ANYBODY born since the creation of the Scottish Parliament would question what the United Kingdom is even for, a former Scottish first minister has said.
Jack McConnell, who led Scotland for Labour from 2001 to 2007, made the comment while speaking in a debate on the Dunlop Review into UK Government Union capability in the House of Lords, which he joined in 2010.
The review was written by Tory peer Andrew Dunlop and published by the UK Government in March 2021, despite having been completed before the end of 2019.
In it, Dunlop calls for a comprehensive restructuring of the way in which the governments of the UK work together in order to stave off rising support for independence.
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The debate on the report, which was dominated by Unionist voices throughout, saw Boris Johnson and his Tory government frequently lampooned for showing a lack of respect to the devolved administrations.
The 32-metre high Union flag to be installed in Cardiff was mentioned disparagingly by more than one peer, while one Tory baroness took issue with the UK Government’s promotion of One Britain One Nation day.
John Kerr, a Scots crossbench lord and former diplomat, said it was as if Johnson’s “heart isn’t in it” and that it seemed he “meant it when he called devolution a disaster”.
He cautioned: “When in a hole, stop digging. Don’t repeat the Brexit negotiations mistake of excluding them [the devolved administrations]...
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“Don’t with no prior warning do trade deals with third countries like Australia which the three Celtic countries deeply believe … will damage their farmers.
“Don’t go on feeding the perception that you aren’t really a UK Government, you are an English government.”
Kerr was followed by Ann Taylor (below), a Labour peer, who said there was “little evidence” that Johnson’s government understands the “basic concept” of devolution.
Taylor, like other peers, hit out at the Tory government’s “dismissive” attitude towards other UK administrations. She said that the UK Government “insists, and continues to insist, that it alone always knows best”.
Speaking later, Taylor’s fellow Labour peer Dianne Hayter skewered Johnson for taking a “snail’s pace” in trying to save the Union when, she said, urgency is needed.
The Dunlop Review called for the creation of a new cabinet secretary with full-time responsibility for the Union. Instead, Johnson appointed himself “Minister for the Union”.
In a thinly veiled comparison to Ugandan despot Idi Amin, Hayter (below) said Johnson’s title was “a bit like president for life, master of all things, in some less democratic traditions”.
The Labour peer also quoted Jack McConnell’s contribution, in which he said the Union was “the most successful multinational state in the world”, in turn quoting Dunlop.
McConnell said that had been his favourite sentence of the review, which on the whole he did not think was “radical enough” to save the Union.
He said the UK needed to be completely redefined if it is going to survive the 21st century, pointing to its apparent irrelevance to young people.
The former first minister (below) told the Lords: “Anyone born since [devolution], I think in Scotland, would question what the purpose of the UK, what the purpose of the United Kingdom, not just the UK Government or the Parliament, but the United Kingdom, is in their lives.
“That’s at the core of this.”
The only voice to speak in the debate which was not pro-Union was Plaid Cymru’s Dafydd Wigley. However, Wigley has previously said that he does not desire “full” independence, but for Wales to be an equal partner in a “community of nations”.
A former Plaid Cymru leader, the peer highlighted Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford’s assertion that the UK Government had been acting in an “aggressively unilateral way on behalf of the whole of the UK without regard for the status of the nations or the democratic mandates of their governments”.
Wigley also said that, due to the fact Wales is not represented on the Union flag, its use in Wales can be “counterproductive”.
He added: “The Prime Minister's refusal to accept personal responsibility … undermines the [Dunlop] report just as it undermines the Union.”
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