07/07/2024 – 13:44
New British Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make his first official visit to Scotland this Sunday (7) to seek an “immediate restart” of relations within the United Kingdom.
“People across the UK are united by shared beliefs. The core values of respect, service and community define us as a great nation,” the Prime Minister said in a statement ahead of her trip.
“That starts with an immediate reset of my government's approach today, because meaningful collaboration centered on respect will be key to making a difference across our UK,” he added.
Starmer will meet John Swinney of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) in the afternoon to replace Hamza Yusuf, who took office on May 8.
The SNP slumped in the Assembly election, retaining just nine seats, compared to the 48 it won in the 2019 election.
If the party got 1.2 million votes five years ago, last Thursday it got just over 700 thousand votes.
Swinney lamented the “very, very difficult and damaging” election result for his party.
The sharp decline in its presence in the House of Commons is attributed by some analysts to the effective vote, with many of its voters choosing Labor to end 14 years of Conservative power.
– A “different” way of working –
At a press conference on Saturday, the new British prime minister said she wanted to “define a way of working across the UK that is different and better than in the past and recognizes the contributions of our four countries”.
Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, in office until February 2023, criticized the lack of communication from then-Conservative chief executive Boris Johnson during the Covid-19 pandemic, and lamented that his successor, Liz Truss, was also out of touch. She at the beginning of her mandate.
In the British political system, the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have jurisdiction over certain areas such as education, health and the environment, while the British Executive in London retains powers over defense and foreign policy. .
Tony Blair's Labor government (1997-2007) created the system, but during the Conservatives' mandate, between 2010 and 2024, local governments often accused them of marginalizing them.
After Scotland, Starmer will visit Wales, which is governed by Labour's Vaughan Gething, and Northern Ireland, where the first minister is Sinn Féin's Republican Michelle O'Neill.
