Pauline Bryan Red Paper Editor This article was written by Neil McKay as part of his Big Read series in the The Herald on 19th July under the title Scottish Labour grandee urges 'King of the North' to rethink indyref2
"If there’s a guardian of the left-wing flame in the Scottish Labour Party, it’s Pauline Bryan. Speak to any Labour member in Scotland who considers themselves left wing and you’ll hear nothing but praise, respect and admiration for Bryan.
"If there’s a guardian of the left-wing flame in the Scottish Labour Party, it’s Pauline Bryan. Speak to any Labour member in Scotland who considers themselves left wing and you’ll hear nothing but praise, respect and admiration for Bryan.
She’s variously described as Scottish Labour’s best thinker, and even the chronicler of the party’s soul in Scotland.
Certainly, her most recent project underscores her position as the one person who really understands what makes the party tick.
Bryan reimagined Scottish Labour’s seminal text, The Red Paper on Scotland. Fifty years ago, Gordon Brown published the first Red Paper on Scotland: a series of essays setting out a left-wing vision for the country. It shaped devolution and made Brown’s name.
The first Red Paper included writing from Robin Cook, Tom Nairn and Jim Sillars.
It influenced a generation of activists. In hindsight, what was lacking were women’s voices. The contributions were all from men.
That unfortunate legacy has been corrected with Bryan at the helm of the latest Red Paper for Scotland. It too sets out a left-wing vision for the nation, and tries to chart a course between the binary positions of pro-union and pro-independence.
To the casual observer, a quick glance at Bryan’s CV might suggest she’s part of Labour’s establishment clique. That would be mistaken.
The confusion arises due to her title: Baroness Bryan of Partick. Bryan, though, despises the notion of an ermine-clad elite.
She was only made a peer by Jeremy Corbyn so there was someone in the House of Lords working for its destruction.
Bryan entered the Lords with the express intention of abolishing it.
She hated the place and recently retired. Bryan would prefer spending her time writing books like “What Would Keir Hardie Say” to sitting on the Lords’s red leather benches. She is president and co-founder of the Keir Hardie Society.
I spoke at length to Bryan before and after Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation. Our last discussion was a few days ago, ahead of Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister tomorrow.
Starmer became universally reviled by Labour’s left wing, which partly contributed to his downfall. So what does Bryan, as one of the Scottish left’s luminaries, make of Burnham? And what does Burnham mean for Scotland?
Break-up
SHE'S keeping her fingers crossed that Burnham dumps all vestiges of Starmerism, and injects radicalism into Labour policy. If he doesn’t, Bryan warns, then he’ll open the door to a Reform government and that “would result in the break-up of Britain”.
Bryan believes that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and his deputy Jackie Baillie should have resigned immediately following the party’s disastrous Scottish election results.
She is highly disparaging of Labour’s Scottish leadership. Thanks to the mismanagement of Sarwar, Bryan says, Scottish Labour risks “becoming extinct”.
To end the deadlock over Scotland’s constitutional question, Burnham should establish “a trigger mechanism” for a second referendum and grant the Scottish Parliament powers to call another vote when conditions are met.
Labour can no longer “just say no” to another referendum. She favours establishing a constitutional convention to chart a way forward. Bryan was part of Corbyn’s team working on devolution.
Bryan backs moving towards a federal Britain. Burnham is of a similar mind, she says.
She wants the Lords abolished and replaced with a Senate of the Nations and Regions, where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are represented alongside nine English regions. That would ensure balance and prevent England dominating the chamber due to its size.
Bryan says she’s been “impressed” with Burnham, particular his comments on greater devolution and public control of utilities like energy.
What worries her, though, is his commitment to Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules. “They were put in place in order to justify not doing things rather than doing things,” Bryan adds.
The fiscal rules aren’t “God-given. They’re just a guide that was put in place. They’re not essential to the working of the economy”. Bryan believes the rules exist to placate world markets.
She wants Burnham “to explain to people why they’re not essential and why they can be changed”. If the government can’t borrow, it can’t invest, and the country will remain no further forward than it is today.
Bryan traces the obsession with self-imposed fiscal rules back to the mid-1970s when then Labour chancellor Denis Healey had to borrow from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF, she says, “started laying down rules for countries to follow. It was the beginning of neoliberalism. It started a whole process where they said ‘you’ll live within our rules and we’ll control your economy as an external body, we’ll override democratic decisions on what you want to do and how you spend money’.”
Sovereignty
MARGARET Thatcher then entrenched neoliberal economics. If voters care about “sovereignty”, Bryan believes, then they should care about the imposition of financial rules from beyond Britain’s borders.
After the 2008 financial crash, “austerity was manufactured to protect banks and hedge funds”, she says. “The whole world economy became about a type of capitalism that sucks money out of our economies. This new type of capitalism was far more greedy and demanding and gave less back.”
Does Burnham have the guts to change such a system? “I can’t be sure he has,” Bryan says. She believes he understands why the system needs to change. However, he doesn’t have the team around him to help him make the case and then see change through.
