Under SNP, devolution has been failing miserably. Here's how Labour can change that

There is, for reasons that have almost nothing to do with devolved powers, far less satisfaction with Scotland’s status quo. Yet it has created a situation in which Anas Sarwar and his team must refocus minds on the need for change in Scotland and to generate enthusiasm for their alternative offer.

The thesis was always that a Labour government at Westminster working with like-minded colleagues in Edinburgh would be an attractive offer to voters in 2026 – a “partnership for Scotland” as Ian Murray called it yesterday. It still can be but the case needs to be made afresh.

Anyone who thinks the best way to advance Scotland’s needs is through two governments trying to out-manoeuvre one another has learned nothing from 14 years of Tory-SNP rule. However, there is now a lot of ground to be regained as Keir Starmer must surely acknowledge.

Soulless exhibition centres

Personally, I preferred Scottish Labour conferences when they were held in traditional settings like Perth City Hall with occasional forays to the music halls of the Costa Clyde. In these days, you could always count on powerful oratory, lively debate and healthy dissent.

Then, like all party conferences, they became bigger, slicker and more commercial with an aversion to anything the hostile media could label a split. That has led to stage management in the soulless surroundings of exhibition centres. Forgive me a little nostalgia for that bygone era.

Back then, the merits of devolution featured annually at Scottish Labour conferences with powerful arguments and strong characters on both sides. It took until 1997 for that debate to be resolved with the arrival of a Labour government and the promised referendum which duly delivered Holyrood.

Now, in order to raise expectations of what a Scottish Government in different hands could deliver, it is necessary to rekindle hopes which existed then for the radical transformation which devolution was expected to deliver. That is the true measure of how far short the reality has fallen and a reminder of the potential that exists.

A world of self-delusion

To diverge slightly, I heard a radio interview yesterday with Susan Aitken, SNP leader of Glasgow City Council, who was enthralled with the budget settlement they had received from the caring hands of Finance Secretary Shona Robison. No mention of the extra £1.5 billion from the Labour government and certainly no mention of the grim state Glasgow has fallen into over the past decade as councils were starved of funds. These people really do live in a world of self-delusion.

For Scottish Labour, there is now an urgent need to put forward an agenda which contains more than the promise that they would manage devolved government, as it exists, better than the present incumbents. On multiple fronts, that would not be difficult. But it is not enough.

Devolution’s advocates had high ambitions for what it should become. As well as providing a bulwark against policies Scotland had not voted for, it would infuse our politics with new ideas and powers to implement them. It would release Scotland to be at its creative best, enabled by a parliament of all the talents.

To put it kindly, it hasn’t worked out like that. It is difficult to think of any front on which Scotland has advanced in the way that was envisaged. We have more politicians but worse public services. We have a parliament with extensive powers to legislate for change but a sad lack of vision and aspiration. We have minimal progress on equality or attainment gaps.

‘Settled will of the Scottish people’

Crucially, government from Edinburgh has in many respects taken democracy further away from people rather than bringing it closer. Devolution was never meant to end at Edinburgh, far less see powers sucked relentlessly towards the centre with local government hollowed out and once-powerful enterprise agencies reduced to branch offices of the Scottish Government.

It is incumbent on Labour – who delivered the Scottish Parliament – to think hard about what they now believe devolution should stand for and build their case accordingly.

It was always an optimistic claim that Holyrood reflected “the settled will of the Scottish people”. On the contrary, it took less than a decade before it fell into the hands of people for whom it certainly did not represent their settled will because it did not offer a separate state. So Holyrood became the forum for exactly the constitutional argy-bargy it was intended to resolve while “all the talents” steered well clear.

Devolution in the hands of people who do not believe in the concept then became its critical weakness. Wherever it arises, nationalist ideology is about drawing power to the centre. The nation is the unit they exalt, rather than regions or communities. So centralisation is their natural instinct; the antithesis of devolution.

Radical reforms that never happened

We have now had 18 years of this insidious process. Labour needs to address that inherent ideological conflict by reasserting its status as the party of true devolution – not just for historical reasons but by insisting that it is the party which, in government, will return powers and resources to every corner of Scotland, where there is far greater understanding of needs and priorities.

It is time to promise major change in how Scotland’s institutions have developed over the past 25 years, steadily accruing power in Edinburgh which has rarely been matched by ability or humility.

Labour as the party of devolution, returning powers and accountability to the levels at which they belong, is a powerful message to campaign on, not just in its own right but as the essential building block for the radical reforms that have never happened.