DAVID CAMERON has never supported greater devolution for Scotland, but he is determined to exploit the current situation to advance the Tory Party in England.

His proposal to fast-track proposals to reduce the powers of non-English-constituency MPs is so framed as to spark resentment among English voters.

English Tory MPs are already kicking up against their leader’s acceptance of Gordon Brown’s insistence during the crucial last days of the referendum campaign that the Barnett formula be honoured.

London Mayor Boris Johnson’s call for a rejig of Barnett, together with more powers for England’s “great cities,” has a similar intent.

Despite being elected as mayor of London, Johnson’s advocacy priority has been one square mile of it — the City.

City banks were bailed out of their self-created insolvency to the tune of £1.3 trillion, yet Johnson and his ilk pretend that this finance sector somehow carries the rest of Britain.

Such special pleading, together with assertions that Barnett equals English taxpayers bankrolling ungrateful Scots is intended to persuade English voters to support the Tories in May’s general election.

This would be a disaster for working people throughout Britain as it would encourage Cameron and his cronies to intensify austerity policies that impoverish all but the wealthiest elite.

Anger over the class divide between a cosseted tiny minority and the vast majority of the people suffering lower living standards lay at the heart of the Scottish referendum.

Traditionally Labour-voting areas such as Glasgow, Dundee, West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire backed independence on Thursday as a means of ending Tory rule in Scotland forever.

The No side checked and then reversed the tide of support for separation in the last fortnight by stressing labour movement solidarity and collective action for the common good.

That this was led by Gordon Brown is a poignant irony.

He was implicated as chancellor in new Labour’s alienation of the working class when he sucked up to the City, proclaiming that “Labour means business,” and the wealth gap between rich and poor swelled to Victorian dimensions.

Both referendum campaigns were dominated in the final stages by the values and priorities of the organised labour movement, which the Tories hate and Labour has kept at arm’s length.

Ed Miliband suggested yesterday that the Scottish independence referendum would spur massive change across Britain.

The Labour leader added that “our country only works for a tiny elite few at the top. This Labour Party knows that must change and we will change it.”

Words are easy in the wake of an electoral process in which 86 per cent of voters participated, including for the first time 16 and 17-year-olds.

That level of enthusiasm, unmatched for over 60 years, was sparked by electorate awareness that two clear alternatives were on offer.

It will not be sustained by the spirit-sapping political convergence of recent decades in which spin, choreographed stunts and triangulation have replaced honesty and political principle.

September 18 has underlined the need to end centralised Westminster domination in favour of devolved democracy in a federalised structure, according England, Wales and Scotland equal status and economic powers.

This cannot be based on selfish attitudes to keep wealth gained as the result of public policy and state investment in localised areas of privilege.

The principle of solidarity must guarantee redistribution of wealth across Britain on the basis of social need to minimise the dangers of national discord and conflict.