He said: “I think unions of countries are better, because you can face a challenging world in a more confident and stronger way, in my view, when you collaborate and you work together.”
Mr Burnham sought to shift the narrative and declared the UK must “move beyond the constitutional question”, extending an offer to work with the SNP to make devolution “more localised” across the border in his first speech in Scotland since entering No10.
Stephen Flynn, a Scottish minister, said Mr Burnham, however, would be a hypocrite if he backed a second Brexit referendum – but shied away from an independent Scotland.
The SNP has always had a traditional stronghold in Scotland, while Northern Ireland is both culturally, historically and geographically separated from its neighbours. Wales became the final country to be held by a nationalist party after Labour’s disastrous defeat in the Assembly back in May.
For centuries, each country has curated a distinct culture, language and political identity. But, while Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism have become powerful forces, England is yet to follow suit.
Professor John Denham, director of the Centre for English Identity and Politics at the University of Southampton and a former Labour minister, said England’s dominance within Britain historically meant it never needed to develop a separate political identity.
Prof Denham told GB News: “As the largest part of the Unions which were at the heart of the largest empire the world had seen, England needed no political identity; and many could think that England and Britain were the same.
“This was never true in Wales or Scotland, or Ireland.”
He said a stronger English political identity had begun to emerge since the fall of the British Empire, but had stopped well short of producing a serious independence movement.
Prof Denham added: “Some sense of English political identity has emerged since the end of Empire and the assertion of national interests, but it has not taken a significant independence expression – more a desire that English interests be protected, whether within the UK or, for some, from the EU.”