WE have been here before with Gordon Brown. During the final days of the 2014 independence referendum campaign when the so-called vow was unveiled, the former Prime Minister declared that what was being proposed was “nothing less than a modern form of Scottish Home Rule”.
The UK Government insisted the transfer of new powers under the Scotland Act would make Holyrood arguably the most powerful devolved institution in the world. Not unexpectedly, the Nationalists insisted the transfer of tax and other powers was not enough; nothing short of full independence will, of course, do for the SNP leadership.
But now, after the Brexit vote, Mr Brown has reappeared to insist that the political landscape has changed again and so a new constitutional settlement, “fresh thinking” as he puts it, is needed. He says no-change Conservativism and out-and-out independence (one offering a Scotland out of Europe’s single market and the other Scotland out of the UK’s economic union) are “extreme” positions, that would lead to thousands of Scottish job losses. What is needed, Mr Brown argues, is a more innovative constitutional settlement; “more federal in its relationship with the UK than devolution or independence and more akin to Home Rule than separation”.
The key passage in his Edinburgh Book Festival talks is a call to consider the “case for clarifying the division of powers, stating that certain specific powers should be reserved to the UK Parliament, such as on currency, defence and security and pensions, and that all others are powers available to the Scottish Parliament”.
This pushes the federalism envelope further than Mr Brown had proposed in 2014. Yet federalism is not “fresh thinking”. Apart from it being Liberal Democrat policy, a new cross-party alliance has formed at Westminster, the Constitution Reform Group, which advocates a more federal system as the last redoubt against the SNP’s desire for Scottish independence. Mr Brown, it seems, has become its latest advocate.
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