Unfinished Business E-Book

Henry McLeish

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 404

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

We want to move beyond politics in which each party seeks to outmanoeuvre others and score a decisive victory. This leads to political stalemate. We want to reflect on the successes and failures of devolution and offer a series of proposals for reform that could be embraced by a broad swathe of opinion. What were the hopes and aspirations of devolution? To what extent has devolution been successful? What are the challenges and opportunities ahead? How can we meet the challenges and best take advantage of opportunities? Where is Scotland heading on its unfinished journey? How will changes in the rest of the UK impact on this journey? In 1999, legislation was passed to create the Scottish Parliament and the Consultative Steering Group (CSG) issued its report on the Scottish Parliament's guiding principles. Four key principles were set out in the CSG report reflecting the hopes and aspirations of campaigners for a Scottish Parliament: sharing power between the people, legislators and government; greater accountability from government to Parliament to the people; facilitating accessibility, openness and responsiveness; and promoting equality. These principles remain as relevant today as they were at the Parliament's establishment though much has changed in the intervening quarter century. In this book, former First Minister Henry McLeish, Minister responsible for devolution and chair of the CSG, and Professor James Mitchell of Edinburgh University consider the journey Scotland has been on – the challenges, obstacles and opportunities in seeking to achieve these hopes and expectations.

Leseprobe

RT HON HENRY MCLEISH began his political career as an elected member in local government in 1974 and was leader of Fife Regional Council for five years. In 1987 he was elected as a member of the UK Parliament and acted as Minister for Devolution and Home Affairs in the Labour Government from 1997 to 1999. In the first Scottish Parliament he was Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning from 1999, and in 2000 he became First Minister of Scotland until 2001. Retiring from politics in 2003, he is now an adviser, consultant, writer, author and broadcaster and lectures in the USA and elsewhere on the European Union and politics. He chaired the Scottish Prisons Commission, which produced a report into sentencing and the criminal justice system entitled ‘Scotland’s Choice’. In 2010 he conducted a major report on the state of football in Scotland, which had been commissioned by the Scottish Football Association, and chaired a commission into sport requested by the Scottish Government. He is now an honorary professor at Edinburgh University.

JAMES MITCHELL is Professor of Public Policy, University of Edinburgh having previously been Professor of Politics, Strathclyde University and Professor of Public Policy, Sheffield University. His research has included studies of political parties and public opinion in Scotland. His most recent work has included studies of the SNP, Scottish elections and the independence referendum. All of his work is informed by an appreciation of the importance of the past in its impact on current concerns.

Previous books by Henry McLeish:

People, Politics, Parliament: The Settled Will of the Scottish People, (Luath Press, 2022)

Scottish Football: Requiem or Renaissance?, (Luath Press, 2018)

Citizen’s United: Taking Back Control in Turbulent Times, (Luath Press, 2017)

Rethinking Our Politics: The political and constitutional future of Scotland and the UK, (Luath Press, 2014)

With Tom Brown, Scotland: The Growing Divide, (Luath Press, 2012)

With Tom Brown, Scotland: A Suitable Case for Treatment, (Luath Press, 2009)

With Tom Brown, Scotland: The Road Divides, (Luath Press, 2007)

With Kenny MacAskill, Wherever the Saltire Flies, (Luath Press, 2006)

With Kenny MacAskill, Global Scots: Voices from Afar, (Luath Press, 2005)

Scotland First: Truth and Consequences, (Mainstream Publishing, 2004)

Previous books by James Mitchell:

With Lynn Bennie & Rob Johns, Surges in party membership, (Routledge, 2024)

With Jim Johnston (eds), The Scottish Parliament at 20, (Luath Press, 2019)

Hamilton 1967, (Luath Press, 2017)

With Gerry Hassan (eds), Scottish National Party Leaders, (Biteback Publishing, 2016) [part of Biteback’s The British Leaders series]

With Rob Johns, Takeover: explaining the extraordinary rise of the SNP, (Biteback Publishing, 2016)

The Scottish Question, (Oxford University Press, 2014)

With C Carman & R Johns, More Scottish than British: The 2011 Scottish Parliament Election, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

