Brown pushes for a federal middle way post Brexit vote

E have been here before with Gordon Brown. In the final days of the 2014 independence referendum campaign when the so-called vow was unveiled, the former Prime Minister declared that what was being proposed was “nothing less than a modern form of Scottish Home Rule”.

The UK Government said the transfer of powers under the Scotland Act would make Holyrood arguably the most powerful devolved institution in the world. Not unexpectedly, the Nationalists insisted the transfer of tax and other powers was not enough; nothing short of independence would do.

After the Brexit vote, Mr Brown insists that the political landscape has changed again and so a new constitutional settlement, “fresh thinking”, is needed. He says no-change Conservativism and full independence (Scotland out of Europe’s single market or Scotland out of the UK’s economic union) are “extreme” positions causing thousands of Scottish job losses. He argues that a more innovative constitutional settlement is needed: “More federal in its relationship with the UK than devolution or independence and more akin to Home Rule than separation”.

The key passage in his Edinburgh Book Festival talk is a call to consider the “case for clarifying the division of powers, stating that certain specific powers should be reserved to the UK Parliament, such as on currency, defence and security and pensions, and that all others are powers available to the Scottish Parliament”.

This pushes the federalism envelope further than he had proposed in 2014. Yet federalism is not “fresh thinking”. It is Liberal Democrat policy while a cross-party alliance has formed at Westminster, the Constitution Reform Group, which advocates a more federal system as the last redoubt against the SNP’s desire for Scottish independence. Mr Brown, it seems, has become its latest advocate.