She worries about the people already circling him. “It’s laughable. They wouldn’t agree with him on hardly anything. But they want to be part of his team. It’s hideous.”
She refers to politicians like Josh Simons. He was director of Labour Together, an organisation created by Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Labour Together commissioned an investigation into journalists who were looking into its funding. Simons was the MP who resigned so Burnham could run for the Makerfield constituency.
Talk of right wingers like Shabana Mahmood, the hardline Labour Home Secretary, playing a leading role in Burnham’s cabinet horrifies Bryan. “The wolves have moved in and are surrounding him,” she adds. “I’m worried about the team he’s going to put together.”
Bryan fears that Britain will simply end up with a “more popular and articulate” version of Starmer. “Remember,” she says, “Starmer came in promising everything and withdrew it almost straight away.”
Burnham is also hampered by not having served in Parliament or government for years. Nor has he had the time to develop his vision for government. Bryan hopes that Burnham is simply trying to keep the party’s right wing onside “and not alienate them, but also not be run by them”.
He needs a “protective” circle around him. Bryan suggests figures like Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband.
She doesn’t believe Burnham will fall, though, this side of the next general election unless he tips so far to the left the party’s right wing launches a “determined effort to bring him down in a very British coup scenario. There’s obviously a group that thinks they can control him”. The Labour right may turn on him “if he slips out of their control”.
She points to attacks on Starmer over defence spending from figures like former Nato general-secretary and Scottish Labour peer George Robertson. Defence secretary John Healey, and armed forces minister Al Carns, both resigned over the issue hastening Starmer’s resignation.
“That network is moving in to influence Burnham,” Bryan adds.
Decline
BURNHAM also faces the risk of the British public rapidly losing faith in him if he fails to deliver. “The expectation is for dynamism and action,” Bryan says, “and for that you need new policies.
“He needs to find the people who can help him and avoid the ones who will stop him. He understands the risks. If he doesn’t make change, if he doesn’t inspire enthusiasm, then it will be just a slow decline to the next election and we know what happens after that: a Reform majority in Parliament and that would result in the actual break-up of Britain.
“It would be the ultimate push over the edge. He can’t allow that to happen. There are angels and devils fighting over him. He’s not daft.”
Bryan, though, is quick to point out that, despite there being a majority of Yes-supporting MSPs in Holyrood, there wasn’t a majority of votes cast at the last Scottish election for pro-independence parties. She compares the SNP win at Holyrood to Starmer’s “loveless landslide”.
When it comes to the type of unionism Reform offers it would be much more hardline than the Tories or Labour.
Reform’s unionism is extremely “centralising” with power focused on Nigel Farage. “Their ideological model doesn’t include devolution, because devolution diminishes power. Their model is to concentrate power as near as possible within one person.”
Any tensions so far between the SNP and either the Conservatives or Labour over “power grabs would look like nothing compared to what will happen”.
She predicts Reform would quickly begin calling for “reducing the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. We’re at such a pivotal moment and Burnham must understand that. He’s such a great believer in devolution”.
Burnham won’t be helped by the fact that “there isn’t a strong Labour Party in Scotland. It’s been allowed to wither on the vine”.
Bryan believes the leadership of the Scottish party wants the base of the party to be supine and meek, and elected members to be neither radical nor left wing. She claims the selection process for candidates is used to control the Scottish party.
“I’d call it Stalinist,” she says. “It’s a top-down way of selecting candidates.” With many members already jaded, this style of management “drove away anyone who was even slightly wavering about being in the party”.
She adds: “They won’t even tell us how many members there are because we’ve lost so many. My constituency party, [Glasgow] Partick-Kelvin, is one of the biggest, and we can’t even get a quorum for our AGM. Members just won’t turn up to meetings. It’s bad.”
Existential
SCOTTISH Labour falling to just 17 seats at Holyrood was “existential. People really thought that Sarwar would say something afterwards about his responsibility and recognise it was time to go”, Bryan says.
“People thought Jackie Baillie, who has been responsible for the last series of elections, would say it’s time to go. We thought [Scottish Secretary] Douglas Alexander, who took a lead role, would recognise his responsibility. But no.”
Sarwar and Baillie “certainly should have gone”. She blames this style of Labour management on Donald Dewar who created a system in Scotland where the leader just tells MSPs “what to do”.
The only real hope for Scottish Labour is Burnham governing in a way that “creates a sense of excitement so people rejoin or join for the first time. They’d become interested in Labour because of its UK policies. It would liberate some within the Scottish Labour Party – traditional Labour people – who understand that the party is there to represent working people”.
She also hopes that trade unions lean more on Scottish Labour, telling the leadership “you must have more radical policies”.
Does she believe there’s a risk of Scottish Labour becoming extinct? “Absolutely. We’ve not made any real impact for years,” she says.
“I’m not sure what the mechanism is for becoming extinct, but we can certainly cease to have any meaningful input into politics.”
Bryan says that Sarwar and Baillie are “answerable to the Scottish executive [of the party]”.
