Whilst I do not doubt that Blair was happy to hive off parts of the UK for the sake of Europe (he also tried it with parts of England but the canny northerners knew a dud when they saw it). The devolution of some powers to Scotland recognised that already areas like law and education were different from the rest of the UK, but if Scots could have their own nation in all but name, why not the Welsh and Irish as they had nationalists too? The only unfairness was to the English as they were not to share in the political and organisational freedoms enjoyed by the other three 'nations'.
It worked too. For a while, the various nationalist parties were kept busy wrecking their economies and institutions demanding more freedom and bigger budgets, but that has now slithered to a halt with the main UK Government refusing to hand over things like budgets repatriated from Europe. Particularly badly effected are health provision and education. According to my sources, although free university tuition and free prescriptions have led to benefits for some, others have seen to a drop in standards and shortages that definitely make life worse than before. Of course to nationalists, this just leads to demands for more money which can be tipped down the drain of poor governance. Of course, to the nationalist, it's all the fault of the 'English' Government, which does not exist.
Mike.X