Tony Blair has challenged the Scottish Labour party to become a “really capable” opposition to counter SNP demands for a second independence referendum.
The former Labour Prime Minister, who legislated for the Scottish devolution, said a Labour revival was needed to hold the SNP to account as a government which “pretend they’re in opposition”.
Speaking on Sky News Blair said: “We had a referendum that rejected Scottish independence, but Brexit put it back on the agenda again.”
“And it’s going to require very careful management. The truth of the matter is it’s still not in Scotland’s interest to separate from England.”
He added: “There are huge economic and political reasons for the United Kingdom to stay the United Kingdom but we’re going to have to examine whether there’s different constitutional settlements.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer has promised a constitutional convention headed by Gordon Brown to map out a new devolution settlement across the UK.
But in Scotland Labour is languishing in the opinion polls under the leadership of Richard Leonard, a problem Blair alluded to in his interview.
He said: “But I come back to the point which is nothing to do with Boris Johnson, it’s actually more to do with the Labour Party.
“How do you make the Labour Party back into a credible opposition in Scotland? Because while the SNP are able to govern virtually uncontested, then it’s extremely difficult to dent their position on independence.
“But that’s for us to decide as the Labour Party how we’re going to do that.”
Blair added: “The single most important thing politically to my mind, is that we get a really capable opposition in Scotland – which should be the Labour Party - that’s capable of contesting the Scottish nationalist position in Scotland.”
Blair added that the SNP is currently left to “govern Scotland but pretend they’re in opposition.”
He added: “So (they) pretend all the problems are going to be resolved by independence, when actually the Scottish Government itself has in its power the vast amount of the levers that they need to change Scotland residing in the Scottish devolution settlement.”
