SIR Keir Starmer is to outline a new devolution deal for Holyrood in a bid to revive Labour's electoral fortunes north of the border.
With a Scottish election in five months, the UK Labour leader will deliver a major speech on the constitution next week.
It comes as some in Scottish Labour are calling pushing for the Scottish Parliament to be given far more tax and spending powers under a “Devo Max” plan.
The change would be linked to a shift towards a more federal UK, with reform of the House of Lords and greater devolution to the regions of England.
Sir Keir will set out the “new offer” when he delivers the John P Mackintosh lecture for Edinburgh University by video on Friday December 11.
The lecture is named after the late Scottish Labour MP who advocated devolution in the 1960s and 1970s.
A Labour official todl the Daily Record: "The will be a major speech on devolution and the future of Scotland in a modern United Kingdom.
"This is about Keir showing himself as a future UK Prime Minister who values devolution and would further devolution in stark contrast to the current PM who calls it a disaster north of the border."
It comes as Scottish Labour struggles in the polls, and faces the loss of more of its MSPs at next May’s Holyrood election.
An Ipsos/Mori poll earlier this week put SNP support in the constituency vote at 55 per cent among decided voters, with the Scottish Tories on 22%, Scottish Labour on 14%, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats 6%.
Excluding don’t knows, the SNP had 47% on the regional lists, the Tories 22%, Labour 16%, the Scottish Greens 7% and the Scottish LibDems 6%.
On those figures, the SNP would win an outright majority in 2021, with 73 MSPs (+10 on 2016), the Tories would have 27 (-4), and Labour 19 (-5).
Scottish Labour has failed to make headway under leader Richard Leonard more than three years ago, but remains largely unknown to the electorate.
It has also struggled to carve out a constitutional position.
Mr Leonard has said he will oppose Indyref2 in the next parliamentary term, but Mr Starmer refused to rule out supporting another referendum in September.
The Scottish Tories claimed Labour were planning to cave in to SNP demands for Indyref2.
Leader Douglas Ross said: “Just weeks after Scottish Labour ruled out working with my party to stop the Nationalists, they’re looking to appease the SNP and give in on Indyref2.
“They never put the Union first. They would rather work with the SNP than fight to stop them trying to divide the country all over again next year.
“Only the Scottish Conservatives have the strength to stand up to the SNP and stop their push for a second independence referendum.”
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel