I wasn't saying the UK is a normal federal country. - Edit 1
Before modification by Legolas at 02/06/2012 10:17:32 PM
I was just saying that there were federal countries in either direction - the ones that started from independent entities joined together, or the ones that started from a centralized government and gradually granted more power to the states/regions.
Spain does have asymmetry to some extent, actually, now that you mention that. Catalonia and the Basque Country, to take the most obvious examples, have more autonomy than the central Castilian-speaking regions like Castilia La Mancha or Castilia Y Leon. But yeah, the entire country is divided into regions, each of which has a separate parliament and all, even if some have more power than others. The English situation of being directly governed by a "federal" parliament that also has members of the other regions in it, is rather bizarre alright. But I dare say it'd be a political non-starter to talk about a separate English parliament...
In the UK, on the other hand, most of the country is under central control. Additionally, the system is asymmetrical – Northern Ireland has more devolved power than Scotland, and Scotland has more than Wales.
I've just had a look at how the Spanish system works, though, and I'll grant that it does look a lot more like federalism than ours does.
Spain does have asymmetry to some extent, actually, now that you mention that. Catalonia and the Basque Country, to take the most obvious examples, have more autonomy than the central Castilian-speaking regions like Castilia La Mancha or Castilia Y Leon. But yeah, the entire country is divided into regions, each of which has a separate parliament and all, even if some have more power than others. The English situation of being directly governed by a "federal" parliament that also has members of the other regions in it, is rather bizarre alright. But I dare say it'd be a political non-starter to talk about a separate English parliament...