The Wilson government, the rise of nationalism and the road to the royal commission on the constitution, 1966-1968

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Royal Commission on the Constitution was a rare moment when the UK’s territorial governance was considered as a whole. Established as a response to the rise in electoral support for the SNP and Plaid Cymru in the mid to the late 1960s, the Commission was seen by some at the time and others since of being a cynical attempt to kick the constitutional ‘can down the road’. This article is not an analysis of the Royal Commission’s findings, rather it offers an examination of why it came to be established. Drawing on an extensive range of primary and secondary source materials, including Cabinet papers and ministerial correspondence, this paper provides a detailed assessment of the months of debates and deliberations, which preceded the decision to establish a Royal Commission on the Constitution. The by-election successes and unnerving near-misses for Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties at by elections between 1966 and 1968 created a sense within the Cabinet that the Government needed to have a clear response to the electorate. That this response was a Commission only followed an intense process of debate and deliberation within Government that failed to produce a broadly acceptable alternative.