With Gerry Hassan (eds), After Independence, (Luath Press, 2013)

With R Johns & L Bennie, The Scottish National Party, (Oxford University Press, 2011)

With R Johns, D Denver & C Pattie, Voting for a Scottish Government: The Scottish Parliament Elections of 2007, (Manchester University Press, 2010)

Devolution in the United Kingdom, (Manchester University Press, 2009)

Governing Scotland: The Invention of Administrative Devolution, (MacMillan, 2003)

With C Jeffrey (eds), The Scottish Parliament 1999–2009: The First Decade, (Luath Press/Hansard Society, 2009)

With D Denver, C Pattie & H Bochel, Scotland Decides: The Devolution Issue and the 1997 Referendum, (Frank Cass, 2000)

With L Bennie & J Brand, How Scotland Votes: Scottish Parties and Elections, (Manchester University Press, 1997)

Strategies for Self-Government, (Polygon, 1996)

With A Midwinter & M Keating, Politics and Public Policy in Scotland, (Macmillan, 1991)

Conservatives and the Union, (Edinburgh University Press, 1990)

First published 2025

ISBN: 978-1-91032-442-4

The authors’ right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 11.5 point Sabon by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

© Henry McLeish and James Mitchell 2025

Contents

Preface

Introduction

SECTION ONE – THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

1 Hopes and Expectations

What is devolution?

Anti-devolutionists

The Devolutionists

Devolving and decentralising

Democratisation beyond devolution

Margaret Thatcher and the negative template of Westminster

The Constitutional Convention

1997 Referendum

Implementation

Conclusion

2 Early Experience: Bedding Down, Challenges and Successes

Introduction

New Politics

Relative constitutional peace

The CSG principles in practice

Pushing the boundaries

Years of plenty

McIntosh and multi-level governance

Conclusion

3 More Challenging Times

Introduction

SNP Minority Government

Challenges and responses

Centralisation continues apace

The ‘National Conversation’ and Calman

The respect agenda

The accidental referendum

Policy stagnation and the rise of performative politics

The Scottish civil service and relations with London

Brexit

The constitutional ‘upas tree’

Conclusion

SECTION TWO – THE NEXT TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

4 Devolution: The Next Generation

Introduction

Identities and interests

Britain, Britishness, England and Englishness

What kind of UK?

Scotland and the wider world

The welfare state

Scotland at the centre

Quasi-federalism and entrenchment

Conclusion

5 Reforming Holyrood and Scottish Governance

Introduction

Restored but fragile legitimacy

Linkage with the electorate

Linkage with the Scottish Government and its agencies

Scrutiny and policy making

The Scottish Government

Governance beyond the centre

Conclusion

6 The Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

Introduction

Demographic change and Scotland’s welfare state

The dependency ratio

Brexit

Scotland’s economic performance

Subsidiarity revisited

Wicked problems

Known unknowns

Conclusion

7 Conclusion

Vindictive negativism

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Preface

WE APPROACHED WRITING this book with different backgrounds and experiences but each of us had long been committed to the establishment of a Scottish Parliament, and today we are open-minded about future reforms and keen to see the Parliament contribute to making Scotland a better place. We hope the combination of a former politician – who has served as a councillor, council leader, MP, UK Government Minister, MSP, Scottish Government Minister and First Minister – and an academic who has spent over 40 years studying government and public policy with a particular focus on Scotland would be able to stimulate discussion and debate. This is not a manifesto, though we make some policy proposals and institutional reform proposals, insomuch as they are reflections and a contribution to a debate on Scotland’s future. This book grew out of many conversations over a number of years. Through these conversations, we found much common ground, learned from each other, rethought and honed views and positions. We firmly believe that respectful dialogue is important. We do not claim comprehensive coverage of all challenges and issues – that could not be possible in one book – but have focused on areas with which at least one of us has engaged at length over time.

We do not expect anyone will agree with everything but that is not the primary purpose of the book. We hope it contributes to and stimulates further debate on matters discussed.

