Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has contradicted Andy Burnham’s position on Irish reunification by describing a united Ireland as inevitable in the long term, while maintaining his opposition to Scottish independence.
The intervention has prompted the SNP to accuse Labour of applying different democratic standards to constitutional change in Ireland and Scotland.
Brown’s comments follow Burnham’s first visit to Northern Ireland as Prime Minister, where he said Irish reunification was “off the table”, having previously described another Scottish independence referendum as “off limits”.
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian, Brown said: “well, of course, in the long term, Ireland will be united.”
However, the former Labour Prime Minister, who played a prominent role in the Better Together campaign during the 2014 independence referendum, maintained his opposition to Scotland becoming independent.
Brown said:
“Scotland’s got to find a way of living in cooperation with other countries, and independence would not be the right way forward.
“We’re geographically, economically, socially, culturally linked to the rest of the United Kingdom, whether it’s Wales, England or parts of Ireland.”
The SNP seized on the distinction between Brown’s positions on Ireland and Scotland, arguing that it exposed contradictory approaches within Labour to constitutional change.
SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown said:
“Gordon Brown’s slap down of Andy Burnham’s anti-democratic and arrogant intervention in Ireland this week obviously exposes a clear contradiction between the pair but it equally exposes the Labour Party’s blatant double standards when it comes to constitutional change.
“While accepting that people across Ireland have the right to decide their own future, Gordon Brown still won’t accept that Scots should be afforded the same basic level of democracy.
“The Labour Party’s hypocrisy knows no bounds.
“Andy Burnham claimed he was going to go on a listening tour round the UK but so far he has come to Scotland to tell us that independence is ‘off limits’ and then flew into Belfast to tell people that Irish unity is ‘off the table’.
“Instead of Burnham listening, people in Scotland and Ireland have witnessed more of the same Westminster lecturing.
“The people of Scotland will democratically decide our future, not Andy Burnham, not Gordon Brown, not any other Westminster politician.
“People across Scotland elected a record number of pro-independence MSPs in May, we now have First Ministers in every corner of these islands who reject Westminster and support the right of self-determination.
“Instead of lecturing people about what they can and can’t democratically decide, it’s time Andy Burnham and Gordon Brown woke up to the reality that the failed UK status quo is coming to an end.”
