The Council of Nations and Regions Debacle
Imagine being paid £170 grand a year and not showing up for your first-day at your new work? I hope Sue Gray’s got a good excuse. The ‘Council of Nations and Regions’ met today in Edinburgh sans Sue, our new Envoy. This is the dregs of Gordon Brown’s famous ‘blueprint’ for constitutional reform which Starmer is now cannibalising for scraps.
Brown’s initiative had none of the hallmarks of previous devolution, which was based on a civic movement, and, in Scotland’s case, decades of campaigning. It came, if you excuse the cliche, ‘from the people’. Brown’s blueprint was entirely his ideas, handed down from him. It was, singularly, ‘devolution from above’. Anyway, it was all ditched and we are now seeing a watered-down version being presented as if it’s fresh, new, or the same. It isn’t.
Don’t believe me?
Here’s John Denham:
“Today Keir Starmer will chair the first meeting of the Council of Nations and Regions (CNR). It’s an innovation with an important message about Labour working to deliver across the UK. But how much difference will it make to the way the United Kingdom and its nations are run? The Council has its origins in Gordon Brown’s report on the future of the UK which recommended ‘a new and powerful institution to drive co-operation between all its governments – a Council of the Nations and Regions.’ I was critical of Brown for not being radical enough but I also warned that ‘Labour in government is usually less radical than in opposition’. That’s certainly the case with the new Council.”
He goes on:
“Brown wanted the Council of Nations and Regions based in statute, with an independent secretariat. It was to be part of a series of constitutional changes, including stronger legal protection for the devolved parliaments, the replacement of the Lords with a union-wide second chamber, a new Council of England to represent English mayors and local government, and a new body to bring together the First Ministers with the UK Prime Minister.”
“Today’s Council was reportedly set up without even informing the Scottish government and will, it seems, be run out of Whitehall’s Cabinet Office by the recently demoted Sue Gray. While Brown’s Lords reform did raise some serious difficulties, the King’s Speech contained no proposals to give the CNR legal status and the rest of Brown’s proposals have, for now at least, disappeared.”
Awkward.
The CNR is derisory to Scotland, equating English city Mayor’s – the combined budget of which is just over £2b with Scotland’s elected FM with a budget of £60b. But it’s not really about numbers is it? It’s comparing apples and pears and deliberately equating a region with a nation which is insulting. As Dr WE Bulmer puts it:
“The ‘Council of Nations and Regions’ has one Scottish and one Welsh representative out of 18. This shows the ridiculousness of any scheme that treats the nations of Scotland and Wales on a par, not with England, but with individual English city-regions.”
But it’s worse than that. Because Labour are on the one hand undermining the devolution settlement they themselves created, while on the other hand presenting the bogus version of devolution they have created in England.
The CNR has no real powers, no legal basis and no autonomy. It’s as far away from Gordon Brown’s recommended ‘a new and powerful institution to drive co-operation between all its governments’ as you can imagine. But the game is to close your eyes and pretend its the same. Of course, as John Denham and some other interesting people interested in real constitutional change and self-determination for England argue, Labour could make this a more radical proposition. But they won’t, will they? It will be tightly controlled by Sue Gray, our Envoy, if she bothers to turn up to work.
Smoke and mirrors.
We could examine this and comment and discuss and debate all day long but it would get us nowhere.
It’s just smoke and mirrors, and nothing much constructive will happen until and unless Scotland becomes Independent. Simples.
But hey, if the fearties and weary willies who won’t vote for that want this CNR nonsense then good luck to them. But nothing will happen….whilst trying to give an impression that something IS happening.
Mike, you clearly know that of course but the conundrum remains….how do we get to/persuade these fearties/weary willies that much better times await if they could only find the courage to vote for Independence? Hmmmmm let’s think.
Yes of course. I think its worth tracking what’s being done here though. Thanks George
It’s worth tracking in that it highlights what those at the top of the uk think of Scotland!
In the words of Paul Daniel’s, “not a lot”.
Also you can see Murray et al eyeing up what ermine robe they will purchase and what title they will adopt.
Meanwhile, Scotland remains in torpor, but is ultimately a possession of London!
hmm, & post independence anything will change, the UK remains in Nato’s pocket & scotia being the uk’s junior partner hosts the weapons (in both iteral & figurative senses of that word) let us see the scottish parliament grow a pair & outlaw weapons from its shores
Smacks of coloured glass and beads for the natives to me!
What an insult. What a joke.
So, what’s my MP for then? I thought we were IN the UK already?
Isn’t an “Envoy” someone who gets sent to far away lands, with different cultures, and then returns with news and updates about the native people’s preoccupations?