Introduction

THE FIRST ELECTIONS to the Scottish Parliament were held more than a quarter of a century ago. Anniversaries are appropriate, even if somewhat arbitrary, moments for reflection. Enough time has passed for the Parliament to have become embedded in the life of Scotland. Sixteen-year-olds who will vote in the next Holyrood elections were born over a decade after the first elections. Much has changed economically, socially and politically over the intervening period, including dramatic and rapid technological innovations. Brexit, the rise of populism and increased geopolitical uncertainty had not been anticipated.

Every constitution and institution needs to be revisited periodically even if there may be disagreement on how this should be done, how often and how radical the revision. One of the great exchanges on this took place in 1789 between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Jefferson, who became America’s third President, argued that the US Constitution should expire every generation, by which he meant every 19 years. He had used mortality tables to reach this figure. The ‘earth belongs to the living, not to the dead’ he insisted and ‘one generation, is to another as one independent nation to another’. Madison, who succeeded Jefferson as American President in 1809, was unconvinced and concerned that a completely new constitution was impractical, fearing that it would ‘engender pernicious factions that might not otherwise come into existence’. He also argued that a generation was not a fixed period.

We hear echoes of these debates in Scotland today. What is the appropriate time between holding referendums on Scotland’s constitutional future? Who decides what should be on the ballot paper? What is a ‘generation’? Is a referendum essential before major changes are implemented? And what is a ‘major’ change? How ‘major’? One view is that the issue should be reopened when there is evidence of a demand for change, but that leaves many questions unanswered. How should we measure demand for change? Former Scottish Secretary Alister Jack suggested the ‘duck test’. ‘If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck and waddles like a duck, it’s probably a duck’. The trouble is we can’t agree on what a constitutional duck looks or sounds like. And should independence be the only option for change on any future ballot paper? The view adopted in this book is that devolution is in need of review, regardless of whether a second referendum is needed. By devolution we mean both the Scottish Parliament but also the Scottish Government and attendant institutions. Indeed, we go further. It is not only devolution that needs to be reviewed but Scottish governance more broadly, including Non-Departmental Public Bodies and local institutions.

We want to move beyond politics in which each party seeks to outmanoeuvre others and score a decisive victory. This leads to political stalemate. We want to reflect on the successes and failures of devolution and offer a series of proposals for reform that could be embraced by a broad swathe of opinion. This is not to dismiss debates on independence and more powers for Holyrood, only that other issues require our attention. In the first section of the book, we begin with reflections on the hopes and expectations of devolution before turning to early experience and then to consider more recent times. The second section offers ideas on how reform might take place.

The early years of the Scottish Parliament coincided with a period of relative political calm and economic ‘good times’. It was not without controversy however, especially related to the Holyrood building. It was a formative period for the new devolved institutions. There was little prospect that the new Scottish Parliament could live up to the exceptionally high ideals of its founders, though this is not to dismiss these ideals as naïve or mistaken. Expectations of change and idealism play an important part in any political movement, providing momentum to mobilise support. They also provide important reminders of the institution’s aims, a yardstick against which progress can be measured, though often enough used as a stick to beat the institution or its supporters when it has fallen short. It is easy in retrospect to identify weaknesses and problems that might have been foreseen but this book is more concerned with learning lessons, recognising that much in political life falls under the category of ‘known unknowns’ or even ‘unknown unknowns’. The test of any institution is not only how it lives up to its ideals but how it deals with unanticipated developments and crises and, crucially, whether and how it learns and reforms itself.

We should also take heed of words spoken by the late Queen when she addressed the Parliament three years into its existence. Speaking in its temporary setting in Aberdeen University, when the Kirk reclaimed its building for its annual General Assembly, the monarch noted that the process of creating a new Parliamentary culture would take time. ‘After what might be considered a parliamentary adjournment of almost 300 years, that process will inevitably take time.’ Notwithstanding that perspective, the best time to create a new culture is at the outset. Habits and practices tend to become rooted and more difficult to change as time passes.

This creates challenges. Standing still or resting on our laurels is not an option in our view. The growth of populism, feeding on disillusionment and distrust, cannot be ignored. There is much speculation on the possibility of a major breakthrough for Reform UK. UKIP, its antecedent, wanted to replace MSPs with Westminster MPs, which would amount to a return to the pre-devolution arrangement of having a Scottish Grand Committee, though UKIP never developed or explained the idea clearly. Nothing should be taken for granted.

