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BACK in January I had a conversation with Cardiff University politics expert Jac Larner after a YouGov poll showed pro-Welsh independence party Plaid Cymru opening up a major lead ahead of the election in May.
With polls consistently pointing to an SNP victory at Holyrood and Sinn Fein in power in Northern Ireland, Larner said he expected the UK Government would engage in the "muscular Unionism" seen consistently under Boris Johnson's Conservatives if the predictions play out.
The practice of "muscular Unionism" saw the Tory UK government repeatedly assert the supremacy of Westminster by acting in what had previously been devolved policy areas.
I asked him whether he meant such a concept would make a comeback under Reform UK if they got into government after the next election, but he assured me in no uncertain terms that this was a technique Labour would apply if Plaid and the SNP won their elections.
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I was a little taken aback. Surely he was not suggesting Labour, the party that brought devolution into being in 1997, was about to undermine it? Not the UK Labour Government that said it wanted to “reset” relations with the Scottish Government?
Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth went one step further when he spoke to me in February and said Labour are already engaging in “muscular Unionism” towards Wales as “panic” sets in about Plaid winning the Senedd election. This came after Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood rejected devolving policing powers to Wales despite Labour first minister Eluned Morgan specifically calling for this in a speech the previous week.
They say bad things come in threes, and in the third month of the year, we have had proof in “black and white”, as Ap Iorwerth said that Labour are prepared to crack the whip, tighten the reins, and undermine devolution.
That proof came in the shape of a leaked memo revealed by Plaid Cymru in the Senedd, which showed the Prime Minister telling his Cabinet “we should be confident in our ability to deliver in those [devolved] nations including through direct spending even when devolved governments may oppose this".
He adds “each of us will maintain a professional and respectful working relationship with our counterparts in devolved governments” but that “an overly deferential or laissez-faire approach to devolved government engagement almost inevitably creates political challenges or misses positive opportunities”.
In short, be nice to them, but don’t let them out of your sight. Make sure they know their place.
There was another line in the memo that took me straight back to when then-foreign secretary James Cleverly said in 2023 that all meetings between SNP ministers and overseas governments must be organised through the UK Government and attended by its own officials.
Starmer said in the memo he expected the relevant office for the devolved nation to be notified "at the earliest opportunity" if a devolved government minister intends to visit overseas as "international engagement and foreign affairs are not devolved matters".
You might need a microscope to tell the difference between those two.
As unsurprising as this was to me, what I find staggering is Scottish Labour – whose leader called for Starmer to quit Number 10 last month – have sought to defend it, as if we need any more proof that Scotland is under Westminster’s thumb.
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Sarwar said Westminster had made “too many mistakes” when he called for Starmer to go and clearly thought he was showing the country he was his own man in doing so, but he then went awfy quiet after receiving pelters for raising his head above the parapet.
Is this memo not a gift to him then? Is this not something Sarwar should be storming down to Downing Street with and slamming it on Starmer’s desk?
Alas, no. Sarwar did not say a single word when we went to the Scottish Labour press office asking for his response. In fact, the only thing that drew any reaction from the party was a press release by the SNP questioning what Sarwar knew about this “secret plan”. When I passed that on, they replied within the hour.
Terribly fitting they pounce on a moment of political opportunism following a memo which shows Starmer is prepared to undermine devolution for his own political gain.
John Swinney went from saying in 2024 that the relationship with the Labour UK Government was "incomparably better" than what the Scottish Government had with the Tories, to saying he didn’t trust Labour to protect devolution at the end of 2025.
We now have the proof as to why.
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