From devolution to revolution? Brexit threatens to stir up the UK’s regional politics

Decision-makers in Scotland and Wales await the outcome of the UK’s EU referendum with trepidation. Since their powers were introduced in the late 1990s, the devolved authorities have forged their political identities and policy programmes through active participation in European politics. As Patricia Hogwood explains, a UK exit from the EU would threaten to hollow out the powers of the devolved authorities and would be likely to spell an end to the safe and predictable ‘cooperative regionalism’ that has come to define intra-Union relations in the UK.