Britain’s justice secretary said Sunday that Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s openness to reversing Brexit does not reopen the question of Scottish independence. Asked on Sky News whether talk of rerunning the 2016 European Union referendum meant the same could happen for Scotland, Alex Norris said, “I wouldn’t link the two things.”
“One of those questions is about our forward-looking engagement with our European partners to get the best of the country,” Norris said. “That’s different to the question of the union.” Pressed on whether the government would reopen the independence debate, he pointed to the 2014 referendum. “I recall it being said that that was a generational debate on that on that day, and you know the the answer was the answer,” he said, The Independent reported.
The 2014 answer was 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent for remaining in the United Kingdom. The 2016 answer, across the United Kingdom, was 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the European Union. Scotland voted 62 percent to remain, with a majority for remaining in every one of its 32 council areas.
Over the past week, Burnham has raised the prospect of revisiting the second. He told the Labour Party conference on September 29 that he would set out “different options” for Britain’s long-term relationship with the EU around a UK-EU summit later this year, and “see if we can find consensus around one.” The next day, on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, he listed them: staying as Britain is, a customs union of the kind former Chancellor George Osborne has proposed, the single market, “or we could go all the way.”
In a separate BBC interview, CNBC reported, Burnham was asked whether a future Labour manifesto could promise an in-out referendum on rejoining. “Yes, things are possible,” he said. Before he took office, Burnham had pledged not to “re-run” the arguments over Brexit.
On Scotland, his answer has not moved. In a September 10 letter to First Minister John Swinney, Burnham called independence and a referendum “off limits.” The UK Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that the Scottish Parliament cannot hold an independence referendum without Westminster’s consent. On September 22, Holyrood voted 84 to 18 that Scotland has the right to decide its own future.
Swinney has said the movement for self-determination in Scotland is “gathering pace.” His government published a draft Independence Referendum Bill in August. It cannot be introduced without the powers Westminster has refused to transfer.
London has now put two referendums on different footing. Britain’s 2016 vote is open to review a decade later, by the government’s own account. Scotland’s 2014 vote, two years older, is the answer.
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