National Missions, Service and Hugging Scotland Close?

Or, were you ever in the girl guides?

No-one can accuse Keir Starmer’s government of moving slowly in its first week. We’ve seen the new cabinet formed, visits to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (albeit with some confusion as to whether he was visiting three nations or four), meeting metro mayors en masse, talks with junior doctors, ending the Rwanda absurdity and more. The prime minister is now at the NATO summit in Washington.

In Scotland, the SNP has barely got started on mutual recriminations, plus a few more serious comments, in the face of its electoral defeat. But the Scottish government doesn’t only need to reflect on its poor election results, manage – or not – debate within the SNP, keep governing and decide, swiftly enough, its strategy through to 2026. It needs to deal with the UK government which wants to hug Scotland, and the rest of the UK, close.

Keir Starmer and new secretary of state for Scotland Ian Murray met John Swinney and Kate Forbes on Sunday. Everyone was on their best behaviour, promising to work together. Starmer batted away questions on the constitution he doesn’t want to answer; headlines on a refused independence choice will undermine his unity message.

But Starmer, of course, wants to see a Labour government in Scotland in 2026. A renewed SNP government, unlikely as it may seem today, would not illuminate the UK national unity Starmer wants to proclaim.

Friendly UK-Scottish government relations, in the midst of a two year campaign through to Holyrood in 2026, is going to be difficult and revealing for both sides. How both Labour and SNP manage this dance over the next two years – a different situation to both Wales and Northern Ireland – is now a core political question.

Technocracy, Missions and Democracy

In his first speech outside Number Ten, Starmer emphasised actions not words as vital. But Labour’s words are strategy too and they need careful examination, most of all the core Starmer message of working together in service of national renewal.

Labour aims to govern to its top five missions: kickstart economic growth, make Britain a clean energy superpower, take back our streets, break down barriers to opportunity, and build an NHS fit for the future. There will be mission boards, chaired by the prime minister, to cut across departmental silos. Joined-up government is a decent aim, though anyone who’s worked in a cross-cutting ‘matrix management’ system may look warily at these rather consultancy-style plans.

Labour sees its national missions as much bigger than just management – the first time such an approach has been “the overall governing philosophy of Britain.” It’s a way, as well, to “galvanise others to work in partnership with government.” Starmer believes, according to Labour’s paper on its five missions, that “Britain will only be able to shape a better future if everyone plays their part in all parts of the country.”

We will be invited, again and again, to join in and serve, as Starmer did on the steps of Downing Street last Friday: “With respect and humility, I invite you all to join this government of service in the mission of national renewal.” Starmer too wants: “Four nations, standing together again.”

Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy security and net zero, joined in with this rhetoric in his first communication to staff: “In line with the Prime Minister’s approach, this will be a mission-driven department, mobilising citizens, businesses, trade unions, civil society and local government in a national effort, where everyone has a role.”

And if we don’t agree?

A new prime minister emphasising an end to division – a genuine Starmer big theme – and a united country is perhaps neither surprising nor new. But it would be a strange UK and a peculiar democracy if we were all on the same, technocratic side now.

And some of the ‘service’ rhetoric can grate. It reminds me of the archaic girl guides’ oath of my youth: ‘I promise to do my duty to God and the Queen’. In today’s version, guides now promise to ‘serve the King and my community’. Starmer’s rhetoric and that of the girl guides match. But we will not all want to serve Starmer’s mission – a one-team only UK.

At his first Downing street press conference last Saturday, Starmer insisted: “I’m not a tribal politician. And the principle I operate to, whether it’s mayors or other elected representatives, is that where regional leaders want to deliver for their area, then, regardless of the colour of their rosette, my door is open and my government will work with them.”

A key question here is what happens if we don’t agree or we want to deliver differently – whether as individuals, nations, or communities? The UK government won the election; it has a mandate to launch its five missions. But there are other missions and other ways to promote political, social, civic and economic change. It’s technocracy (and political tactics) more than democracy to ask the entire UK population – individuals, groups, nations, regions, businesses, unions and all of us – to join in on one, single defined set of missions.

The Tories, for sure, have left a broken politics and economy behind them. But a vibrant democracy and society will always be one of different views, lively debate, and different devolved choices.

