Westminster decides democracy is “off limits”

News that Westminster Prime Minister Andy Burnham has unilaterally declared constitutional referendums “off the table” in Northern Ireland and “off limits” in Scotland represent an astonishing level of political hubris.

It is a posture built on breath-taking duplicity, open deception, and an absolute contempt for basic democratic principles.

By taking this line, Burnham is not doing “politics differently” – he is adopting the exact same anti-democratic arrogance of his immediate predecessor and the three Tory Prime Ministers before him.

What makes Burnham’s dismissive declaration all the more egregious is that he possesses zero democratic authority to overrule the sovereign decisions of the Scottish people.

While Andy Burnham was elected to the House of Commons by voters in a single English constituency in Wigan, a clear majority of MSPs was just elected to the Scottish Parliament on an explicit, nation-wide mandate to hold an independence referendum – a situation echoing the landmark national mandate of 2011.

It is the height of anti-democratic vanity for an MP representing a single English seat to override a national mandate delivered across all of Scotland.

But his bald declarations are not just hubristic arrogance. They fundamentally deny decades of promises by Westminster politicians.

For decades, Westminster politicians told the people of Scotland that the UK was a voluntary union of nations, and in the run-up to the 2014 referendum, the anti-independence campaign repeatedly assured Scots that the UK was a “partnership of equals” – that a ‘No’ vote was the only way to secure Scotland’s place as a respected, self-determining member.

Westminster party leaders explicitly promised that a ‘No’ vote meant…

“Power lies with the Scottish people and we believe it is for the Scottish people to decide how Scotland is governed.”

And, following that referendum, all the main parties in the Scottish Parliament – including Labour – signed up to the Smith Commission Report, a commission set up by the then Prime Minister, which explicitly stated in Paragraph 18 that:

“It is agreed that nothing in this report prevents Scotland becoming an independent country in the future should the people of Scotland so choose.”

More recently, Scottish Labour went further by explicitly declaring, in an official party document shortly before the 2024 election, that the Scottish people are sovereign and have the right to determine the form of government best suited to their needs.

Yet the moment the Scottish electorate exercises that democratic sovereignty by returning record pro-independence majorities to Holyrood, Labour thinks they can treat Scottish voters as mugs and shift the goal posts.

To turn around now and claim that the democratic choice of the Scottish people is simply “off limits” is pure deception.

People voted ‘No’ in 2014 on the explicit promise that Scotland’s place in a voluntary union would be respected.

By denying Scotland the right to choose, Labour and the Westminster establishment are disrespecting and betraying the very vote they fought so hard to win.

Adding to this display of hypocrisy is Gordon Brown. In 2014, Brown famously promised that a ‘No’ vote would deliver “home rule for Scotland” and a system “as close to federalism as possible“.

Yet, as the years following Brexit in particular have shown with Westminster stripping Holyrood of power, this was just another Labour con trick on the Scottish people.

Now, Brown chastises Burnham’s comments on Northern Ireland and says that a united Ireland is inevitable, yet turns around to tell Scots that we should be barred from exercising the exact same right of self-determination.

His logic is completely nonsensical.

Brown argues that Ireland can and will be a fully independent country, but that Scotland is somehow incapable of independence because it is “geographically, economically, socially, and culturally linked” to its neighbours. Ireland shares those exact same geographical, economic, and cultural ties with the rest of these islands, yet functions successfully as an independent nation.

It is also nonsense to say Ireland will become a united independent country but Scotland has to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries in the British Isles without independence, but then goes on to name Ireland which as one of those countries!

Why is: it that independence is natural and inevitable for Ireland, but “off limits” for Scotland?

These entrenched double standards expose the fundamental flaw at the heart of the Westminster state and the parties obsessed with power at Westminster.

When Labour politicians tell the people of Scotland that our votes do not matter, that our parliamentary majorities will be ignored, and that our constitutional rights are subject to the whim of whoever happens to occupy 10 Downing Street, they shatter any remaining illusion that the United Kingdom is a voluntary union.

This arrogant and duplicitous behaviour by Labour – and the wider Westminster establishment – is itself one of the strongest arguments for Scottish independence.

The future of Scotland must be decided by the people who live here – not by Westminster politicians who should be questioned on why they are abandoning decades of supporting that very principle, and can’t explain why they have the right to lock the door on Scotland’s people and throw away the key.

In May, the Scottish Parliament overwhelmingly voted for a call to devolve powers to hold an independence referendum.

That is why the Scottish Government has just published a draft Independence Referendum Bill which proposes a clear ‘Yes’ – ‘No’ question, sets out who can vote, and will include the date.

The Westminster government should respect the voice of the Scottish people and the Scottish Parliament, and transfer those necessary powers.

Scotland is ready. The Scottish people are ready.

It is now time for the Westminster government to respect their own decades long principles and delivered on what they promised in 2014.