits of federalism. We have made no such provision, though the Tories already have a constitutional affairs spokesman, shadowing a non-existent government post.

We do know (just) that a joint ministerial committee will be set up to deal with devolution matters. This could be, says Professor Robert Hazell, director of the Constitution Unit, the main forum for co-ordinating policy and day-to-day relations. It would be a clearing house for frictions between not just ministers and parliaments, but also civil services. Though the idea is to retain a unified UK civil service, this is bound to come under strain as Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh officials come more under the influence of their parliaments - especially where the ruling party differs from that in Westminster.

The final body mooted, but with as yet little flesh on its skeleton, is the Council of the Isles - a notion that arose in the talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement in Belfast last year. It would take in Westminster, Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh as well as the Dublin parliament. But this involves two sovereign nations, thus expanding its scope but also limiting its usefulness, since it cannot make decisions on national issues.

So we now enter a constitutionally dangerous period, where the Scots and Welsh should beware of demanding too much of the English. But there is one constructive direction the new assemblies could take. That is to deepen civil society; to act as cheerleaders and exemplars for initiatives at local, interest-group and even individual level which promote the good of the polity, widely defined. It would be to turn their backs on the practices of a media-dominated society in which the deaths of TV presenters are more keenly felt than those of relatives, or the faces of soap opera stars more recognised than those of neighbours. They could promote a style of debate and activity that would put parliament at the centre of society's public concerns. They could truly develop a new politics, rather than assume it had arrived because the voting system has changed.

That would really set the tone for Britain. But it doesn't look to be on offer.

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