“It met immediately after the election. The first issue on the agenda wasn’t their leadership or what they were going to do as a result of making such a disaster of the election,” she says. “It was referred
to from one or two people in the meeting – that they ought to take responsibility – but only referred to.”
On Sarwar and Baillie staying on as leaders, Bryan says the pair “should take a good look at themselves and ask why they’re doing that. Is it because this is their lives now?” She adds that “since Sarwar took over, all we’ve seen is decline. For a relatively young man you’d think he’d see the need to build a life somewhere else. He can’t be doing this forever without success”.
She adds: “They seem to have convinced themselves they can win – if not a majority or even as the biggest party, but in some alliance. They’re so far from the truth.
“They just don’t understand. When everyone was telling them that Reform was likely to get the same number of seats, they didn’t recognise it.”
Reform also won 17 seats at Holyrood. The Scottish Labour leadership’s lack of “va-va-voom” infects the party. The name of the MSP Michael Marra has “been bandied around” as an alternative to Sarwar.
Bryan isn’t sold on the idea of the Scottish party splitting from the UK party. “People’s views tend to change with the leader. If you’ve got a good leader down south they think ‘okay, we’ll stay’.”
Scottish Labour simply wouldn’t have the resources to run as a standalone party. “It couldn’t afford to be self-funding,” Bryan says. “It would struggle in a practical way.”
Scottish Labour should take a “lead role” in the debate Burnham is keen to start on devolution of power across Britain.
“Scotland and Wales have real demands to make here,” she adds. The debate cannot solely be about “England and mayors. We’ve got to have a voice”.
Federal
SCOTTISH Labour should campaign for a Senate of the Nations and Regions, which Burnham supports. Bryan says Burnham “wants to change the centralised, cocooned way Westminster operates. To do that, you must get rid of the Lords”. The Senate should be outside London.
Bryan is aware that establishing a Senate won’t be top of Burnham’s agenda given the domestic and international challenges he faces, but she believes he should “set in motion the discussion about how this can happen as it will take time to introduce”.
If England was divided into proportional chunks – based, she suggests, on the nine regional constituencies that were once part of the European Parliament – then the UK would “move towards” a federal Britain with fair and balanced representation. Bryan adds: “It would give us a different focus to the constitutional debate, which is just bipolar at the moment.” Bryan despairs of the “with us or against us” style of debate around the union and independence. Her critique of independence is harsh. What the SNP offers “isn’t independence at all, as you’ll be thrown out there into the wild world of neoliberalism”.
A Senate of the Nations and Regions would, she hopes, show people that “they have common interests across the UK”. Energy is an issue that the Senate could take on, with the various nations and regions stating their case for what they need. A Senate could take on important policy areas which languished under Starmer. “Great British Energy was launched with fanfares but it just disappeared,” Bryan adds.
“That would be a great way to bring the nations and regions together, looking at how we distribute energy, what investments and resources are needed, and what the benefits will be. Instead of parliamentary discussions you take the debate out to the whole of the UK and involve the people.”
The same could be done with agriculture, or the growing issue of data centres, she suggests. There are common interests between Scottish rural communities and areas like the north-east of England and Cornwall when it comes to fishing.
But here’s a danger, Bryan believes, that rather than bringing Scotland onboard with his devolution project, Burnham triggers a fight with the SNP. His comments about giving more power to cities like Dundee or Aberdeen could be interpreted as taking power from Holyrood.
Power does, however, need shared more widely in Scotland, she says, as the SNP has centralised control. “Edinburgh is as distant for many as London. It may be geographically closer but it’s not closer in any meaningful way – they’re still not listening”. She adds: “They’re not taking account of people’s experience in schemes like Castlemilk. They don’t even focus on Glasgow.”
Rather than risk a fight with the SNP, Burnham should engage “what’s left of civic Scotland” – meaning councils, trade unions, academics and NGOs – in the debate about devolving power away from Edinburgh.
Referendum
WHEN it comes to the issue of another referendum, Bryan says Burnham “needs someone to tell him quite clearly in words of one syllable that the answer is not ‘just say no’. You cannot go on saying it can never happen”.
She says: “He needs to initiate discussions on what mechanism can be used if there’s strong demand for another referendum. That could be a series of opinion polls showing 60% support. It’s not enough to say you’ve got 51% of the population.”
She’s scornful of the notion that a majority of Yes-supporting MSPs could trigger a referendum without a majority of votes cast for them across the country – which is the case at present.
Once the “trigger mechanism” is established, the power to call any referendum should rest with the Scottish Parliament. “It must be a Scottish decision, though the restrictions may come from the UK on how it happens.”
She has little hope of Sarwar playing any meaningful role in constitutional discussions. “Sarwar won’t challenge Burnham and neither would he offer alternative ideas, as he’s never thought it important. The only thing that’s important to him is how he gets to be First Minister. Though he must realise that’s not going to happen.”
