How ‘red shirt Labour’ inWales helped party avoid Scottish fate
ACULTURE of “red shirt Labour” in Wales that has sustained the party in the Assembly age contrasts with the hammering it has received in Scotland, according to a champion of English devolution.
Former cabinet minister and leadership contender Andy Burnham hopes to become the first elected Mayor of Greater Manchester and says Wales’ example shows why the party must “invest in devolution”.
The Tories now have more members of the Scottish Parliament than Labour, and there is strong speculation that SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will soon call for a second independence referendum.
Praising the “patriotic” approach of Welsh Labour, he told Politics Home: “Compare Wales and Scotland. In Wales, Labour invested in devolution – we called it ‘red shirt Labour’, a very patriotic approach.
“In Scotland, nobody [was] left here to pick up the torch when Donald Dewar died and consequently we left a space for others to fill. The lesson is that Labour’s got to invest in devolution.
“We didn’t invest in our own creation.”
Stressing the importance of senior figures standing for election in the new bodies, he said: “I remember that call being made in the Government years. There were voices from Scotland saying, ‘Why is no Labour figure coming here?’
“Jim [Murphy] did do it eventually, but if he’d done it earlier maybe that would have been better. That was a mistake in retrospect because Labour didn’t put its stamp all over it.”
His comments come as Theresa May has signalled a new approach to devolution and criticised a “devolve and forget” approach.
In a speech to Scottish Conservatives she said: “For too long the attitude in Whitehall has been to ‘devolve and forget’. But as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I am just as concerned that young people in Dundee get a good start in life and receive the education they need to reach their full potential as I am about young people in Doncaster and Dartford.
“I care as much about the dignity and security of older people on both sides of the River Tweed or the Irish Sea.”
Pushing for greater cooperation between governments, she said: “We need to build a new ‘collective responsibility’ across the United Kingdom, which unites all layers of government, to work positively together to improve the lives of everyone in our country.”
In a staunch defence of the role of the UK Government, she said: “As the Government serving the whole United Kingdom, formed in a Parliament drawn from the whole United Kingdom, the UK Government exercises a responsibility on behalf of the whole UK that transcends party politics and encompasses all aspects of our national life. While fully respecting, and indeed strengthening, the devolution settlements and the devolved administrations across the UK, we must unashamedly assert this fundamental responsibility on our part.”
In devolved areas of policy, she said, “we will look for ways to collaborate and work together with the devolved administrations to improve the outcomes for everyone”.
Anyone hoping she would use her speech to pledge a new wave of devolution is on the way would be disappointed.
On where powers should lie after Brexit, Mrs May said: “As we bring powers and control back to the United Kingdom, we must ensure the right powers sit at the right level to ensure our United Kingdom can operate effectively and in the interests of all of its citizens, including people in Scotland. In short, we must avoid any unintended consequences for the coherence and integrity of a devolved United Kingdom as a result of our leaving the EU.”
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond branded Mrs May’s speech a “power grab”.
He told BBC News: “She’s actually proposing that if Brexit goes ahead the powers that should come back to Scotland on fishing, farming and a range other issues – she’s going to retain them at Westminster, because she likes the look of the Scottish economic zone.
“That’s a fundamental attack on the very principle and foundation in statute of the Scottish Parliament of 1999, which said specifically that anything that wasn’t reserved to Westminster should be run in Scotland. This is Prime Minister who is attacking the very foundations of the Scottish Parliament, and she’ll do it to her cost.”
Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale was also unimpressed, saying: “The Prime Minister has undermined the Union at every turn since entering Downing Street.”