The Guardian view on Keir Starmer and devolution: time to get radical
Sir Keir Starmer was due to deliver Monday’s much-heralded speech on devolution over a week ago. Fears that it would be overshadowed by the climax of Brexit trade talks prompted a postponement, only for the mutant Covid strain to deliver exactly the same outcome on Monday. Members of the assembled media were more interested in the Labour leader’s views on the Brexit transition period than in probing his promise of a new era of devolution.
That was a pity, given that this debate carries an existential dimension both for Labour’s fortunes in Scotland, and, more importantly, for the future of the United Kingdom. In the event, however, it turned out that what was on offer was not so much a great leap forward as a very modest step in the right direction.
Sir Keir announced that Labour is to set up a UK-wide constitutional commission, to be advised by the former prime minister Gordon Brown. Beginning with a listening exercise, it will consult across the UK on how to better distribute power, wealth and opportunity throughout Britain. Mayors and local leaders will be involved in the discussions over how to deepen local democracy and participation.
This is undoubtedly welcome so far as it goes. The pandemic has exposed in vivid and lethal terms the already dysfunctional relationship between an over-mighty Westminster and the regions. Councils have been woefully under-resourced, and local public health expertise has too often been bypassed. But there was little detail on how the commission would work in practice, how its proposals would be decided upon and by whom. It was also disappointing that, despite a pledge to be bold, there was no reference to reforming the first-past-the-post electoral system, which so distorts the distribution of political power in Britain.
Mr Brown, one of the original architects of Scottish devolution, was heavily involved in drawing up the strategy unveiled by Sir Keir. In Scotland, the hope is that the commission will
allow Labour to offer a third way between separatism and the status quo. This promise of a “positive alternative” to independence was combined with a stark assertion from Sir Keir that an indyref2 would be “entirely the wrong priority”, as the fallout from the Covid pandemic plays out across the UK.
According to the most recent polling, a record 58% of Scots now wish their country to leave the United Kingdom. It will take some truly creative constitutional thinking to reverse that momentum ahead of May’s local elections, in which the SNP is poised to regain an absolute majority. Ahead of those polls, Sir Keir’s refusal to back the right of Scots to stage another referendum is a gamble that risks compromising his power-sharing message.
Ultimately, the objective of Monday’s speech was to wrap the Scottish question into a broader devolution agenda. Britain’s top-heavy, overcentralised political system is not, said Sir Keir, just a Scottish or Welsh problem. This is an approach recognises that many leave voters in “red wall” constituencies felt abandoned by politics as usual. But fury over Brexit has also driven the upsurge in pro-independence sentiment north of the border. To square that circle, Sir Keir’s eventual proposals for a “new phase” of devolution will need to be radical indeed. So far we have only a cautious beginning.