That was the theme of his letter published under the headline “How to save the Union” in The Daily Telegraph on March 9. Reference to the letter was also made on one of the paper’s news pages under the heading “Give England devolution, historian tells PM”. The text of the letter follows.
Sir,
It is not only Mr Miliband who should put “his country before his party”(leading article, March 6) at this time of acute danger to its survival . Mr Cameron must do so too.
It is his duty as a Conservative and Unionist Prime Minister to spell out, with eloquence and conviction, a policy that will halt the process of national disintegration that is the inevitable consequence of having three devolved legislatures using their differing powers for their own ends while undevolved England becomes ever more resentful.
When Gladstone suddenly put forward a botched plan for Irish home rule in 1886, Joe Chamberlain, perhaps the greatest Unionist leader we have ever had, immediately saw that only a federal scheme would work. “In any rearrangement of our constitutional system”, he said on June 17 1886, “new provisions must be so devised as to be equally applicable to England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales under the supreme authority of one Parliament for the United Kingdom”.
Chamberlain’s federal ideals can provide Mr Cameron with the only Unionist policy capable of averting disaster.
Lord Lexden
London SW1