Bryan reflects on the end of Starmer’s premiership. To understand how he failed so badly, she says, “you must start at the beginning. He took control of the party with lies – straightforward lies”.
Starmer won the leadership with “10 pledges based on Corbyn’s policies”. All were abandoned. “He promised everything Corbyn promised but just looked smart in a suit and tie while doing so. He had no intention of adopting those policies. He’d no vision of what he wanted to achieve as the point was just to be Prime Minister, not what he would do as Prime Minister.
“He arrived with a chancellor who hasn’t a political thought in her head. He surrounded himself with people who had nothing in common with traditional Labour policies and no vision.” She highlights Wes Streeting, claiming he focused on “the American health sector playing a role in the UK and allowing them to profit”.
Starmer, she says, “very nearly killed Labour”. Continuing with Starmer would have led to a “downward spiral. Burnham brings hope”.
She believes Burnham has the brains to navigate what lies ahead and understands the policy changes required to survive and lead the party into the next election. “He’s not suicidal. He recognises he must make a difference. He knows much more about politics than Starmer.”
Crucially, he must cease the “scaremongering Reform stuff”. Bryan says Starmer’s now infamous ‘Island of Strangers’ speech was a “kick in the gut” particularly for older voters who recalled Enoch Powell’s rhetoric. Shabana Mahmood, she says, “is terrifying as Home Secretary”.
Burnham has to “spread hope and optimism, not fear and hatred – which is where we are today
‘SCOTLAND DOESN’T OWN ITS OWN ECONOMY’
LIKE Gordon Brown’s first Red Paper on Scotland written 50 years ago, Pauline Bryan’s updated version tries to get to the heart of what Scotland needs economically.
The times are similar. Like today, the mid-70s saw upheaval at home and abroad.
The big change, obviously, was the collapse of Scotland’s industrial base.
The 1970s saw key pillars of the Scottish economy start coming under the control of English financial institution. Today, however, it’s overseas companies running much of Scotland’s economy.
The SNP’s ScotWind deal gave away swathes of the nation’s seabed to private and foreign companies for renewable energy. Bryan points out that Scotland doesn’t even own the kit which makes wind turbines.
“If we don’t control our economy, how do we control our politics?” Bryan asks. Discussing the constitution without recognising “you don’t actually own your economy is fantasy”.
The SNP’s economic blueprint for independence is, she says, anything but progressive. It wouldn’t make Scotland fairer or wealthier. “It would tie us into an approach to the economy that fitted exactly where the UK economy is and would tie us to the rules of the IMF that controls borrowing, the level of spending, and polices policy choices around redistribution of wealth.”
Plans for an independent Scotland to keep the pound would simply mean “the Bank of England tells you what to do. You couldn’t raise or lower interest rates”.
The state of the economy in Scotland - as well as the rest of Britain - is fuelling inequality which is fuelling the discontent that’s fuelling the far-right. It’s a vicious circle.
Scottish companies should be producing hi-tech kit like wind turbines, she says. That means jobs.
“We missed all that,” Bryan adds. “It’s so depressing. The Scottish Parliament from Dewar onwards hasn’t had the vision to create a different way of approaching the economy.”
There’s no consideration given in Scotland - or in the rest of Britain - by politicians to the contribution health, education and care bring to the economy.
“They’re considered a negative,” says Bryan. “A cost to the economy. We should turn that on its head and say, no, they’re what makes the economy function.”
Bryan is shocked when she hears “younger people say ‘why do you keep talking about Thatcher? She’s been dead decades. That’s historic. It doesn’t affect us’.”
Our economy wouldn’t function as it does today without Thatcher, Bryan says. “Thatcherism made public ownership anathema. The people used to own public utilities as the state owned them. The things that were essential to our lives were given to [private industry] to run.”
Young people need to understand that “fundamental change” because “our important utilities have failed”. The knock-on effect of privatisation has been loss of funding for the state and resulting national decline. “Look at Sauchiehall Street,” Bryan adds. “Glasgow doesn’t even have a high street now.”
Scotland needs the ability to borrow more, and more devolution of powers so Holyrood can legislate for policies like wealth taxes at a national, rather than local, level.
The SNP has centralised power for itself, pulling control away from councils. “That means local government has less resources, and any intervention into the local economy is restricted.”
She hopes Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ will “encourage Scotland” to empower local authorities.
If there ever was another referendum and Yes won, Bryan says the SNP would be the wrong party to lead Scotland to independence given its economic policies are so tied to the status quo.
She sees little economic difference between the SNP and Starmer. “The trickle-down approach they think solves everything doesn’t work and so nothing changes.”
While the SNP has passed some good policies like the Scottish Child Payment, attempts to end child poverty “haven’t even come close to being met”. The attempt at reform of the care system was a “disaster as they followed the old Blair model of being a procurer of care rather than a provider”.
The SNP “isn’t even a social democratic party”, Bryan believes, despite the fact Nicola Sturgeon described herself as a social democrat.
The drift to the far-right that’s happening across Britain isn’t about “people’s psychology, but the neglect which makes them vulnerable to the anger produced by Reform”.
