Cameron faces huge task to defuse nationalism

David Cameron has raised the possibility of a historic shake-up of the union between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after the election handed 56 of 59 Scottish seats to the pro-independence Scottish National party.

Speaking at his own constituency count, he said he wanted to reclaim for the Conservatives "a mantle that we should never have lost: the mantle of one nation, one United Kingdom".

Despite victories across England and Wales, the Tories failed to make progress in Scotland, retaining the 17 per cent vote share and the one MP they won in 2010.

Taken with the crushing defeat for Labour in its Scottish heartlands, the results highlighted the increasingly wide gap between politics north and south of the border. Mr Cameron promised tackling the issue would be one of the first priorities of his new government.

Mr Cameron insisted he would continue with plans to devolve new powers to Edinburgh struck by the Smith commission set up after last year's independence referendum. Under the agreement reached by all five major parties in Scotland, including the SNP, this will mean handing over the right to change bands and rates of income tax as well as a proportion of value added tax and housing benefit. But the prime minister sparked speculation that the Tories could be ready to create an entirely new set-up for the UK.

He said: "Above all I want to bring our country together, not least by implementing as fast as we can the devolution that we rightly promised and come together with other parties to agree both for Wales and for Scotland."

Boris Johnson, London mayor, who was elected as MP for Uxbridge, was more explicit, saying: "There has to be some kind of federal offer." The words were a direct contrast with much of what the Tories said in the campaign, during which they warned of the threat to the UK of a sweeping SNP victory.

The Tories are now considering further devolution that could go beyond the Smith proposals. Ministers could decide to devolve the entirety of income tax, including exemptions and deciding who pays it, as well as handing over greater control of other taxes such as VAT. The Conservatives may also choose to return to a proposal dropped during the Smith negotiations, which would see the Universal Credit, the new single-payment benefit system, entirely devolved to Scotland, allowing MSPs to create their own welfare state.

Adam Tomkins, a Glasgow University professor who helped negotiate the Smith proposals for the Conservatives, said: "The real change here is that the Conservatives are now the real party of the union in Scotland - no longer will we take lessons from Labour about Scottish politics." But he added that the answer to protecting the union lay not in devolving greater and greater powers but in investing in programmes that would persuade Scots of the benefits of being part of the UK.

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But any moves to do so will go hand-in-hand with plans to deprive Scottish MPs of voting rights in the Westminster parliament, under what the party calls "English votes for English laws".

The party's proposals would see a new stage of voting in the House of Commons, at which a selected group of English and Welsh MPs would have their say on legislation that does not affect Scotland.

Labour has long protested against this, warning it would create a "two-tier" House of Commons.

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