Exercise 3: Why UK Devolution Doesn't Make the Country Federal — Possible Solution ======================================================================================== Chapter 9's own real, decisive test asks specifically whether regional power is genuinely protected by the constitution against the center, or whether it exists only because the center has chosen to grant it and could, in principle, take it back. This is precisely the test the capstone applied to distinguish the UK's own real devolution from genuine federalism, and it resolves the question directly. Devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland does give those bodies real, substantial self-governing power over significant areas of policy - this is a genuine, real fact the capstone doesn't dispute. But the crucial real distinction is that this power was granted by Acts of the UK Parliament, under the very same real parliamentary sovereignty doctrine the capstone's own Step 2 established: per Dicey's classic real formulation, Parliament retains the right to "make or unmake any law whatever." This means that, in strict constitutional theory, the UK Parliament could - however unlikely or politically costly in practice - legislate to alter or withdraw devolved powers, precisely because those powers were never constitutionally entrenched against Parliament's own real, verified supreme authority the way Germany's Länder authority is entrenched against the federal government in the Basic Law. This is exactly the real distinction Chapter 9 draws between federal and unitary systems: federal states protect regional power constitutionally, beyond the reach of ordinary central legislation, while unitary states - even ones that have devolved substantial real authority, as the UK genuinely has - keep that regional power formally subordinate to, and revocable by, the center. Devolution changes how much day-to-day authority the regions genuinely exercise; it does not change the underlying, real constitutional relationship the federal- vs-unitary test actually measures. ANSWER: UK devolution doesn't make the country federal because the devolved powers were granted by ordinary Acts of the UK Parliament, which - under parliamentary sovereignty (Step 2) - retains the real, formal authority to alter or withdraw them. This is exactly what distinguishes a unitary state's devolution (revocable regional power) from genuine federalism (constitutionally entrenched regional power, as in Germany's Länder), even when the devolved regions, like Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, genuinely exercise substantial real self-governing authority day to day. WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER ------------------------------ This connects the capstone's own Step 2 (parliamentary sovereignty) directly to Step 7's own federal/unitary test, showing why devolved power remains formally revocable rather than constitutionally entrenched, instead of just asserting that devolution and federalism are different without explaining the underlying constitutional reason.