What’s most missing from politics, Bryan believes, is “what’s always been missing: the expertise of ordinary working people when it comes to how to live on tight budgets”.
If we want to devolve power, that must change. But in an era where people have no trust in politicians and are disconnecting from politics in increasing numbers, how do we change that? And does a career politician like Burnham have the answer?
Certainly, her most recent project underscores her position as the one person who really understands what makes the party tick.
Bryan reimagined Scottish Labour’s seminal text, The Red Paper on Scotland. Fifty years ago, Gordon Brown published the first Red Paper on Scotland: a series of essays setting out a left-wing vision for the country. It shaped devolution and made Brown’s name.
The first Red Paper included writing from Robin Cook, Tom Nairn and Jim Sillars.
It influenced a generation of activists. In hindsight, what was lacking were women’s voices. The contributions were all from men.
That unfortunate legacy has been corrected with Bryan at the helm of the latest Red Paper for Scotland. It too sets out a left-wing vision for the nation, and tries to chart a course between the binary positions of pro-union and pro-independence.
To the casual observer, a quick glance at Bryan’s CV might suggest she’s part of Labour’s establishment clique. That would be mistaken.
The confusion arises due to her title: Baroness Bryan of Partick. Bryan, though, despises the notion of an ermine-clad elite.
She was only made a peer by Jeremy Corbyn so there was someone in the House of Lords working for its destruction.
Bryan entered the Lords with the express intention of abolishing it.
She hated the place and recently retired. Bryan would prefer spending her time writing books like “What Would Keir Hardie Say” to sitting on the Lords’s red leather benches. She is president and co-founder of the Keir Hardie Society.
I spoke at length to Bryan before and after Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation. Our last discussion was a few days ago, ahead of Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister tomorrow.
Starmer became universally reviled by Labour’s left wing, which partly contributed to his downfall. So what does Bryan, as one of the Scottish left’s luminaries, make of Burnham? And what does Burnham mean for Scotland?
Break-up
SHE'S keeping her fingers crossed that Burnham dumps all vestiges of Starmerism, and injects radicalism into Labour policy. If he doesn’t, Bryan warns, then he’ll open the door to a Reform government and that “would result in the break-up of Britain”.
Bryan believes that Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and his deputy Jackie Baillie should have resigned immediately following the party’s disastrous Scottish election results.
She is highly disparaging of Labour’s Scottish leadership. Thanks to the mismanagement of Sarwar, Bryan says, Scottish Labour risks “becoming extinct”.
To end the deadlock over Scotland’s constitutional question, Burnham should establish “a trigger mechanism” for a second referendum and grant the Scottish Parliament powers to call another vote when conditions are met.
Labour can no longer “just say no” to another referendum. She favours establishing a constitutional convention to chart a way forward. Bryan was part of Corbyn’s team working on devolution.
Bryan backs moving towards a federal Britain. Burnham is of a similar mind, she says.
She wants the Lords abolished and replaced with a Senate of the Nations and Regions, where Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are represented alongside nine English regions. That would ensure balance and prevent England dominating the chamber due to its size.
Bryan says she’s been “impressed” with Burnham, particular his comments on greater devolution and public control of utilities like energy.
What worries her, though, is his commitment to Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules. “They were put in place in order to justify not doing things rather than doing things,” Bryan adds.
The fiscal rules aren’t “God-given. They’re just a guide that was put in place. They’re not essential to the working of the economy”. Bryan believes the rules exist to placate world markets.
She wants Burnham “to explain to people why they’re not essential and why they can be changed”. If the government can’t borrow, it can’t invest, and the country will remain no further forward than it is today.
Bryan traces the obsession with self-imposed fiscal rules back to the mid-1970s when then Labour chancellor Denis Healey had to borrow from the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF, she says, “started laying down rules for countries to follow. It was the beginning of neoliberalism. It started a whole process where they said ‘you’ll live within our rules and we’ll control your economy as an external body, we’ll override democratic decisions on what you want to do and how you spend money’.”
Sovereignty
MARGARET Thatcher then entrenched neoliberal economics. If voters care about “sovereignty”, Bryan believes, then they should care about the imposition of financial rules from beyond Britain’s borders.
After the 2008 financial crash, “austerity was manufactured to protect banks and hedge funds”, she says. “The whole world economy became about a type of capitalism that sucks money out of our economies. This new type of capitalism was far more greedy and demanding and gave less back.”
Does Burnham have the guts to change such a system? “I can’t be sure he has,” Bryan says. She believes he understands why the system needs to change. However, he doesn’t have the team around him to help him make the case and then see change through.
She worries about the people already circling him. “It’s laughable. They wouldn’t agree with him on hardly anything. But they want to be part of his team. It’s hideous.”
She refers to politicians like Josh Simons. He was director of Labour Together, an organisation created by Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s former chief of staff.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Labour Together commissioned an investigation into journalists who were looking into its funding. Simons was the MP who resigned so Burnham could run for the Makerfield constituency.
