And well I know within that bastard land

Hath Wisdom's Goddess never held command;

A barren soil, where nature's germs, confined,

To stern sterility, can stint the mind;

Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,

Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth;

Each genial influence nurtured to resist;

A land of meanness, sophistry and mist

Byron: The Curse of Minerva

So the Scots looked east, and west and north, and at the abyss, and their legendary courage – so often turned against themselves rather than at the dreaded Sassanach – has yet again deserted them. The bums are blue, not from bravado but the cold again. And as ever, Scottish aspirations have been strangled not by outsiders, least of all Englishmen, but by themselves. It's a sad fact of Scottish, and Irish, history, somewhat obscured by Braveheart and Sir Walter Scott, that Scottish independence has always foundered from local treachery, politics and the bribability of Scottish patriots.

It's back to the turnips, the mutton and the kelp; the cold, the Calvinism, the Campbells and Catholicism, the Old Firm, hooliganism on a grand scale and self-indulgent mythmaking which would make even an Irishman blush. For a generation at least, perhaps indeed into a time when nationality has become almost unimportant as any source of legal rights or identity, and has become a mere cultural and ethnic marker. One might not think this could happen when one sees the nationalist, ethnic and tribal fratricides in so many places in the world. But most of western Europe has, over the past 70 years trended towards becoming a place of open markets, free movement of labour, no borders and, internally at least, no passports. And high standards of living and social security, healthcare and public education, even if with occasional doses of austerity.

Some Scots may now reflect that they got the best of both worlds. They got England's attention to their well developed, if not entirely convincing, sense of grievance. Scotland retains the security of being in a larger system, including the umbrella of a defence system it says it would not have had had it gone its own way. But the panic in London caused by the momentum for independence led to promises of further devolution and attention to Scotland's sense of itself that is far greater than the status quo, and perhaps, in the short term at least, far better than anything an independent Scotland could have achieved for itself in the first years of going it alone.

The British prime minister, David Cameron (who like his immediate predecessor Gordon Brown is of Scottish background) reiterated promises of further devolution in the victory speech after the referendum was defeated. But those who were listening heard what they wanted to, and I wonder whether everything will be as pleasant at it sounded. It seemed to me he was promising retribution.

Cameron made it clear that any powers devolved to Scotland would also be powers devolved to the mini-national assemblies in Wales and Ulster. He then announced he would also devolve powers also to a new mini-nation called England.

If Scotland will make more of its own decisions about how government money is to be dispersed about Scotland, and about taxes and charges, the same will be occurring in England, perhaps from an English capital at York, or Oxford (to name two English cities which have served in the past as national capitals). If powers or money are taken from Westminster and handed over to Edinburgh, the same powers and money will go to York. There may, as a result, be fewer taxes gathered at Westminster, and less available to feed Scots with their ordinary "entitlements".

Cameron is plainly talking about a federal Britain, along the lines of federations in some of the old British colonies, such as the United States and Canada, Australia, India or Nigeria, or perhaps the sort of federation that is involved in the very idea of the European community. His Westminster is Canberra, his York Sydney.

For Britain, which lacks even a fully written constitution, this would be novel, but that is not to say that the British do not know all about federations, having established most of those in operation around the world. Federations vary considerably, not least in which powers are placed in the centre and which on the circumference, among states or provinces or, in the case of the British, kingdoms.

I had a perverse interest, coming from my Irish heritage, in seeing Scottish independence get up, and relish the irony in its getting "Home Rule" instead. Yet it always seemed to me that all of the players – pro or con independence – were rather too casual about how a divorce could occur, and in assuming that all of the incidents, about property, maintenance and custody, could be amicably resolved after the principle of separation was resolved unilaterally by one party.

The American Civil War was not simply a dispute between the United States about slavery or the rights of the constituent states. It was about the belief of those who thought "union" had made them one nation that parties to the union could not walk out if things did not work out. It was, the unionists thought, a marriage forever, and about 700,000 Americans died before they made their point by force of arms. American ideas and idealism seem only ever to triumph after a massive effusion of blood, but in this case it was their own.

Here in Australia, we sometimes hear treasonable talk, particularly from Sandgropers, about secession. In my view that could not be legally or constitutionally achieved by a mere referendum of West Australians. A majority of people in four of the six states would have to agree, as well as an absolute majority of all voting Australians (including people from the territories). It might come to war, in which case I believe that Tasmanians, who would be most threatened, should rally first to the standard.

In a British context, there might have been an argument that Scotland could not leave unless a referendum of the Welsh, the Irish and the English approved.

It is delicious to imagine what might have happened had the referendum on Thursday asked the question "should Scotland become an independent country" not of Scots but of the people of Ulster, Wales and England. Perhaps, given resentment of the Scottish sense of entitlement, grievance and general noisiness, the chance of success might have been better than with a poll in Scotland itself. Certainly one should not judge from the fact that non-Scottish politicians from Westminster professed themselves appalled by the idea of a split-up.

One obvious problem of a British federation is that England is far too big compared with the other kingdoms. The UK has 64 million people, but 53 million live in England, 5.3 million in Scotland, 3.1 million in Wales and 1.8 million in Ulster. Maybe England should divide itself into Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Wessex as in the days of King Alfred. Or perhaps, sadly, some of the noisier constituent parts of England (why does Yorkshire immediately come to mind?) be allowed to become kingdoms in their own right.

One would imagine that whatever happened, the south eastern parts of England, including London, would tend not only to the highest average wealth, but the greatest tendency to want limited government, whether at Westminster or from the provincial capital. One could imagine that these Tories would tax themselves lightly, resist high taxes from Westminister and say that if constituent assemblies in Cardiff or Edinburgh wanted more services, public servants and economic featherbedding, not to mention traffic signs in Cornish, or Welsh or Gael, they should tax their own citizens so as to pay for it themselves.

One might also imagine that the poor kingdoms, or provinces, would demand a British equivalent of the Australian Commonwealth Grants Commission to help all true-born British to achieve both horizontal and vertical fiscal equity – in effect, to continue the system of sending money west and north from the south east.

This would be great fun. Recall, for example, how West Australia bitches about the fact that (according to it) it is carrying far too many lame ducks on the eastern side of the continent, particularly South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT.

On account of Scotland, and the Scots-like Western Australian sense of entitlement, I purchased at the Lifeline book fair on Friday a copy of the first report of the Commonwealth Grants Commission of 1933. The whine from the west in 1933 was as loud as today, if mostly with explanations of its then misery and reasons why it should be more subsidised. At this time, Queensland was at about average levels. West Australia was the most mendicant state in both absolute and per capita terms, followed by Tasmania and South Australia. NSW, and to a lesser extent Victoria were propping it up. The west was yet to find its North Sea oil.