Tim Harford, in a column in the Financial Times in November 2024, noted that in countries ‘gripped by anger and frozen by polarisation, there is not much room for the curious, humble, practical problem solving of the experimenting society. Yet somehow the vicious circle must be broken’. Scotland is far from alone in being caught in such a vicious cycle and will need to find its own way of breaking out. This book is a contribution to a debate on how this might be done.

SECTION ONE

The Last Twenty-Five Years

CHAPTER 1

Hopes and Expectations

Give us our Parliament in Scotland. We will start with no traditions. We will start with ideals. We will start with purpose, with courage.

Jimmy Maxton before being elected MP for Glasgow Bridgeton in 1922

What is devolution?

LANGUAGE IS IMPORTANT in politics and various terms have been used for what is now commonly called devolution. The Irish Nationalist TP O’Connor joked that devolution was ‘Latin for home rule’. ‘Home rule’ was the much more common term used in debates on the Irish Question in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was not until the 1970s that ‘devolution’ was commonly used. Michael Foot, a strong supporter, preferred home rule over devolution but his was a minority voice in the Labour Government in the late 1970s. Whether devolution is, as some maintain, a dry and uninspiring term, it is the term that has come to be associated with Scotland’s constitutional status today.

Not all those who campaigned for devolution in the September 1997 referendum were strictly speaking supporters of devolution. They included people who saw it as a stepping stone to federalism, independence or some variant thereof. Devolution became the favoured term, as commonly happens with political language, as a means of distinguishing what was proposed from other options – usually the status quo ante and independence. Home rule might have been an appropriate term and, as we will see, had been used by earlier generations who supported what we now call Scottish devolution, but was associated in some minds with nationalism. Ironically, many nationalists were equally suspicious of ‘home rule’ for its association in their minds with unionism.

A phrase commonly associated with devolution was ‘Scottish control of Scottish affairs’. This was used to refer to a Scottish Parliament but had previously been used for almost any special institutional arrangements for governing Scotland. The term ‘administrative devolution’ had been proposed by a civil servant in the interwar years to refer to the Scottish Office, the department of UK government with responsibility for Scottish affairs. The Scottish Office incorporated a growing range of responsibilities from its establishment in 1885 but also, crucially, its Ministers and officials were expected to ‘stand up for Scotland’ on all manner of issues. It was, in essence, Scotland’s voice at the centre of government.

The Scottish Office is central to any understanding of devolution today. Created in a pre-democratic age to acknowledge Scottish distinctiveness within the United Kingdom and ensure that Scotland was not swallowed up into a Greater England, the Scottish Office had one major flaw that gave rise to the demand for legislative devolution. The Scottish Office was accountable to Westminster, with the Scottish Secretary appointed by the Prime Minister. So long as the largest party was the same in Scotland as in the UK as a whole then this was not seen as a major problem. But it was difficult to see how Scottish Office Ministers could claim to ‘speak for Scotland’ when the UK governing party lacked support in Scotland.

The complaint that Scotland was neglected in London had led to the establishment of the Scottish Office in 1885. As Prime Minister Lord Salisbury explained to the first holder of the office, the Scottish Office was established to ‘redress the wounded dignities of the Scotch people – or a section of them – who think that enough is not made of Scotland’. There was ‘so much sentiment about it’ but he warned that ‘measured by the expectations of the people of Scotland it is approaching the Archangelic’. More than half a century later, Churchill appointed Lord Home to a new post as Minister of State at the Scottish Office, telling him to ‘Go and quell those turbulent Scots, and don’t come back until you’ve done it’. The turbulent Scots Churchill was referring to were those arguing for Scottish home rule. But it was less the activities of Lord Home than James Stuart, Churchill’s Secretary of State for Scotland, who had a close relationship with the Prime Minister, that ensured there was a Scottish voice at the heart of government. Stuart won concessions in Cabinet. He made the case for a bridge over the Forth and argued for greater resources for Scotland. The problem was that while Stuart had access to the centre of power, Tory Secretaries of State were not representative of Scotland as a whole. This point was driven home frequently by Willie Ross, as Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary. Even when Ross became Scottish Secretary (1964–70; 1974–76), and arguably the most effective holder of that office in winning concessions for Scotland, the Scottish voice was once again one chosen by the Prime Minister.