Talk of right wingers like Shabana Mahmood, the hardline Labour Home Secretary, playing a leading role in Burnham’s cabinet horrifies Bryan. “The wolves have moved in and are surrounding him,” she adds. “I’m worried about the team he’s going to put together.”
Bryan fears that Britain will simply end up with a “more popular and articulate” version of Starmer. “Remember,” she says, “Starmer came in promising everything and withdrew it almost straight away.”
Burnham is also hampered by not having served in Parliament or government for years. Nor has he had the time to develop his vision for government. Bryan hopes that Burnham is simply trying to keep the party’s right wing onside “and not alienate them, but also not be run by them”.
He needs a “protective” circle around him. Bryan suggests figures like Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband.
She doesn’t believe Burnham will fall, though, this side of the next general election unless he tips so far to the left the party’s right wing launches a “determined effort to bring him down in a very British coup scenario. There’s obviously a group that thinks they can control him”. The Labour right may turn on him “if he slips out of their control”.
She points to attacks on Starmer over defence spending from figures like former Nato general-secretary and Scottish Labour peer George Robertson. Defence secretary John Healey, and armed forces minister Al Carns, both resigned over the issue hastening Starmer’s resignation.
“That network is moving in to influence Burnham,” Bryan adds.
Decline
BURNHAM also faces the risk of the British public rapidly losing faith in him if he fails to deliver. “The expectation is for dynamism and action,” Bryan says, “and for that you need new policies.
“He needs to find the people who can help him and avoid the ones who will stop him. He understands the risks. If he doesn’t make change, if he doesn’t inspire enthusiasm, then it will be just a slow decline to the next election and we know what happens after that: a Reform majority in Parliament and that would result in the actual break-up of Britain.
“It would be the ultimate push over the edge. He can’t allow that to happen. There are angels and devils fighting over him. He’s not daft.”
Bryan, though, is quick to point out that, despite there being a majority of Yes-supporting MSPs in Holyrood, there wasn’t a majority of votes cast at the last Scottish election for pro-independence parties. She compares the SNP win at Holyrood to Starmer’s “loveless landslide”.
When it comes to the type of unionism Reform offers it would be much more hardline than the Tories or Labour.
Reform’s unionism is extremely “centralising” with power focused on Nigel Farage. “Their ideological model doesn’t include devolution, because devolution diminishes power. Their model is to concentrate power as near as possible within one person.”
Any tensions so far between the SNP and either the Conservatives or Labour over “power grabs would look like nothing compared to what will happen”.
She predicts Reform would quickly begin calling for “reducing the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd. We’re at such a pivotal moment and Burnham must understand that. He’s such a great believer in devolution”.
Burnham won’t be helped by the fact that “there isn’t a strong Labour Party in Scotland. It’s been allowed to wither on the vine”.
Bryan believes the leadership of the Scottish party wants the base of the party to be supine and meek, and elected members to be neither radical nor left wing. She claims the selection process for candidates is used to control the Scottish party.
“I’d call it Stalinist,” she says. “It’s a top-down way of selecting candidates.” With many members already jaded, this style of management “drove away anyone who was even slightly wavering about being in the party”.
She adds: “They won’t even tell us how many members there are because we’ve lost so many. My constituency party, [Glasgow] Partick-Kelvin, is one of the biggest, and we can’t even get a quorum for our AGM. Members just won’t turn up to meetings. It’s bad.”
Existential
SCOTTISH Labour falling to just 17 seats at Holyrood was “existential. People really thought that Sarwar would say something afterwards about his responsibility and recognise it was time to go”, Bryan says.
“People thought Jackie Baillie, who has been responsible for the last series of elections, would say it’s time to go. We thought [Scottish Secretary] Douglas Alexander, who took a lead role, would recognise his responsibility. But no.”
Sarwar and Baillie “certainly should have gone”. She blames this style of Labour management on Donald Dewar who created a system in Scotland where the leader just tells MSPs “what to do”.
The only real hope for Scottish Labour is Burnham governing in a way that “creates a sense of excitement so people rejoin or join for the first time. They’d become interested in Labour because of its UK policies. It would liberate some within the Scottish Labour Party – traditional Labour people – who understand that the party is there to represent working people”.
She also hopes that trade unions lean more on Scottish Labour, telling the leadership “you must have more radical policies”.
Does she believe there’s a risk of Scottish Labour becoming extinct? “Absolutely. We’ve not made any real impact for years,” she says.
“I’m not sure what the mechanism is for becoming extinct, but we can certainly cease to have any meaningful input into politics.”
Bryan says that Sarwar and Baillie are “answerable to the Scottish executive [of the party]”.
“It met immediately after the election. The first issue on the agenda wasn’t their leadership or what they were going to do as a result of making such a disaster of the election,” she says. “It was referred
to from one or two people in the meeting – that they ought to take responsibility – but only referred to.”
