The devolution fallacy

It is easy to see why Labour leader Keir Starmer should find himself tempted into the idea of greater devolution. Electoral geometry indicates that he might end up having to negotiate with the SNP after the next election. It is harder to see why Gordon Brown’s advice should be sought, given how badly his own attempts at devolution have backfired.

As Tony Blair’s shadow chancellor, Brown argued that a new parliament in Edinburgh would scotch the snake of independence. It was a view widely held by Labour at the time. In the words of the then shadow Scotland secretary, devolution would kill the SNP ‘stone dead’. This has not, to put it mildly, gone according to plan. Had Brown not retired from the Commons in 2015, voters would have done it for him: all but three seats in Scotland were won by the SNP. Devolution has left Scotland in a trap: on one side a powerful independence movement which will not give up, on the other a decisive ‘no’ vote in the 2014 referendum.