Scottish Office Ministers and officials became adept in making the case for treating Scotland as exceptional, requiring greater resources – often successfully, even when a stronger case for extra resources might be more deserving in other parts of the UK. Peter Hennessy, one of the keenest observers of Whitehall, has remarked that the Scottish Office was one of the few institutions, along with the military, to most successfully and persistently gain extra spending from the Treasury. While it was successful as an institutional lobby within the system, it also allowed for distinct policy development that ensured Scotland continued to be different from other parts of the UK. But such policy divergence invariably had to be agreed in Cabinet and Whitehall, and that meant within the ideological framework of the governing party. The Scottish Office could not have pursued a left-wing policy agenda under the Tories even if that was what Scots wanted and no Tory Prime Minister would appoint Scottish Secretaries with such views. But there was always some scope for variation.

Administrative devolution provided the basis of what would become the Scottish Parliament’s competences. Matters devolved to the new Scottish Parliament were, more or less, competences previously under the Scottish Office. At the time, the Scottish Office had accumulated a wide range of responsibilities piecemeal over more than a century. Initially, the Scottish Office’s responsibilities were limited to education and aspects of local administration, but law and order were soon added. Its responsibilities increased broadly in tandem with the increasing role of the state. Though not all new state intervention came under the Scottish Office and much was organised on a British or UK-wide basis, there were significant additions to its responsibilities over time. Agriculture was added before the First World War; housing and health were added after the war and grew in importance. More were added after 1945 including aspects of planning and economic responsibilities. The Scottish Office won major concessions and extra resources, sometimes based on additional needs, but also due to effective lobbying made possible by having a voice at the core of government. Its responsibilities included a general oversight of Scottish affairs, even where there was no formal responsibility. The Scottish Office was expected to ‘speak for Scotland’, to ensure that the Scottish voice was heard on matters that had an impact in Scotland. There were inevitably many grey areas. European Union matters, for example, were formally not within the Scottish Office’s purview but it did have responsibilities regarding European policy areas, including regional development and aspects of social policy.

The principal case for legislative devolution focused on the unrepresentative nature of the Scottish Office’s political leadership. Hence, much of the best debate and ideas favouring a Scottish Parliament focused on this. Less attention was paid to competences, not least as it was assumed these would be inherited from the Scottish Office. The translation of administrative devolution into legislative devolution involved a very different understanding of ‘Scottish control of Scottish affairs’. ‘Scottish control’ meant control by Scottish elected representatives accountable to Scottish voters. ‘Scottish affairs’ may have initially been taken to refer to Scottish Office responsibilities but would become subject to debate involving other policy areas.

Parliamentary reforms paralleled the development of the Scottish Office. A Scottish Grand Committee was established initially on an experimental basis at the end of the 19th century and then continuously from early in the 20th. The Scottish Grand consisted of all Scottish MPs plus added Members to ensure it conformed with the party balance in the Commons as a whole. It considered Bills after second reading initially but its remit was extended in 1948 when it was able to consider Scottish Estimates – ie public spending under the Scottish Office – and it would consider the principle of any proposed Scottish legislation before second reading. In 1958, a Scottish Standing Committee was established which would consider Scottish Bills at Committee State. As the Committee stages of Scottish legislation in the Commons had been handed to Scottish Standing Committees in 1958, reflecting the composition of the Commons as a whole, there was little reason to continue with the practice of including (invariably) English Conservative MPs on the Scottish Grand Committee in the 1980s. In his 1966 book, Parliament and Mumbo-Jumbo, Emrys Hughes, Labour MP for South Ayrshire and son-in-law of Keir Hardie, had described how Iain MacLeod, London Tory MP whose family came from Lewis, had been ‘quick to remind us the English would demand an English majority on committees dealing with purely English bills and in these the Labour Government would always be in a minority’. The West Lothian Question had its precursors.

