The Guardian view on further powers for Scotland

Gordon Brown’s approach to devolution is not beyond criticism but it is far better than David Cameron’s partisanship

- Editorial
- The Guardian, Tuesday 14 October 2014 14.12 EDT
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Nearly a month on, the sheer irresponsibility of David Cameron’s instant response to the Scottish referendum remains as shocking as when he first made it. If he had been a genuinely national leader, Mr Cameron would have come out into Downing Street on 19 September and pledged to reforge the unity of the United Kingdom. Instead, at the very moment when he could have begun to bring the nation together after the divisiveness of the Scottish campaign, he did the reverse. His commitment to strengthen English MPs’ powers at Westminster did not merely strike an inappropriate tone at such an important Scottish moment. It also sowed genuine doubts about whether the UK parties would keep the devolution promises they made during the campaign. The combined effect was to give disappointed Scots a powerful new ground for complaint just when UK parties most needed to rise to the occasion. When the time comes to judge Mr Cameron’s premiership in the round, this may prove to be his moment of greatest failure and shame.

Mr Cameron’s priorities were electoral, not national: to bolster English Tories under threat from Ukip and to make life difficult for Labour in its battle to regain support lost during the referendum to the SNP. Inevitably this piece of mischief has overshadowed much of the early work on plans to strengthen devolution in Scotland, as the Smith commission tries to assemble the first draft of the package that the next UK government is pledged to deliver. It hung low across the chamber of the House of Commons on Tuesday like a pall of smoke as MPs got their first chance to debate the aftermath of the referendum. It ensured that a debate which should properly have been about powers that would satisfy Scotland’s aspirations while keeping the UK closely together was instead skewed into a more partisan confrontation. Rightwing Tories pretended to speak for England, which they do not, while the SNP were able to pose as the true voice of Scotland – which they are not either.

It was left to Gordon Brown to attempt to lead the effort to forge a less divisive path out of this needless and avoidable crisis. This is perhaps not a task for which the former prime minister is ideally suited. But there can be little argument that the substance of his approach is nevertheless the right one. Mr Brown deserves great credit for attempting to wrench the debate back on to a track from which it should never have been diverted in the first place. He can be a divisive figure himself, as we all know. Yet, in reminding MPs how easily a nation can collapse by accident, Mr Brown showed himself equal to the high seriousness of what is at stake. He did not just speak for Scotland’s place within a living and functioning union. He even, echoing a famous patriotic Tory plea to Labour in 1940, spoke for England too.

Mr Brown’s fundamental argument about the union rests on two mutually supporting ideas. Significant and substantial new taxing and spending powers should be devolved to Scotland in response to Scottish wishes; but some taxing and spending powers should also be retained at the UK level to give meaning to the bonds of social solidarity across these islands. This was, and still ought to be, common ground. It is the right way to ensure a good mix between devolution and union. It is what the campaign “vow” by the UK parties was all about. It should also be at the centre of the Smith process.

This is now threatened, however, by three things. The first is the current success of the SNP’s attempts to persuade Scots to see the issue in terms of “devo max” – which in the nationalist formulation means devolution of everything bar defence and foreign affairs. The second is the Conservative preparedness to devolve all income tax to Scotland, which Mr Brown sees as a Tory trap to reduce Scottish MPs to second-class status at Westminster. The third is Mr Cameron’s attempt to hijack the promises to Scotland by making them contingent upon a very selective solution of Tory grievances about England – although William Hague appeared to row back on parts of this on Tuesday. This is a fragile moment. The outcome, in the short and long term alike, is far from certain. Mr Brown can express himself in overly partisan ways too. He is not beyond criticism. But his approach is nevertheless much the better one for Lord Smith to embrace and refine.