UK prime minister Andy Burnham has urged Scotland’s nationalist government to move past the “drama” of the independence debate and to work with him instead on devolving powers from Holyrood to Scottish cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh.
While the governing Scottish National Party (SNP) was holding its annual conference in Aberdeen, Burnham popped up in Motherwell 220km to the south to make a “genuine offer” to Scotland’s government led by its first minister, the SNP’s John Swinney.
Burnham said he feared big Scottish cities would become “underpowered” compared with English cities, unless the Scottish government agreed to decentralise more of its powers to its regions. He said Westminster and Holyrood should co-operate on the issue.
The UK prime minister also tried to slap down talk that he might grant Scotland another independence referendum – the main political goal of the SNP.
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“Too much time is wasted in those dramas,” said Burnham of the independence debate.
“I think unions of countries are better because you can face a challenging world in a more confident and stronger way ... when you work together. That is my view ... He [Swinney] has a different view ... My view won’t be changing.”
Up in oil-rich Aberdeen, meanwhile, senior SNP politicians who spoke to The Irish Times seemed bemused Burnham chose the middle of their annual conference to come to Scotland to give a speech.
Speaking at the SNP conference just before Burnham’s lunchtime speech, Swinney said “of course” he would work with the UK government on empowering Scotland’s regions.
The nationalist governments of Scotland and Wales remain wary, however, that Burnham’s call to boost their regions could strip power from their national parliaments.
“I’ve got a track record throughout my political life of working to make sure as many powers as possible are exercised here in Scotland,” said Swinney.
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He laughed off a suggestion by the UK Labour government’s Scottish secretary, Douglas Alexander, that the government in Holyrood was “hoarding” power.
“The secretary of state for Scotland is not a force for good in all this. [He] has not got a clue what he is talking about,” said Swinney.
Scotland’s government has already proposed a reform of local government in the country, whereby its 32 councils could be replaced with six or seven regional authorities which would operate more than 100 community authorities. A review of the issue is under way and a report is expected in December.
Meanwhile, Burnham was not the only Westminster politician who chose the middle of the SNP conference to head north to give a speech. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch visited an industrial facility near Glasgow, where she accused the SNP of “navel gazing” about greater devolved powers and independence.
“They have all the powers that they need,” she said.
