In the late 1990s, Britain decided to solve several constitutional problems the same way most British people solve plumbing issues: by aggressively ignoring the central pipe and fiddling with the smaller taps nearby. Scotland got a parliament. Wales got a Senedd. Northern Ireland got a power-sharing assembly and approximately seventeen constitutional crises per calendar year. England, meanwhile, got a vague promise that everything would probably sort itself out naturally over time.
Twenty-five years later, it has not sorted itself out.
The “English Question” has quietly become one of the strangest unresolved problems in modern British politics — a constitutional gap sitting awkwardly in the middle of the United Kingdom like a damp patch everyone pretends not to notice during house viewings. England makes up roughly 84% of the UK population, dominates Parliament, media, finance, culture, and infrastructure, yet simultaneously behaves like it is somehow being unfairly ignored by a system it largely controls.
It is the political equivalent of a Labrador sitting on the sofa looking emotionally neglected while occupying the entire sofa.
According to the UK Parliament’s own constitutional research, devolution fundamentally altered the balance of governance within the United Kingdom without ever fully defining England’s role inside that arrangement. UK Parliament Constitutional Research The result is a system so asymmetrical that even constitutional scholars occasionally stare into the middle distance and whisper, “This seems unsustainable.”
Meanwhile, Institute for Government has repeatedly noted that England lacks the equivalent national institutions granted to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. This has created what experts politely call “constitutional imbalance,” which in Britain usually means “something that will eventually become a BBC documentary narrated by a tired historian.”
The problem begins with a simple but deeply uncomfortable reality: Britain created devolved governments everywhere except the place where most people actually live.
Scotland controls education, health, justice, and transport. Wales controls domestic policy areas. Northern Ireland controls many internal affairs whenever the government is operational and not collapsing like a badly assembled garden chair. England, however, remains governed directly from Westminster — which simultaneously acts as both the UK government and effectively the English government.
This arrangement works about as elegantly as using the same remote control for six televisions while insisting there is no confusion whatsoever.
The issue became even more bizarre during debates over “English Votes for English Laws,” commonly abbreviated to EVEL, because British constitutional policy increasingly sounds like rejected Pixar characters. EVEL attempted to answer a growing frustration: why should MPs from Scotland vote on policies affecting only England when English MPs could not vote on devolved Scottish matters?
The answer, according to Westminster tradition, was essentially: “Please stop asking difficult questions during peacetime.”
Critics warned the system risked creating two classes of MPs, while supporters argued England deserved some form of democratic recognition. Eventually the system was introduced, quietly misunderstood by almost everyone, and later abandoned with the exhausted energy of a family trying to fold away an inflatable kayak after a disastrous holiday.
Even today, polling by organizations like British Social Attitudes Survey shows growing confusion and dissatisfaction surrounding governance arrangements inside the UK. Many English voters feel politically underrepresented despite England’s overwhelming institutional dominance. Which is genuinely impressive. Few nations have mastered the art of simultaneously running the state while feeling excluded from it.
Part of the difficulty lies in English identity itself.
Scottish identity has strong political institutions attached to it. Welsh identity has linguistic and cultural protections. English identity, however, spent centuries merged with British identity so thoroughly that disentangling the two now resembles trying to separate tea from hot water.
For decades, Britishness functioned largely as “Englishness with better public relations.”
The empire projected English institutions outward. Westminster became synonymous with British governance. London media became national media. Even cultural symbols blurred together. International audiences often use “England” and “Britain” interchangeably, causing Scottish people to react with the emotional intensity of a man discovering someone microwaved a full Sunday roast.
Brexit intensified all of this dramatically.
England and Wales voted Leave. Scotland and Northern Ireland voted Remain. Suddenly the constitutional tensions hidden beneath devolution erupted into public view with the subtlety of a bin lorry crashing through a conservatory. The UK no longer appeared politically unified. Different nations within Britain clearly held different political identities, priorities, and futures.
England’s dominance inside the Union simultaneously became more obvious and more contested.
Political scientists at The Constitution Unit at University College London have repeatedly explored how devolution transformed the UK into an increasingly federal-like system without ever openly admitting it. Britain effectively evolved into a semi-federal state designed by people deeply uncomfortable with writing things down clearly.
This is because Britain’s constitution relies heavily on convention, precedent, and collective national vibes.
Other countries write constitutional arrangements into codified legal frameworks. Britain prefers historical improvisation combined with emotional denial. The result is a state where major constitutional reforms often emerge accidentally after panicked negotiations conducted in conference centres with terrible carpeting.
The English Question now touches almost everything.
Regional inequality? Partly the English Question.
North-South division? Also the English Question.
Metro mayors? Definitely the English Question.
“Levelling up”? A slogan created because nobody wanted to say “England has become economically lopsided to an alarming degree.”
London complicates matters further because London barely resembles the rest of England economically, culturally, or politically anymore. Analysts at The Resolution Foundation have highlighted enormous regional disparities in wealth and productivity across the UK, particularly within England itself. In practice, England often behaves less like one coherent nation and more like several different economies forced to share a rail network that may or may not function.
Some propose an English Parliament. Others argue for stronger regional devolution within England itself. Some want federalism. Others want abolition of the House of Lords. A few probably want Wessex restored under the leadership of a hereditary owl.
Nobody entirely agrees because England is too large to comfortably fit inside the same constitutional framework as Scotland or Wales. An English Parliament could dominate the Union completely. Yet ignoring English governance creates ongoing democratic ambiguity.
Thus Britain continues operating under a constitutional arrangement held together primarily by exhaustion, tea, and passive acceptance.
The irony is that Britain once exported constitutional models worldwide. The Westminster system influenced governments across the Commonwealth. British political thinkers lectured generations about parliamentary sovereignty, stable governance, and institutional continuity.
Meanwhile, Britain itself increasingly resembles a committee project assembled at 3am by people who lost the instructions.
Even local government reform reflects this confusion. Metro mayors have emerged in places like Manchester and the West Midlands, creating semi-devolved regional authorities with powers negotiated individually rather than systematically. Local Government Association UK describes the system as evolving organically. “Organically” here meaning “through a sequence of improvised deals nobody fully understands.”
The public response remains characteristically British: vague irritation mixed with total fatigue.
Most voters do not spend evenings passionately debating constitutional asymmetry. They mainly want trains to arrive, dentists to exist, and GP appointments that do not require contacting NHS services during a 14-second lunar alignment window.
Yet constitutional questions increasingly affect everyday governance. Funding formulas, infrastructure spending, regional investment, parliamentary legitimacy, and even national identity all flow from unresolved tensions surrounding England’s place inside the Union.
The English Question therefore persists because it is not merely academic. It influences who governs, how power operates, and whether the UK itself remains politically sustainable long term.
And Britain still has not fully decided whether England is:
a nation,
the nation,
merely Britain wearing an England shirt,
or an administrative inconvenience everyone hoped would remain theoretical forever.
Which means the country continues drifting through constitutional uncertainty armed only with centuries of tradition and the collective belief that things somehow usually work out eventually.
A strategy that, to be fair, has sustained Britain for an alarmingly long time.
Until the next crisis.
Related satire and political absurdity coverage from Prat.UK.
Authority references:
Institute for Government
British Social Attitudes Survey