SENIOR POLICY ADVISER FOR LABOUR PARTY CALLS FOR SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE

A FORMER senior policy adviser to all three Labour First Ministers has pledged his support for Scotland becoming an independent country.

Generational gap

Duncan Maclennan, a key adviser to the Labour Party’s three First Ministers, Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell, has insisted that it is now “fundamentally important” that a fresh vote on independence takes place after a near generational 7 year gap since the first one.

Writing in the Sunday Times, Mr Maclennan also pointed to the “elitism, incompetence and unelected arrogance” of the UK Government.

Mr Maclennan, a key Labour figure in the formative years of devolution, has praised the “professional honesty” of Andrew Wilson’s Sustainable Growth Commission report for the SNP – which conceded that it could take up to ten years for Scotland’s inherited UK deficit to return to sustainable levels.

He added: “Scotland can strengthen its international connections, it has strong institutions and communities and it also seems to have a creative drive to embrace more sustainable and fairer futures than does the likely Westminster-Whitehall realm for the decade ahead.

“I now believe that our best first constitutional move in a very uncertain world is to seek Scottish independence.”

Power grab

The economist and professor of public policy at Glasgow University also indicated that Scotland is being ”steadily disconnected from English policy debates and Whitehall civil service”, accusing Boris Johnson of “muscling in on devolved matters and curtailing the power of the Scottish Parliament”.

Former Royal Marines commando Keith Brown, now SNP Depute Leader

SNP depute leader, Keith Brown, said: “As each day passes by Boris Johnson and the Tories continue to undermine devolution and Scotland’s place in the UK.

“Duncan Maclennan advised some of the early pioneers of Scottish devolution, but Westminster is now threatening to rip that up and grab power away from Scotland.

“He represents an ever-growing cohort of Labour supporters who are seeing that the only way for Scotland to truly become the progressive and compassionate country we all want is to become independent.”

He added: “It really is time Labour started listening to their own party members, at least a third of whom say they will vote Yes and back another independence referendum –  or risk becoming democracy deniers like Trump and Johnson.

“I agree with Duncan that Scottish independence strengthens our international connections and provides an opportunity to embrace a more sustainable and fairer future than being shackled to a Westminster government hell-bent on pursuing a damaging, relationship-destroying Brexit.”

Unionist drums

Anas Sarwar, Labour’s Scottish constitution spokesman, continued to beat the Unionist drum when he said: “Scottish Labour will continue to oppose Scottish independence and the damage it would do and the deep austerity it would cause.

“We need a period of healing, not stoking up of the old divisions.”