Brown’s blueprint for saving the union 'coming soon'

It was first mooted in 2020 to “consider how power, wealth and opportunity could be devolved to the most local level.”

Party insiders had hoped the final report would be ready for launch to coincide with this week’s UK conference.

However, Ian Murray, the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, and the party’s only Scottish MP, is set to tell the party faithful in Liverpool only that it is “nearing completion” and will be “launched in the coming months.”

The SNP dubbed it “Broon’s Brigadoon.”

They said the document would “magically emerge from the mists before vanishing as quickly as it appeared”.

Mr Murray’s promise – due to be made as part of the conference’s Scotland report –  comes after an early draft of Mr Brown’s suggestion was leaked last week.

According to reports, there was some unhappiness among Labour’s frontbenchers over some of the ex-leader’s recommendations.

They include calls to devolve more powers over taxation to Scotland, Wales, and England’s regions.

He also suggested a new mechanism to community groups to promote bills in parliament, and a constitutional guarantee of social and economic rights.

Mr Brown also called for the House of Lords to be replaced by an upper house of nations and regions – a proposal that has appeared in the party’s 2015 and 2019 general elections manifestos.

The Guardian’s report said he also called for local and devolved governments to be given a minimum of three years’ funding to give them certainty for longer-term planning – something both the Scottish Government and Cosla have long called for

Mr Brown has also reportedly recommended a crackdown on standards in central government and parliament, including a jury of ordinary citizens being able to rule on complaints against MPs and ministers via a new integrity and ethics commission.

The former prime minister also recommends banning most second jobs for MPs and new codes of conduct to replace the ministerial code.

Mr Murray is expected to tell the party faithful: “Our politics can’t keep being about the false binary choice of separation versus the status quo.

“That’s why Keir Starmer asked former prime minister Gordon Brown to oversee a commission into the UK’s future.

“The commission is tasked with clearing up and clearing out the centre so that the United Kingdom works for every part of our country.

“It’s not going to be a powers giveaway without a purpose, but have a plan for proper economic devolution at its heart.

“A redress of the UK economy where we unleash the talents and contributions of all parts of the country.

“It will not just try to convince Scotland to stay but to make Britain such a good place to be that everyone, in all corners of our country, will want to be part of it.

“And in doing so it will set out both a safer and more radical offer for change than the risk of independence - the chance for a fairer, more secure, more respected Scotland within a reformed and modern United Kingdom.

“Conference, I’m pleased to announce that Gordon Brown’s work is nearing completion and that it will be launched in the coming months.”

The SNP pointed out that Labour had been promising to abolish the House of Lords since 1910.

They also pointed to remarks made by Mr Brown ahead of the 2014 manifesto where he said that a “No” vote would make the UK “as close to a federal state” as possible and offered “home rule within UK”.

The SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown said: “Labour has been promising to abolish the Lords for the past 112 years but, despite having been in government six times since for a total of 33 years, it has never come close to honouring that promise.

“There are Disney films more believable than Broon’s Brigadoon. This is just another repeat of his same old, same old, which magically emerges from the mists before vanishing as quickly as it appeared.

“Labour really do appear to think that the backs of the Scottish people’s heads button up the back.

“Scots will see through this and recognise it offers Scotland nothing. It provides zero protection from Brexit, Westminster austerity cuts, Liz Truss’s latest Budget obscenity, power grabs and repeated Tory governments we don’t vote for.

“Broon’s Brigadoon is not just fictitious, it’s now so watered-down it also breaks his promise in 2014 that Scotland would have the maximum possible devolution and the ‘closest thing to federalism’ within two years.

“Independence is the only way to get rid of the Tories for good and to escape the damage of Westminster control by securing the permanent change needed to build a more equal, prosperous future.”