Scottish Standing Committees dealt with Scottish legislation and a Scottish Select Committee was created in 1979, though one had briefly existed a decade before. Scottish Questions were taken in the Commons, though fairly rarely despite the growing scope of Scottish Office responsibilities. Scotland was given generous representation in the Commons from 1922 until devolution but Scottish MPs were still inevitably a minority in the Commons simply because Scotland was much smaller than England. Nonetheless, Scotland was over-represented on a strictly population basis.

Anti-devolutionists

It is worth considering devolution’s opponents before considering the devolutionists. It should not need to be said that opponents of devolution were not anti-Scottish or anti-democratic, though that is how supporters of a Scottish Parliament often described them. There were those, predominantly on the right of politics, who saw devolution as incompatible with the sovereignty of the Westminster Parliament and the UK as a unitary state. The notion of another Parliament that might challenge the authority of Westminster was anathema to such people. These opponents did not disappear with the creation of the Scottish Parliament. Some became constructive critics, some even embraced devolution and subsequently argued that the Scottish Parliament needed more powers to make it more fiscally responsible. Others remained staunch critics, insisting they would still vote against devolution. David McLetchie, the first leader of the Scottish Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament, maintained this position, though this did not prevent him from making constructive contributions, including making Ministers accountable for decisions as a powerful interrogator during Parliamentary Questions. But it would be a long stretch to describe McLetchie as a devolutionist.

Scottish nationalists would not necessarily describe themselves as devolutionists, though many campaigned for devolution in the 1979 and 1997 referendums. Scottish nationalism’s objective was never as clear-cut as some would have us believe today. There were those who adopted a Scottish version of sovereign statehood, who opposed sharing power with others and were the mirror image of defenders of Parliamentary sovereignty at Westminster. For the most part, Scottish nationalist objectives have been contingent on circumstances. Go back 90-odd years and we find Scottish nationalists supporting a vague form of home rule within the Empire. Go back 70 years and senior figures in the SNP were arguing for what amounted to a confederal UK. Support amongst Scottish nationalists could range from something similar to legislative devolution through federalism and confederalism, to ‘sovereign’ statehood. Some of these positions might simply reflect a pragmatic view that full statehood was unlikely at the time. The lack of precision was understandable. For most of the 20th century Scottish nationalism was nowhere near the point of needing a clear, detailed outline of objectives. Its first objective was getting the broad principle of a directly elected Parliament firmly on the agenda. It is far from clear how many of the early Scottish nationalists would have supported the objective that was outlined in the SNP Government’s 2013 White Paper on independence. Indeed, that very question is meaningless as we should not try to lift people from an earlier era and try to fit them into today’s politics. Context is all-important. Anyone who doubts that a variety of forms of independence is possible need only look at the differences on elements of that 2013 white paper that have since emerged to realise that independence is a contested idea even amongst nationalists.

There have also been many opponents of devolution in the Labour Party. Many saw devolution as an irrelevance, associated with nationalism. It was a distraction from pursuing social justice and socialism. Others went further and opposed devolution as they believed a strong central government was needed to deliver equality and feared that the central demand management of the economy would be undermined by devolving power. This did not mean that Labour opponents of devolution believed in uniformity. Few could doubt Willie Ross’s commitment to Scotland. Ross stands out amongst post-1945 Scottish Secretaries in his pursuit of Scottish interests. His close and loyal relationship with Wilson helped him win concessions. Richard Crossman, his Cabinet colleague, noted in his diary that there was already ‘deep separation’ between Scotland and England in policy terms and that while Ross accused the SNP of separatism, ‘what Willie Ross himself actually likes is to keep Scottish business entirely privy from English business’. Ironically, Ross was then hostile to devolution, though he was converted by the rising electoral threat from the SNP, and Crossman was a keen advocate of legislative devolution.

There is an apocryphal tale that encapsulates a strain of Labour thinking pre-devolution. When Frank McElhone was appointed as a junior Scottish Office Minister, he is supposed to have asked Secretary of State Ross what he should do. Ross replied, ‘You’ll do as yer tellt’. It spoke of paternalism, enlightened as it may often have been, and very much framed in Scottish terms. Though Ross was vehemently opposed to Scottish devolution for most of his career, he was no less Scottish than anyone. Ross jealously guarded how Scottish interests should be defined. In their study of Labour and Scottish Nationalism, Michael Keating and David Bleiman noted that, in opposition, Ross made great play of the Tories’ alleged neglect of Scotland, turning Scottish grievances to Labour’s advantage without making any concession to home rule. Ross doubted that a Scottish Parliament could articulate the interests of Scotland as well as he could, at least until electoral pressure forced his change of mind.