On Sarwar and Baillie staying on as leaders, Bryan says the pair “should take a good look at themselves and ask why they’re doing that. Is it because this is their lives now?” She adds that “since Sarwar took over, all we’ve seen is decline. For a relatively young man you’d think he’d see the need to build a life somewhere else. He can’t be doing this forever without success”.
She adds: “They seem to have convinced themselves they can win – if not a majority or even as the biggest party, but in some alliance. They’re so far from the truth.
“They just don’t understand. When everyone was telling them that Reform was likely to get the same number of seats, they didn’t recognise it.”
Reform also won 17 seats at Holyrood. The Scottish Labour leadership’s lack of “va-va-voom” infects the party. The name of the MSP Michael Marra has “been bandied around” as an alternative to Sarwar.
Bryan isn’t sold on the idea of the Scottish party splitting from the UK party. “People’s views tend to change with the leader. If you’ve got a good leader down south they think ‘okay, we’ll stay’.”
Scottish Labour simply wouldn’t have the resources to run as a standalone party. “It couldn’t afford to be self-funding,” Bryan says. “It would struggle in a practical way.”
Scottish Labour should take a “lead role” in the debate Burnham is keen to start on devolution of power across Britain.
“Scotland and Wales have real demands to make here,” she adds. The debate cannot solely be about “England and mayors. We’ve got to have a voice”.
Federal
SCOTTISH Labour should campaign for a Senate of the Nations and Regions, which Burnham supports. Bryan says Burnham “wants to change the centralised, cocooned way Westminster operates. To do that, you must get rid of the Lords”. The Senate should be outside London.
Bryan is aware that establishing a Senate won’t be top of Burnham’s agenda given the domestic and international challenges he faces, but she believes he should “set in motion the discussion about how this can happen as it will take time to introduce”.
If England was divided into proportional chunks – based, she suggests, on the nine regional constituencies that were once part of the European Parliament – then the UK would “move towards” a federal Britain with fair and balanced representation. Bryan adds: “It would give us a different focus to the constitutional debate, which is just bipolar at the moment.” Bryan despairs of the “with us or against us” style of debate around the union and independence. Her critique of independence is harsh. What the SNP offers “isn’t independence at all, as you’ll be thrown out there into the wild world of neoliberalism”.
A Senate of the Nations and Regions would, she hopes, show people that “they have common interests across the UK”. Energy is an issue that the Senate could take on, with the various nations and regions stating their case for what they need. A Senate could take on important policy areas which languished under Starmer. “Great British Energy was launched with fanfares but it just disappeared,” Bryan adds.
“That would be a great way to bring the nations and regions together, looking at how we distribute energy, what investments and resources are needed, and what the benefits will be. Instead of parliamentary discussions you take the debate out to the whole of the UK and involve the people.”
The same could be done with agriculture, or the growing issue of data centres, she suggests. There are common interests between Scottish rural communities and areas like the north-east of England and Cornwall when it comes to fishing.
But here’s a danger, Bryan believes, that rather than bringing Scotland onboard with his devolution project, Burnham triggers a fight with the SNP. His comments about giving more power to cities like Dundee or Aberdeen could be interpreted as taking power from Holyrood.
Power does, however, need shared more widely in Scotland, she says, as the SNP has centralised control. “Edinburgh is as distant for many as London. It may be geographically closer but it’s not closer in any meaningful way – they’re still not listening”. She adds: “They’re not taking account of people’s experience in schemes like Castlemilk. They don’t even focus on Glasgow.”
Rather than risk a fight with the SNP, Burnham should engage “what’s left of civic Scotland” – meaning councils, trade unions, academics and NGOs – in the debate about devolving power away from Edinburgh.
Referendum
WHEN it comes to the issue of another referendum, Bryan says Burnham “needs someone to tell him quite clearly in words of one syllable that the answer is not ‘just say no’. You cannot go on saying it can never happen”.
She says: “He needs to initiate discussions on what mechanism can be used if there’s strong demand for another referendum. That could be a series of opinion polls showing 60% support. It’s not enough to say you’ve got 51% of the population.”
She’s scornful of the notion that a majority of Yes-supporting MSPs could trigger a referendum without a majority of votes cast for them across the country – which is the case at present.
Once the “trigger mechanism” is established, the power to call any referendum should rest with the Scottish Parliament. “It must be a Scottish decision, though the restrictions may come from the UK on how it happens.”
She has little hope of Sarwar playing any meaningful role in constitutional discussions. “Sarwar won’t challenge Burnham and neither would he offer alternative ideas, as he’s never thought it important. The only thing that’s important to him is how he gets to be First Minister. Though he must realise that’s not going to happen.”
Bryan reflects on the end of Starmer’s premiership. To understand how he failed so badly, she says, “you must start at the beginning. He took control of the party with lies – straightforward lies”.
Starmer won the leadership with “10 pledges based on Corbyn’s policies”. All were abandoned. “He promised everything Corbyn promised but just looked smart in a suit and tie while doing so. He had no intention of adopting those policies. He’d no vision of what he wanted to achieve as the point was just to be Prime Minister, not what he would do as Prime Minister.
