SIR KEIR STARMER will publicly pledge a “real devolution of power and resources” today, to “push power closer to people” ahead of next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.  

The Labour Party leader is launching a Constitutional Commission focused on ensuring the next Labour government spreads “power, wealth and opportunity” out of Westminster and to the British people.

The “boldest devolution project for a generation” will be advised by former Labour PM Gordon Brown on handing “real and lasting economic and political devolution” to “towns, communities and to people across the country.” 

Sir Keir said today he would lay a marker down with a “fresh and tangible offer” to the Scottish people. 

He said: “It is Labour’s duty to offer a positive alternative to the Scottish people. To show that you don’t have to choose between a broken status quo and the uncertainty and divisiveness of separatism. 

“The case for the next phase of devolution was urgent before Covid, but the pandemic has put rocket boosters under it. Our Labour council leaders, mayors and metro mayors have stood up for their communities against a centralised Westminster-knows-best response. 

“This won’t be an exercise in shifting power from one Parliament to another, of moving a few jobs out of London or to ‘devolve and to forget’. 

“This will be the boldest project Labour has embarked on for a generation and every bit as bold and radical as the programme of devolution that Labour delivered in the 1990s and 2000s.”

He also emphasised the plans would encompass communities across Britain, describing a yearning “for politics and power to be much closer to people.” 

The SNP dismissed the initiative today, saying that “no amount of constitutional tinkering” would “protect Scotland from Brexit or a Tory power grab,” but Sir Keir said he planned to “do everything” to “win back trust” in Labour. 

He adds: “Unless we grasp the nettle, and deliver real devolution of power and resources, we won’t be able to renew our United Kingdom for the 2020s and 2030s. 

“We won’t be able to tackle the root causes of the appalling inequalities and injustices that we see across our regions and nations.

“And we won’t be able to make Britain the country I know it can be: the best place to grow up in and the best place to grow old in.”