{"id":703400,"date":"2026-07-21T13:18:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703400\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T13:18:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T13:18:36","slug":"new-pm-andy-burnham-tells-john-swinney-agree-to-disagree-on-scottish-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703400\/","title":{"rendered":"New PM Andy Burnham tells John Swinney ‘agree to disagree’ on Scottish independence"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reported to have told Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney that they will have to “agree to disagree” on Scottish independence.<\/p>\n

The two leaders spoke on the phone on Tuesday morning for the first time since Burnham took office.<\/p>\n

Swinney raised the issue of Scotland’s future, stressing the pro-independence majority in Holyrood, in the hope of advancing the debate. <\/p>\n

But a UK government source told the Press Association that the prime minister had been resistant. <\/p>\n

He said: “When the question of independence was raised, the prime minister was quite firm they would have to agree to disagree.<\/p>\n

“It’s not something he’s focused on and it’s not a conversation that he’s interested in taking forward.”<\/p>\n

The source described the rest of the call as “quite warm and constructive”.<\/p>\n

He added that Burnham emphasised to Swinney the areas where the two governments could work together and spoke of his drive for a “new kind of politics”.<\/p>\n

Last week Swinney congratulated the former mayor of Greater Manchester after he was confirmed as UK Labour’s new leader.<\/p>\n

He said he hoped to build a “constructive relationship” with Burnham<\/a> that would improve the lives of people in Scotland.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Press Association on Tuesday, Swinney acknowledged there were areas where he and Burnham would not agree.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, the prime minister and I have different views on the constitution, but I’ve got a mandate to take forward,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I will be looking to advance that mandate that I received directly from the people of Scotland in the course of the last few months and to make sure that Scotland has a choice about her own future.”<\/p>\n

The SNP lost seats in May’s election<\/a>, but remained the largest party, with the increase in Scottish Green voters helping to secure a pro-independence majority at Holyrood.<\/p>\n

Swinney added that his call with the PM was “positive”.<\/p>\n

“I congratulated him on his election and he made it clear he wanted to operate in a constructive and positive way with the Scottish government and I welcome that indication,” Swinney said.<\/p>\n

He also welcomed the announcement of a cut in VAT on energy bills, which will “provide some support in relation to the cost of living”.<\/p>\n

According to a Scottish government spokesperson, Swinney also used the call to extend an invitation to the PM to visit Scotland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reported to have told Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney that they will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-703400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}