“He arrived with a chancellor who hasn’t a political thought in her head. He surrounded himself with people who had nothing in common with traditional Labour policies and no vision.” She highlights Wes Streeting, claiming he focused on “the American health sector playing a role in the UK and allowing them to profit”.
Starmer, she says, “very nearly killed Labour”. Continuing with Starmer would have led to a “downward spiral. Burnham brings hope”.
She believes Burnham has the brains to navigate what lies ahead and understands the policy changes required to survive and lead the party into the next election. “He’s not suicidal. He recognises he must make a difference. He knows much more about politics than Starmer.”
Crucially, he must cease the “scaremongering Reform stuff”. Bryan says Starmer’s now infamous ‘Island of Strangers’ speech was a “kick in the gut” particularly for older voters who recalled Enoch Powell’s rhetoric. Shabana Mahmood, she says, “is terrifying as Home Secretary”.
Burnham has to “spread hope and optimism, not fear and hatred – which is where we are today
‘SCOTLAND DOESN’T OWN ITS OWN ECONOMY’
LIKE Gordon Brown’s first Red Paper on Scotland written 50 years ago, Pauline Bryan’s updated version tries to get to the heart of what Scotland needs economically.
The times are similar. Like today, the mid-70s saw upheaval at home and abroad.
The big change, obviously, was the collapse of Scotland’s industrial base.
The 1970s saw key pillars of the Scottish economy start coming under the control of English financial institution. Today, however, it’s overseas companies running much of Scotland’s economy.
The SNP’s ScotWind deal gave away swathes of the nation’s seabed to private and foreign companies for renewable energy. Bryan points out that Scotland doesn’t even own the kit which makes wind turbines.
“If we don’t control our economy, how do we control our politics?” Bryan asks. Discussing the constitution without recognising “you don’t actually own your economy is fantasy”.
The SNP’s economic blueprint for independence is, she says, anything but progressive. It wouldn’t make Scotland fairer or wealthier. “It would tie us into an approach to the economy that fitted exactly where the UK economy is and would tie us to the rules of the IMF that controls borrowing, the level of spending, and polices policy choices around redistribution of wealth.”
Plans for an independent Scotland to keep the pound would simply mean “the Bank of England tells you what to do. You couldn’t raise or lower interest rates”.
The state of the economy in Scotland - as well as the rest of Britain - is fuelling inequality which is fuelling the discontent that’s fuelling the far-right. It’s a vicious circle.
Scottish companies should be producing hi-tech kit like wind turbines, she says. That means jobs.
“We missed all that,” Bryan adds. “It’s so depressing. The Scottish Parliament from Dewar onwards hasn’t had the vision to create a different way of approaching the economy.”
There’s no consideration given in Scotland - or in the rest of Britain - by politicians to the contribution health, education and care bring to the economy.
“They’re considered a negative,” says Bryan. “A cost to the economy. We should turn that on its head and say, no, they’re what makes the economy function.”
Bryan is shocked when she hears “younger people say ‘why do you keep talking about Thatcher? She’s been dead decades. That’s historic. It doesn’t affect us’.”
Our economy wouldn’t function as it does today without Thatcher, Bryan says. “Thatcherism made public ownership anathema. The people used to own public utilities as the state owned them. The things that were essential to our lives were given to [private industry] to run.”
Young people need to understand that “fundamental change” because “our important utilities have failed”. The knock-on effect of privatisation has been loss of funding for the state and resulting national decline. “Look at Sauchiehall Street,” Bryan adds. “Glasgow doesn’t even have a high street now.”
Scotland needs the ability to borrow more, and more devolution of powers so Holyrood can legislate for policies like wealth taxes at a national, rather than local, level.
The SNP has centralised power for itself, pulling control away from councils. “That means local government has less resources, and any intervention into the local economy is restricted.”
She hopes Burnham’s ‘Manchesterism’ will “encourage Scotland” to empower local authorities.
If there ever was another referendum and Yes won, Bryan says the SNP would be the wrong party to lead Scotland to independence given its economic policies are so tied to the status quo.
She sees little economic difference between the SNP and Starmer. “The trickle-down approach they think solves everything doesn’t work and so nothing changes.”
While the SNP has passed some good policies like the Scottish Child Payment, attempts to end child poverty “haven’t even come close to being met”. The attempt at reform of the care system was a “disaster as they followed the old Blair model of being a procurer of care rather than a provider”.
The SNP “isn’t even a social democratic party”, Bryan believes, despite the fact Nicola Sturgeon described herself as a social democrat.
The drift to the far-right that’s happening across Britain isn’t about “people’s psychology, but the neglect which makes them vulnerable to the anger produced by Reform”.
What’s most missing from politics, Bryan believes, is “what’s always been missing: the expertise of ordinary working people when it comes to how to live on tight budgets”.
If we want to devolve power, that must change. But in an era where people have no trust in politicians and are disconnecting from politics in increasing numbers, how do we change that? And does a career politician like Burnham have the answer?
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