Our unwritten Constitution is past its sell-by date. If the Union is to be preserved we must recognise the UK as a federal country along the lines of Canada and Australia, and soon. Such is the argument made by Brice Dickson in this lucid and timely intervention to the debate on Britain’s political future. A federal structure, he reasons, could maximise the benefits of cooperation between semi-autonomous regions while at the same time paying due respect to the nationalisms that exist within constituent parts of the country.