The early exchanges between the First Minister and the new Prime Minister confirm Scottish politics is like a bad movie on repeat. John Swinney used his victory in the devolved election to demand the UK Government agree to a second referendum. Andy Burnham has refused to entertain indyref2 even on a surface level and urged the FM to move on.
The same tedious game has played out for over a decade and Scots find themselves stuck in the middle. A basic examination of the facts shows Swinney is misleading the pro-independence voters who installed him in Bute House. The power for indyref2 rests at Westminster and the UK Government believes a referendum would divide the country.
Labour's firm stance
One senior Labour figure told the Record there are "absolutely no circumstances” in which Burnham will back another vote on self-determination. SNP stalwarts will counter by saying Labour Ministers must provide a route map for Scots to back independence, should they wish to do so. But the UK Government is under no obligation to provide a pathway for a policy it believes is fundamentally wrong.
The relationship between Burnham and Swinney will simply become a hand shake-and-smiles exercise for the new PM. Meanwhile, as the SNP Government’s energies are focused on a phantom referendum, the country’s public services fall into disrepair.
Devolution tensions
Both Governments will struggle to cooperate on a basic level due to mutual mistrust. Burnham’s “devolution” agenda also seems set to stop at Carlisle due to political tensions with the SNP. Swinney believes more devo should mean extra powers being transferred to Holyrood. Burnham is of the view that more local control should benefit councils and regions, not the centralised Edinburgh parliament.
Devolution was never supposed to pan out this way. Donald Dewar, Scotland’s First Minister, believed setting up a Parliament would modernise institutions that would never be Westminster’s priority. He never saw Holyrood as a forum for endless manufactured grievances aimed at the UK Government. Scots voted in a referendum in 1997 for bold and radical change. They are still waiting.
