Ever since Scotland and Wales (re)gained Parliaments, the issue of devolution has been slowly burning in England, with the occasional demand for a Parliament of its own.
But the trouble with a single English Parliament is two-fold. One, England contains a supermajority of the population of the UK, so in practice it would be a lot of upheaval for no real change. Secondly, England is diverse, containing within itself the four most populous urban areas in the UK, and nine of the top ten (Glasgow comes in fifth). As Jane Jacobs observed, urban areas and rural areas have different needs, and ought to be governed separately.
The Labour government of Tony Blair attempted to address the size problem by introducing regional assemblies. Unfortunately, this still would not have solved the rural-urban problem, as their proposed regions would have merely exchanged dominance by London for dominance by Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle etc. More than this, they had a crisis of identity and continuity - no-one considers themselves Southwesterners. Their plan was shelved after voters in the “North East region” rejected it.
More recently, the Conservative governments of David Cameron, Teresa May, and lately Boris Johnson (has it only been six years?) have pushed for Combined Authorities, where local governments would join together and ask for a motley assortment of powers from Westminster. This has been taken up most enthusiastically by the cities, which are already used to working together and which more importantly have identities to coalesce around. It has found less support in the predominantly rural counties. But even if there was the enthusiasm, the issue of boundaries raises its head once more. The counties are small compared to even Northern Ireland, which makes devolution a harder affair. Joining together however has the same identity problem that Labours regional assemblies suffered – how do you draw the lines in a way that doesn’t involve anodyne names such as “The Northwest (minus Liverpool and Manchester) Regional Authority”?
There is a solution that works with, rather than against, English history. It would give rise to appropriately sized regions for devolution, and depending on which historical borders are chosen, would succeed in separating the largely rural parts of England from the conurbations.
Once upon a time England was divided into seven kingdoms – Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Sussex, and Kent. Over time this list was reduced to four, as Sussex, Kent, and Essex were subsumed into their neighbours.
With a few tweaks (and splitting off London as its own region – it goes without saying that Cornwall requires a separate settlement), this Tetrarchy would work well as a division of England. If the boundaries of Mercia are moved northwards to one of its historical borders at the Ribble, it would include the northern belt of cities (Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield) as well as Birmingham.
Combined with separating off the rural west as West Mercia along a line from Crewe to Wolverhampton via Stoke-on-Trent, and merging the rural east into East Anglia according to the Doncaster-Nottingham-Leicester line, we would have six regions – the primarily rural Wessex, East Anglia, Northumbria (admittedly home to three conurbations, but small enough ones that they should not dominate), and West Mercia; the heavily urbanised and populous Mercia and London. A Hexarchy… or if Sussex/Kent is kept separate from Wessex, as may well make sense, a new Heptarchy.
If England is to be divided, then divide it as it was at the start. Devolving power to the Heptarchy means historical continuity. The Seven Kingdoms have sizes more suitable for devolution, avoiding having dozens of small devolved counties covering the map. Most importantly from the perspective on ongoing politics and economics, it does not pitch the interests of the conurbations against the countryside anywhere near as much as alternative proposals for dividing England do.