Tony Blair’s “Clause 4 moment” was when he amended the Labour Party’s constitution to abolish their formal committment to nationalisation. A similarly significant moment for the Conservative and Unionist Party could be our renaming to just the Conservative Party.

There is just one Conservative MP in a Scottish constituency, out of 59. There are just three Conservative MPs out of the 40 MPs for Welsh constituencies.

Repealing the Union Act would significantly reduce Labour’s majority, significantly increase the forthcoming Conservative majority, and prevent Labour from governing England ever again. It would cause the centre-ground of politics to shift back to the Right.

Furthermore, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have more tax money spent on them than they pay in taxes. England would be better off not having to subsidise them. But Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland may well end up better off themselves. For example, half of all the money spent in Scotland is spent by the State, and one in four Scots are employed by the State. Independence could be the spur Scotland needs to become vibrant and productive again. It would also create tax competition, which would be beneficial for all. If they wanted, the Scotch could position themselves as a low-tax, low-regulation country and out-compete England.

The Scotch, Welsh and Northern Irish could be given the choice of whether to keep the Queen as monarch. Scotland could keep what’s left of the North Sea oil.

The principle is localism — that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect. Devolution is localist, but current devolution has not gone far enough, and has created problems like Scottish MPs voting on matters that affect only England. This is wrong. Furthermore, at the moment, the Scottish Parliament can spend money without electoral consequence. True devolution must put tax raising powers in the hands of those who spend the money, in order to make them truly accountable. Taxes should be raised locally. True devolution must give them complete control of their budgets and taxes. It should even give them control of the laws of the area.

And for it to really be effective over the long-term, it must not be reversible. The Westminster Parliament must not merely devolve these powers to the nations. Future Parliaments would always be tempted to overrule national decision-making about various things until, gradually, all decision-making had returned to Westminster. We’d end up back where we started. For localism to work, Westminster must give up the powers completely and irrevocably. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England must become independent, and the Westminster Parliament should become the English Parliament.

That would be true localism, as if we meant it.

Independence for England would not make us weaker. How could it, when in the absence of the other nations’ draining the taxpayer, we could spend more on our armed forces?

Independence would make England stronger. It would also make Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland stronger. The Conservative Party should embrace it.