And the goal of unity in serving Starmer’s national mission prompts a core question: who will be in the outsiders’ group? Labour’s left, decimated by Starmer in the last four years, previous Tory ministers – and then who? Those who want to re-join the European Union, those who want Scottish independence or a united Ireland, those against nuclear power, the list could be long and time will tell.

But the rhetoric of all pulling together to rebuild the UK, joining in to serve, does not, in fact, speak much to tolerance and difference in goals, missions, values, let alone on Scottish independence or Irish reunification. And Labour government- SNP government relations in Scotland, in particular, are going to be a revealing, public test of this.

Can the Scottish government and SNP handle the UK government?

Neither Starmer nor Swinney had much to say after their joint meeting on Sunday as both insisted they would, of course, work together. Starmer, as set out in Labour’s manifesto, now plans, a Council of the Nations and Regions though how this will relate to the existing intergovernmental Council bringing together Northern Ireland, Welsh and Scottish leaders with the prime minister, we don’t yet know – perhaps it will replace it.

Labour’s challenge in Scotland is, in many ways, easier than that for the SNP. It has abandoned Tory ‘muscular unionism’ and will look for ways to make notable, positive differences in Scotland that prove its ‘working with not against’ approach produces results. That Sunday’s joint meeting included a focus on Grangemouth is a case in point (and we will see what happens).

The Scottish government will have to find ways to demonstrate that it, in partnership with the UK government, can indeed produce genuine, specific results on the ground, claim significant credit for these outcomes (as Labour does the same), while also making clear what it would do differently. Where are the policy areas where the Scottish government will not agree with, or oppose the UK government (and let’s hope that won’t be in defending new north sea oil and gas licences)? Where can the SNP credibly claim independence would do things differently and better?

Even for those who think now is not the time to talk about independence, opposition to Labour – vital for 2026 – must surely involve talking too about reserved, as well as devolved, areas, about where Labour’s five missions are wrong for Scotland (and the UK). And that is, in effect, talking about independence.

The SNP doesn’t come empty-handed to this. Starmer, for instance, wants us to stop talking about re-joining the EU. Better EU-UK relations, including closer security cooperation, are welcome but not enough. There are real differences of substance here with the SNP – and they impact directly on Labour’s top priority growth mission.

There should be differences too on tackling climate change and the biodiversity crises, though the SNP has tough work to do to re-establish its credentials on green issues. And, on climate, the independence movement including the SNP, has to wake up to the fact that climate action now and in the coming few years is utterly vital. It can’t wait for independence. Getting it right now is the challenge.

Many of Starmer’s five missions cut across devolved areas including education, policing and the NHS. How will Labour move to have a visible influence here in Scotland? What will the Scottish government do to tackle its mediocre record ahead of 2026 and to come up with a persuasive future strategy? This is about detail and substance not just big picture topics such as the EU. What will Labour offer for the Holyrood campaign – surely not an end to free prescriptions or fees for university courses?

There will surely be differences and fallings out as working together gets real. When there are, each side will be keen to blame the other. The UK government may well tread heavily at some point in devolved areas. But a whiny rendition of ‘you over-stepped the Sewell convention’ will not do it. Real, substantial political and policy arguments are the order of the day. The SNP now faces a Labour UK government, a Labour opposition in Scotland. We’re in new times.

Making a strong, credible case that a Scottish government led by the SNP not Labour can deliver more for Scotland is the SNP’s challenge today. Not many would envy them it, even if the SNP’s 30 per cent of the vote is more substantial in the context of the Holyrood election. And independence support remains close to 50 per cent.

But is there the political, strategic and intellectual capacity around the SNP, in or beyond the independence movement, and in the Scottish government (and civil service) to present a vibrant, political, strategic and substantive case for SNP devolved government today, for different policies from the UK government, or for independence?

The SNP is demoralised, lacking energy, to some extent split, and time is relatively short to 2026. Labour’s technocratic national mission is dynamism itself in contrast.

There is huge scope for a different politics in Scotland, one that could partly work with, partly work separately and partly work in opposition to the UK government. But in the absence of such a renewed dynamic in Scottish politics, Labour’s ‘hug Scotland close’ strategy may start to look like a bear hug for Scotland’s current government.