Enhance Scotland and you enhance Britain, Sir Keir

Closer to home, it already seems clear that Sir Keir has learned from the mistakes of the last decade of the UK Government's approach towards the nations of the UK. The Conservative government loved nothing more than to engage in hostilities with the Labour Welsh government and, in particular, with the SNP Scottish one.

This was a highly credible strategy for a party which only wanted to appease its core vote, however, as everyone outside the Conservative Party understood, it did not meet with the approval of the run of the mill, apolitical centrist voter, who voted Labour last week because they’d like to see both their governments getting along in the interests of the country rather than trying to one-up each other in the interests of their party.

Sir Keir’s immediate whistle-stop tour to meet the devolved leaders, including a warm chat with John Swinney, which will do both men good in the eyes of the voter.

As the two leaders met in Bute House, I was half a continent away, in Barcelona, ironically visiting the Parlament de Catalunya.

It can be easy, when analysing other countries with multiple national identities in search of a better way for the UK to proceed, to overlook our Iberian friends in favour of other places and peoples with whom we find it easier to identify and relate, such as the Canadians.

Nonetheless, there are too many similarities between Spain and the UK to ignore, and indeed Sir Keir may find some lessons in there for what to do, and what not to do, to ensure the preservation of the state.

There is, of course, Catalunya, which we might fairly consider most similar to Scotland in that they remain the thorniest issues, and the most credible "flight risks", in each union.

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Symbols of Catalan identity abound and, inevitably, the wounds of 2017, when Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy removed his Catalan counterpart Carles Puigdemont from office through a hitherto unused article of the Spanish constitution, and effectively forced him into exile, are raw.

In truth, though, that episode was a relatively rare mis-step in a country which over the previous 40 years had strengthened itself, and avoided its own collapse, by respecting and even promoting the many national identities which exist within it.

It took awful trauma to get there, of course. The dictatorship of General Francisco Franco will, inevitably and correctly, be remembered because of his alliance with Hitler and Mussolini, and his continued authoritarian rule of Spain well beyond the Second World War. However, less discussed is how his nationalism, as all nationalism does, came along with centralisation in Madrid, and the repression of the regional identities which had particular strength in Catalunya, the Basque Country and Galicia.

All with distinct languages, cultures and symbols, the appetite for secession grew under Franco, but the explicit acceptance and embracing of their identity in the Constitución Española from 1978 changed the game.

In Galicia, which borders Portugal in Spain's north-west and probably has more in common in terms of language and culture with those across the border, there is no real prospect of independence, and instead an acceptance that their distinctiveness within the Spanish state is the best of both worlds. Think of them as Wales.

In the Basque Country, which we might fairly compare in some respects to Northern Ireland due to its campaign of terrorism against Spain, and in which the terrorist group ETA was formed during Franco’s rule, life has happily calmed. Support for ETA gradually dissipated, and the start of that dissipation can be traced back to the Constitución Española.

In Catalunya, polls show that pro-independence sentiment is receding (Image: Getty)

Even in Catalunya, polls show that pro-independence sentiment is receding. Life is good; much better than it is for many of us in Scotland and the UK. On an early morning run in Barcelona, from Plaça Espanya, to Plaça Catalunya, down La Rambla to Port Vell and back up, I saw three homeless people. I think, on a similar run in Edinburgh, I’d have seen33.

There was no litter. The shops were busy; not the tourist ones, I mean the high-end retailers used by locals. I saw little evidence of a cost of living crisis in bustling Barcelona. There were plenty of tourists too, of course, not least at the remarkable port, housing both a massive container operation as well as an equally-sized cruise ship one (being on the Mediterranean is a geographical advantage there, of course).

There is a huge amount of development, large and small. Public transport improvements seem constant, including dedicated active travel routes. Half a billion euros of water infrastructure is around the corner. And the Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes tunnel, under an existing city centre roundabout in the shadow of the Sagrada Familia, has just been completed.

They are getting on. They are getting things done.

The lesson for Labour, I suppose, is that decentralisation is defenestration. Respecting national identities works, but actively encouraging them within a larger family works even better.

We cannot expect the cautious Sir Keir to decentralise our still-centralised UK overnight, and the poor performance of Scotland’s devolved institutions mean that doing so would most likely lack popular support.

But as a longer-term strategic objective, there is plenty of evidence that Labour could do itself, and the UK, a lot of favours by enhancing Britishness through enhancing its nations.

As King Juan Carlos said on his first visit after Franco’s death "‘Viva Galicia".