How can we be both at the heart of a “Family of Nations” and on the outer periphery of the Empire? Is London now The UK?
Thanks, Mike, for drawing attention to this.
To me, their equating English regons and the national governments is further evidence that the intention is the de facto creaton of a unitary state. The UK’s lack of a written constitution makes it all the easier for them.
I’d also draw attention to this recent article in the Irish Times:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2024/09/12/newton-emerson-in-their-cosy-new-embrace-starmer-and-harris-may-be-forgetting-the-belfast-agreement/
Keep you eye on Ireland: it’s the San Andreas Fault of UK politics and the eventual collapse of the UK is likely to start there. As the article shows there’s a distinct possibility of the Starmer-Harris detente getting fankled in the Good Friday Agreement and potentially incurring the wrath of the USA as well as big chunks of Ireland. Add to that Varadkar’s recent initiative to depoliticise the processes leading to reunification in order to prevent party-political wrecking tactics, which I suspect is aimed at Unionist parties in N Ireland (if they’re prepared to shut down governance in N Ireland for two years because they don’t like losing their majority, they’ll have no qualms about derailing any moves towards reunification). There’s also the recent poll showing a sizeable 67% majority to end segregated schooling (https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2024/07/poll-67-percent-support-integrated-education-in-northern-ireland) which, if reliable, indicates a radical change in public opinion, particularly among Unionists.
I’ve long thought the demise of the UK would begin in Ireland and, from a Scottish perspective, it might be our quickest/easiest route to independence, as it would be much harder for a Westminster government to prevent Scotland from seceding from the Union if it’s already enabled the secession of N Ireland.
Waiting for others to do something that benefits your is a wait in vain!
Scotland at all times must be proactive in gaining independence.
I wish to see a reunited Ireland, but unionism here would use that to suggest the uk is now one united entiry with no sea border, etc, etc.
We must act, no one else can gain our independence for us!
It doesn’t even work from an English perspective, because you have three people representing Yorkshire (and not even the whole of Yorkshire – poor East Riding of Yorkshire!), while the vast, vast majority of England is unrepresented. It’s actually quite striking how little of England is being represented by these mayors: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1f/UK_Combined_Authorities_by_Political_Party_affiliation_May_2024.svg
Still, managing to deliver something even more milquetoast than the Clunking Fists’s “reforms” is quite a feat.
It’ll meet a couple of times and then disappear into the ether, I suspect/hope.
The lack of any pre-meeting information about structures, aims, costs, etc, the absence of the (supposed) chief officer of the project (Sue Gray), the lack of balanced representation etc, etc lead me to think this is just another talking-shop, another layer of UK Government interference in supposedly devolved powers, another opportunity for Extractionism (the practice which made the Empire so ruthlessly effective), another centralisation of power in Westminster and another two fingers to the devolved nations.
I hope that the governments in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland work together behind the scenes to prevent a power grab and to ensure that the costs of this unilateral invention remain at Westminster, although it would be no surprise if they get tucked away somewhere in next year’s GERS. After all GERS doesn’t use double entry bookkeeping, so costs can be inflated and revenue reduced without it being noticeable.
Hi Coinneach – “this is just another talking-shop, another layer of UK Government interference in supposedly devolved powers” – yes 100%
The Scottish Government, unless it sees itself as a county council, should have nothing to do with this circus.
Our First Minister, Alex Salmond’s last communication the day before he died, was “Scotland is a country, not a county”.
Like all of us, he was a flawed man, but, by God, he was a leader.
Why are our representatives meekly dancing to Westminsters tune?
“I have brought you to the ring, now dance as best you can”. (Wallace).
“I have brought you to the ring – now dance the best you can.” (Wallace)
My friends and I are were all just saying that what we need is an Envoy. Its all anyone ever talks about these days, envoys. Marvellous!
Sue Gray hasn’t just been demoted within the civil service, but, as is subtly pointed out in the article, she’s also had her line manager moved from Sir Keir Starmer, “First Lord of the Treasury”, Prime Minister, etc to Pat McFadden, currently holding the nonsense role of “Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster”! She’s not “Keir Starmer’s envoy”. With such humiliation I should imagine she’s “considering her options” on her break – I would imagine going back to running a pub in the six counties might be a less humiliating option.
Swinney is right to emphasise the importance of bilateral meetings between Scottish and UK governments (and with Welsh Government/Northern Ireland Executive), but he’d be better off sending a junior civil servant to take notes in his place to indicate what Scots feel about this farcical “Council”.
Central government has meeting with regional representatives. Shock! Horror! The Scottish left-wing have intricate persecution complexes which seems to take up much their energy.