Labour must save the Union Dan Harrison, History at Worcester
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Labour must craft a radical devolution settlement to save the Union. Since 2010, the party’s absence from the devolution debate has enabled the political discourse to be hijacked by those on the extremes. Ed Miliband pledged to ‘reverse’ centralisation and argued devolution was a ‘good idea,’ but opposed a ‘new rung of governance.’ So who would power be devolved to? Jeremy Corbyn provided breathtaking clarity when he explained that ‘everything was on the table’ when it came to devolution. Yet the 2019 general election manifesto renewed Labour’s commitment to a centralised state focused on the redistribution of income and wealth through the creation of a national investment bank. What about the redistribution of power? In the Labour leadership election Sir Keir Starmer articulated his vision for a constitutional settlement based on ‘federalism,’ but he is yet to move beyond first principles. Why does any of this matter anyway? It matters because the citizens of this nation are being poorly served by the quality of the political debate on constitutional issues and Labour has a moral duty to provide an intellectually coherent policy. Recently, in a meeting with Conservative MPs, Boris Johnson called Scottish devolution a ‘disaster’. His policy is to devolve, distrust and dismiss. The Conservatives can’t be trusted to deliver meaningful constitutional reform when they are led by a man who once said, ‘government by a Scot is just not conceivable in the current constitutional context.’ Meanwhile, the SNP offer independence, which would spell economic catastrophe for Scotland. Leaving the UK would mean losing the benefits of the Barnett formula, in which it receives £1900 more
per head in public spending than England. Labour must offer a new way. A constitutional settlement must be built that shares power not only with the nations of the United Kingdom, but also its regions. The situation is urgent. The most recent public poll on Scottish independence has the Yes campaign eleven points ahead. Yet disaffection also looms in Wales, with support for independence growing. A recent YouGov poll found that there had been a 10% increase in support for Welsh independence over the past year. Andy Burnham’s showdown with the government also highlights the burning frustration Metro Mayors feel about the lack of engagement from Westminster during this pandemic. Most Metro Mayors have had little more than a single phone call with the Prime Minister since the pandemic began. Mark Drakeford, the Welsh First Minister, has even sent letters to the Prime Minister that have been tossed aside, left unanswered. All this from a man who is not only the PM, but also the Minister for the Union. The pandemic has exposed the perils of centralisation. Existing local testing capacity has been ignored and new privately run and inaccessible test sites have been drawn up in Whitehall. Why? Because the man in Whitehall knows best. Always. Yet nations that have federalised public health systems, such as Germany, have performed more effectively during the pandemic. Coronavirus has also demonstrated the importance of politicians at all levels of government co-operating and compromising to put public health first. Yet collaboration is difficult to achieve in a unitary state where the centre jealously guards power. In contrast, in Germany the state premiers meet the Chancellor, Angela Merkel, regularly and through negotiation solutions are devised. It is not only the pandemic that has exposed the structural flaws in our political system, but also the deepening regional inequalities. Successive governments have attempted to solve rising regional inequalities through solutions from the centre. Yet this has resulted in a litany of failures: the Special Areas Act 1934; the Distribution of Industry Act 1945; Enterprise Zones and the Regional Growth Fund. Despite the plethora of policy initiatives, regional inequalities remain
