The Tories are back, they're in charge ... and intent on Evel

These people (as they are sometimes known) have legislatures. To varying degrees, they run their affairs without interference from English MPs. Sometimes they shout the odds about mandates and democratic deficits. And still they expect to have old England in thrall to their demands.

That is, more or less, David Cameron's script. He means to prevent English MPs from ever again being "overruled". The word is his. His intention is to answer the old, vexing West Lothian Question "decisively". And why not?

There are several answers to that question. If Cameron understands half of them and decides to press on with Evel, as his scheme is notoriously known, he will remind us how self-serving and stupid a Tory prime minister can be. That's no skin off my nose. If he is determined to prove that the UK is an elaborate fiction, he can be my guest.

Start, however, with this "overruling" thing. A big problem? The Commons Library might cause you to wonder. In a recent paper its staff noted that of 3,800 divisions between June 2001 and March this year, just 25 would have had different outcomes if Scottish votes had been discounted. As for malign Celtic influence, it is recorded that "of 19 governments since 1945, 16 (84%) have held a majority among English MPs".

A matter of perspective, no doubt. Some Tories might see perfidy in 25 votes from 3,800 falling under the sway of Scots. On the other hand, voters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland might wonder why they bother sending anyone to Westminster. The statistics say that in votes and in governments, what England wants, England gets.

With so many MPs, things could hardly be otherwise. The UK is funny like that. In May, Scotland made choices which were, yet again, very different from choices made elsewhere. The novelty of a bus-load of SNP MPs aside, this was, for England, utterly irrelevant. Cameron's Tories were the least unpopular English choice.

In one sense, that's none of our business, what with the miracle of devolution. Last year, nevertheless, Scotland decided to stick with the UK and a legislature dominated by MPs from English constituencies. You accept the rules or you do not. But the question of who was doing the overruling became a little more clear when fiscal autonomy and the Scotland Bill came to a vote the other week.

Two amendments were defeated. One, from the SNP, lost by 309 votes to 60. Since Scotland has only 59 MPs, you needn't count on fingers and toes to work out where most of the 309 came from. Was that just a fact of Commons life, or an outrage committed by people busy demanding Evel? If principle had been the issue, an overwhelming Scottish vote for the SNP in May should have counted for something. Not a bit of it.

Such things play no part in what Cameron considers strategy. In the fiscal autonomy argument, the Nationalists were simply overruled. Now the Prime Minister intends to exclude them from full participation in the legislature to which they were elected, to make a mockery of his fine talk of nations in partnership, and to inflate his Commons majority artificially.

The last charge is Labour's and Labour is right. But the Cameron scheme is sneaky at every level. As the Commons Library shows, the idea of Celts infringing on English rights is nonsense. The decision to push through reform with a mere vote on standing orders is disreputable. The scheme itself is a dog's breakfast. And as Michael Forsyth and a few others have recognised, it happens to pose an existential threat to the UK.

Oh, dear: never mind. All of this is being presented by the Cameron who last autumn was drenching Scotland in tears of love and affection. He yielded to no-one in his devotion to a family of nations. Now he means to give English members a veto over "laws affecting England only" while expecting voters elsewhere to believe that all MPs - and all parts of the UK - are equal.

A paper issued by the office of Chris Grayling, Leader of the House, gives the full dog's breakfast menu. A flavour can be had from lines such as: "These proposals change the process by which legislation is considered ... so that MPs with constituencies in England (and where relevant England and Wales) are asked to give their consent to legislation that only affects England (or England and Wales), and is on matters that are devolved elsewhere in the UK".

If you happen to be Welsh, I hope that's clear. What it makes obvious is that identifying "English only" is harder than Cameron admits. The Welsh government has made several trips to the Supreme Court to settle arguments over devolved powers. Under the scheme proposed for a vote on July 15, however, the Speaker will "certify" the Englishness or otherwise of legislation. That should be fun.

Back to the Commons Library. Another paper reminds us that "some bills extend only to the England and Wales jurisdiction, and the subject matter is devolved in Wales, yet the bill has an effect on the rest of the UK. This might be through an impact on public spending that will feed through the Barnett calculation into the block grants given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, or it might be through English institutions and policies weighing heavily on the context in which devolved policies are developed".

What happens if you are a Scottish MP with constituents whose business in England is about to be affected by "English-only" laws? How could London MPs vote on matters affecting Tyneside when London has its mayor and assembly? How would the Speaker certify that there could never be an effect on Barnett with - sometimes - spending "consequentials"? Does any budget in the UK exist in isolation?

The proposal is, nevertheless, for all MPs to vote on all key stages of legislation, but with English (sometimes Welsh) members holding a veto. The Scots, Northern Irish, and (sometimes) Welsh will have no say if the matter is deemed to involve devolved powers. The other way to put it is that the Commons will cease to be the Commons. And the UK will cease to be united.

Cameron must know as much. Clearly, he is in a hurry to get this done and create a bigger effective majority where it matters: among English MPs taking care of English business. At the heart of it all is a Tory determination to contest reality. Forget devolution: they're back; they're in charge; and they can abandon that family of nations as easily as they can abolish definitions of child poverty.

Their interest in the UK's future is trivial beside their interest in power, wherever it lies. For some, having the Scots, Welsh or Irish reduced to second-class citizens affirms the natural order. You can be ruled or overruled. Until you decide otherwise.