Part XI — The Territorial Constitution

The Union, the Nations, Devolution & Local Government. Derived from Axiom 12 (subsidiarity), 1 (sovereignty rests on consent), 3 (ends from the people). The United Kingdom is a union of four nations, not a unitary blob. A 10/10 design for the UK specifically must settle who decides what, at which level — and on what basis the Union itself holds together. The current settlement is ad hoc, asymmetric, and revocable at Westminster's pleasure; this Part fixes that.

XI.1 The territorial question

The UK is England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland — distinct nations with distinct identities — plus regions and thousands of localities. Three failures of the current arrangement:

• Devolution is revocable. Powers "devolved" to Edinburgh, Cardiff, and Belfast can, in strict law, be clawed back by Westminster — so the settlement rests on restraint, not right.
• The English anomaly. England has no parliament of its own; English matters and UK matters are conflated (the "West Lothian" problem).
• No clear, consented basis for the Union or for leaving it — producing recurring constitutional crises rather than a stable, honest answer.

This Part settles all three by codifying the territorial constitution in the Charter, so it cannot be unilaterally altered by any single level (§I.9).

XI.2 Principles: subsidiarity and consent

1. Subsidiarity (Axiom 12): every power sits at the most local level that can exercise it effectively. The burden is on higher levels to justify centralisation, never the reverse.
2. The Union by consent (Axiom 1): the United Kingdom holds together by the ongoing consent of its constituent nations, not by coercion. A union that cannot be left is a cage; a union that dissolves on a whim is no union. The model provides a defined, dignified middle.

XI.3 The allocation of powers — codified, not ad hoc

A clear, written division of competence, entrenched in the Charter and adjudicated by the Rights & Constitutional Court (§IX.4):

Reserved powers model: competences are devolved by default; only those explicitly reserved sit at UK level. Disputes over the boundary go to the Constitutional Court, not to whoever currently holds power.

XI.4 The structure — entrenched, symmetric, federal-in-substance

• Entrenched devolution. National competences are protected by the Charter; Westminster (the UK Representative Assembly) cannot unilaterally claw them back — fixing the current settlement's fatal flaw. Changes to the division require the consent of the level affected, via the §I.9 process.
• Each nation runs the model at its scale — its own assembly elected by STV+, its own expert-delivery within mandate, its own integrity oversight (Parts III–VI), in its devolved competences.
• An English tier. England gains its own governance layer for English-only matters (an English assembly and/or strong regional assemblies), ending the West Lothian anomaly — the precise form is a value choice for the people of England (§V.4).
• The nations represented at UK level. The UK second chamber carries a territorial dimension — the nations are represented in UK-level decisions that affect them, alongside the sortition function (§IX.2). (The exact composition is an open design question, §XVII.4.)

XI.5 The right of self-determination

The Union-by-consent principle requires an honest, lawful answer to "can a nation leave?":

• Yes — by a defined, dignified, lawful route. A constituent nation may seek independence through a process with clear preconditions: a sustained democratic mandate, a supermajority or confirmed majority threshold, a defined deliberation period, and an orderly negotiated settlement (citizenship, debt, assets, borders, the position of minorities).
• This is neither a trap (a nation is not held by force) nor a hair-trigger (the bar is deliberately high and deliberative, like Charter amendment, §I.9). It replaces recurring constitutional crisis with a known procedure.

XI.6 Local government

• Empowered and protected. Local government runs the model at local scale (elected + expert + integrity), with real revenue and spending powers (§X.8) and protection from arbitrary central abolition — local democracy is not a gift the centre can withdraw.
• Local participation: local sortition panels and citizen assemblies (Part II) bring deliberative democracy closest to where people live.

XI.7 Equalisation and solidarity

• A transparent equalisation formula transfers resources from richer to poorer nations and regions, so subsidiarity does not entrench geographic injustice.
• The Union functions as mutual insurance — pooled resilience against asymmetric shocks (a regional industry collapse, a localised disaster) — which is itself a rational argument for the Union, made in the open.

XI.8 Northern Ireland's particular position

Northern Ireland is handled with the specific care its history demands:

• The consent principle and the cross-community settlement (the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement framework) are respected and protected within the Charter.
• The cross-border dimension (with the Republic of Ireland) and the rights of both communities are explicitly safeguarded.
• Nothing in the model overrides NI's negotiated constitutional guarantees; where they interact with this design, NI's settlement is accommodated, not steamrollered.

XI.9 Failure modes and safeguards

Part XI ends. Next: Part XII — Justice, Security & the Use of Force.