Why Burnham’s devolution promises offer nothing new for Scotland

Two years ago, Labour stood on the steps of Downing Street promising a new era of “change”. Fast forward to today, and the reality for families across Scotland is ongoing chaos: a soaring cost of living, rising unemployment, and a broken Brexit Britain that looks indistinguishable from the Tory austerity that preceded it.

Now, with a new Westminster leadership race underway, frontrunner Andy Burnham has taken to the stage to pitch yet another “radical restructuring” of the UK through his brand of “Manchester-ism”.

But beneath the shiny rhetoric of a “Number 10 North” and shifting power out of Whitehall lies an all-too-familiar reality – top-down, England-centric empty promises that ignore Scotland’s democratically elected government and actively threaten our local services.

As SNP Westminster Leader Dave Doogan MP put it:

“Andy Burnham is making the same empty promises, while keeping all of Westminster’s most damaging policies – Brexit, austerity cuts and Tory spending rules. The SNP has been calling for meaningful devolution for years but there is nothing of substance for Scotland in these proposals.”

For decades, Scotland has been subjected to a cyclical pattern of panicky, last-minute vows from Westminster politicians whenever the prospect of real self-determination looks likely.

From the vague promises of something “better” in 1979,  the pledges of 2014 promising the closest thing to federalism within the UK and equal partnership, to repeated pledges of “maximum devolution,” promises made by the Westminster establishment have either fallen completely flat or been heavily diluted.

Burnham’s speech proves that the Westminster mindset has not changed one bit. He is setting out proposals for constitutional tinkering without bothering to involve the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland in the conversation.

To add insult to injury, Burnham’s geographic blind spot was clear for all to see. He speaks of Manchester as the ‘north of the UK,’ when in reality, it is barely the north of England.

If Labour politicians were genuinely serious about shifting power, they would stop trying to dictate terms to Scotland from a new office in Manchester.

They would start by delivering on the choices already made by the people of Scotland – such as devolving the crucial energy powers that the Scottish Parliament has already voted for, rather than hoarding control over Scotland’s abundant green wealth at Westminster.

Perhaps the most alarming element of the current Westminster trajectory is a threat to how local communities are funded.

Burnham’s speech hinted at a paternalistic approach to bypassing Holyrood to take “power deeper down” into cities like Dundee.

This is code for Westminster directly involving itself in local government spending in Scotland – a dangerous move designed to undermine our national parliament.

We only have to look across the border to see what happens when Westminster holds the purse strings for local authorities.

Decades of severe, top-down funding cuts by successive Westminster governments have left councils in England threadbare, pushing many to the point of literal bankruptcy and devastating basic public services like social care, libraries, and road maintenance.

In stark contrast, the Scottish Government has consistently worked to shield our local authorities from the worst excesses of Westminster’s fiscal straightjacket, prioritising fair funding to protect the frontline public services that Scottish communities rely on every single day.

For Westminster to claw back control over local government allocations under the guise of “devolution” is a Trojan horse that risks dragging Scottish local services down into the same financial crisis engulfing England.

The fundamental truth is that you cannot fix a fundamentally broken, over-centralised system by merely building a second Whitehall in Greater Manchester.

If Andy Burnham and the Labour leadership truly believed that people should have control over their own lives, they would stop trying to block Scotland’s democratic right to choose its own future.

They would recognise that the people who live and work in Scotland are the ones best placed to make decisions about Scotland’s economy, resources, and public services.

While the SNP will always act responsibly and work alongside any UK government to secure meaningful advancements for our parliament wherever possible, history shows that tinkering around the edges of the Union will never deliver real change.

The only way to permanently protect our public services, escape the damage of Brexit and austerity, and build a fairer society is to leave Westminster control behind for good and take our place as an independent nation.