Keir Starmer to warn UK's future at risk without 'real devolution'

Sir Keir will deliver a key speech on Monday, setting out Labour’s blueprint for devolution and promising a “path to a socially just and secure, modern United Kingdom”.

He will also announce that Gordon Brown will advise the party on the “boldest project Labour has embarked on for a generation”.

The Herald previously reported that the former Labour prime minister is set to head a new UK-wide Constitutional Convention designed to reform and extend devolution and fend off Scottish independence.

Labour’s renewed devolution project will focus on handing “real and lasting economic and political devolution across our towns, communities and to people across the country”, Sir Keir is expected to say.

The strategy has been drawn up in response to “a yearning across the United Kingdom for politics and power to be much closer to people”, the Labour leader will say.

But Sir Keir will specifically set out a “fresh and tangible offer” to the Scottish people amid soaring support for independence, which has risen to its highest ever level.

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He will say: “It is Labour’s duty to offer a positive alternative to the Scottish people. To show that you don’t have to choose between a broken status quo and the uncertainty and divisiveness of separatism.

“It is our duty – my duty – to make the alternative case for a devolved and a socially just Scotland in a modern United Kingdom.”

Sir Keir will add: “The case for the next phase of devolution was urgent before Covid, but the pandemic has put rocket boosters under it. Our Labour council leaders, mayors and metro mayors have stood up for their communities against a centralised Westminster-knows-best response.

“A national crisis on this scale should have been the time for central government to work with and empower local communities to bring the country together.

“But too often the UK Government’s approach has been to pit council against council, town against town, city against city, mayor against mayor. It’s no surprise that the many local leaders I’ve spoken to have felt distanced and ignored on decisions that have had huge consequences on people’s jobs, lives and their communities.

“This has got to change. That’s why I’m announcing today that in the new year, Labour will launch a UK-wide Constitutional Commission to consider how power, wealth and opportunity can be devolved to the most local level.

“This won’t be an exercise in shifting power from one Parliament to another, of moving a few jobs out of London or to ‘devolve and to forget’.

“This will be the boldest project Labour has embarked on for a generation and every bit as bold and radical as the programme of devolution that Labour delivered in the 1990s and 2000s.

“It will consider all parts of the United Kingdom and it will focus on delivering real – and lasting – economic and political devolution across our towns, our communities and to people across the country.”

READ MORE: Sir Keir Starmer to promise new wave of devolution under Labour

Sir Keir will acknowledge that Scots have lost trust in Labour, warning the party’s fortunes will not changes until “real devolution” is delivered.

He will say: “Boris Johnson isn’t Britain just as Nicola Sturgeon isn’t Scotland. The United Kingdom is much more than that, more than any individual. It has been before – and can be again – a great force for social justice, for security and for solidarity.

“And under my leadership, we will do everything we can to win back your trust in Labour, but equally importantly, in the United Kingdom.

“Unless we grasp the nettle, and deliver real devolution of power and resources, we won’t be able to renew our United Kingdom for the 2020s and 2030s.

“We won’t be able to tackle the root causes of the appalling inequalities and injustices that we see across our regions and nations. And we won’t be able to make Britain the country I know it can be: the best place to grow up in and the best place to grow old in.”

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have indicated they are open to working with Labot to strengthen devolution.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said: “It’s good that Labour are putting their weight behind substantial reform of the United Kingdom. It’s means that the momentum towards a third way is growing.

"Liberal Democrats support a new federalist settlement that means we can find a better way to agree a common future across the United Kingdom.

"Scotland does not have to choose between the chaos of Boris Johnson and the division of independence as there is a third way. The Liberal Democrats are open to working with Labour to develop this third way.”