Burnham is wrong - Scotland needs independence to tackle the cost of living
Andy Burnham’s big conference speech had little to offer Scotland. He mentioned Scotland only once - to say that he was determined not to be the last PM of the UK - because it would have upset his dad.
Burnham did not mention Scotland’s right to choose its own constitutional future. Last week, a huge majority of MSPs backed a motion in Holyrood that Scotland is a nation with a right to decide. Burnham ignored that democratic mandate.
Burnham implied that independence is a distraction from the issues that voters are concerned about. This was the exact same argument that Unionists made in the Holyrood debate last week - they kept insisting that the Scottish government should focus on “the day job”. But independence is the way to do a better day job.
Here are five reasons Scotland desperately needs its independence.
1. Scotland has a much better chance of getting a good deal with the EU
Andy Burnham indicated that the UK will change its tune over Brexit and try to rebuild a relationship with the EU. But Scotland has a much better chance of getting a good deal with the EU as an independent country. Brexit is an English problem that will be difficult to solve.
Not only is a closer relationship with the EU politically difficult in England, the EU is unlikely to sign a deal with Nigel Farage hovering in the wings as the potential next PM. It is now clear that Scotland has suffered more under Brexit than any other country in the UK An academic study, Measuring the Regional Economic Cost of Brexit: Evidence, reports that Brexit has left Scotland almost £30 billion a year worse off. Scotland’s cumulative loss is around £19,352 per person.
2. UK governments that Scotland never voted for turned Scotland’s energy system into a dog’s breakfast
Scotland is an energy-rich country - yet Scots are struggling with the highest rates of energy poverty in Europe, almost three times that of England.
For forty years, Scots have lived under an energy regime that was privatised and fragmented by Westminster governments Scotland never voted for. Instead of investment, almost a quarter of every Scottish energy bill paid goes straight to company profits rather than on investment in our energy infrastructure. In an in-depth essay in the London Review of Books, Arthur Downing looked at how failed privatisation has made Britain’s energy system “a Byzantine mess”.
Andy Burnham said he plans to fix this - but how long will it be before England has yet another right-wing government that will add to the chaos of the broken energy system? As an independent country, Scotland will be free to build a system more like that of our neighbouring countries, which prioritises affordable power for citizens and businesses, not profits for international companies.
3. Child poverty - mitigating Westminster’s damage
Scotland is rightly proud that it has diverged from England on child poverty. But this is through mitigation measures like the Scottish Child Payment. Every pound spent on these is a pound taken from a budget dictated by Westminster.
It was UK governments who imposed a two child cap on support for children, driving some of the highest poverty rates in Europe. The Scottish government has too little power to end systemic child poverty.
Nearly three-quarters of children living in poverty in Scotland belong to working households, because low pay, zero-hours contracts, and part-time hours, high energy bills and Brexit are too much for many. As an independent country, Scotland will control its own macroeconomic levers which will allow it to put in a consistent framework to support families.
4. The UK prevents Scotland from making transformative infrastructure investment
When the UK government decides that infrastructure investment is needed, it has the necessary financial powers at its fingertips. It allocated nearly £19 billion to London’s Elizabeth Line, drawing on Treasury backing and full control of monetary frameworks.
But Scotland does not have the economic levers to do, for example, what the Faroes have done by building road tunnels to replace ferries. It is a struggle to find comparatively modest sums - such as for one or two tunnels in the Shetland archipelago.
Holyrood’s spending power is strictly bound by the UK Treasury’s Block Grant and caps on capital borrowing. Key economic drivers - fiscal policy, statutory minimum wage, employment law, energy market design, and corporate taxation - are reserved to Westminster.
5. The UK is putting Scotland’s NHS at risk with its post-Brexit US pharma deal
It is no secret that the UK government has been desperate to make international trade deals and has found it hard to get the same kind of terms it could access as a member of the EU.
Under pressure to secure tariff-free access for UK exports following Brexit, Westminster agreed to significant concessions on drug pricing.
Under the UK–US Pharmaceuticals Deal, the US won’t charge tariffs on drug exports until 2029 but after that it is likely that drug prices will go up and start to swallow more of the NHS budget.
Clearly this will affect Scotland. If it was a member of the EU or even of a less centralised country like Canada, the Scottish Government would be treated very differently and have a say over trade deals.
Conclusion - independence is the first step to improving the lives of Scots
Last week, a Holyrood motion passed with 84 votes in favour and 18 against, with MSPs from Scottish Labour, the Scottish Greens and the SNP all backing it. In his big speech today, Andy Burnham ignored that.
Far from setting out a timetable for constitutional change, he tried to revert to muscular unionism, insisting that he has the right to decide Scotland’s future and keep it within the UK.
He implied that independence is a distraction. It is not. Scotland needs independence to make a real difference.
Comparable independent European nations prove every day that a country of Scotland’s size can reduce structural child poverty, deliver affordable energy, and build world-class infrastructure. Independence is not a distraction from the issues that matter to families across the country - it is the only way to gain the tools to actually fix them.