Labour had been a keen advocate of home rule in its first 50 years, as discussed below, but abandoned that commitment after 1945. The abandonment was explained by John Taylor, Scottish Labour’s secretary and organiser, in straightforward terms to delegates at the party’s Scottish conference in 1947. In the past, he told delegates, there was strong support ‘based on the fact that under Tory rule Scotland never had a fair deal’. But now, Scotland was in a ‘much more favourable position than ever before in her economic history’ after two years of the Attlee Government. There was also a view that achieving equality required centralised policy making that provided the same levels of support to citizens regardless of where they lived. Decentralisation was suspected of undermining social citizenship rights and equality. These views held sway amongst a large contingent of Labour members and supporters up to the 1980s. It was a view built on the assumption that Labour would remain in government much more often than would be the case.

In 1958, a special report from the Scottish Labour executive was presented to a party conference in Glasgow. It concluded that Scotland was not a separate economic unit and to treat it as such would be ‘against the best interests of both sides of industry in Scotland and the United Kingdom’. It called for more Parliamentary time to be devoted to ‘special problems requiring special provision in respect of Scottish domestic affairs’ in light of the extension of Scottish Office responsibilities. While rejecting home rule, the report declared ‘our belief in the principle of the maximum possible self-government for Scotland, consistent with the right to remain in United Kingdom Parliament and continue full Scottish representation there’. Labour was then staunchly opposed to a Scottish Parliament but equally committed to maintaining distinct Scottish institutions with a type of devolution that allowed for

a) the need for direct contact and the personal touch;

b) the need to adjust centralised services to the special needs of particular localities;

c) the need to avoid delay;

d) the convenience of the public;

e) the complexity which has accentuated the desire to devolve as far as possible;

f) the advantage derived from regional devolution in time of war.

In the late 1960s, Labour once more rejected home rule and re-committed itself to the ‘greatest possible devolution consistent with our absolute determination to retain the maximum possible influence on the economic and political polices of the United Kingdom’. This was, Donald Dewar insisted in 1970, very little different from that adopted back in 1958. It is acceptable sentiment which could offend no one. The difficulty is that ten years later the party is ‘not one bit the nearer knowing what it means’.

Dewar was then in a minority within the Labour Party on devolution. His view was that Scotland’s government should be looked at holistically, including reforming local government alongside devolution. This should not be ‘reduced to a narrow exercise in political tactics when what is required is anxious debate about the case for change’.

The SNP threat to Labour in the late 1960s had led to the establishment of the Royal Commission on the Constitution, initially chaired by Lord Crowther, former editor of the Economist and later by Lord Kilbrandon, a Scottish judge, following Crowther’s death. The Royal Commission was charged with examining the functions of Parliament and Government in relation to the several countries, nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Crowther was not sympathetic to devolution as was clear when he volunteered that the Royal Commission should be wound up after the 1970 general election which was widely, though mistakenly, interpreted as evidence that the Scottish nationalist threat had gone. Lord Kilbrandon was much more favourably disposed to devolution. In October 1973, Kilbrandon reported recommending, inter alia, a devolved Assembly for Scotland. At this point the term ‘Assembly’ was used to distinguish what was being proposed for Scotland and Wales from Parliament at Westminster.

Scottish Labour’s initial reaction to the rise of the SNP was, in the words of Gordon Brown and Henry Drucker, ‘one of horror and contempt’. Scottish Labour’s submission to the Royal Commission opposed devolution. Chair of the Labour Party in Scotland, John Pollock, whose view would change dramatically over time, said his party would prefer the ‘obnoxious possibility’ of a Conservative Government to separatism or federalism. Scotland needed administrative not legislative devolution, with scrutiny provided by Parliamentary committees in the Commons. Devolution, Pollock then insisted, would take Scotland on a ‘slippery slope’, a phrase that would be repeated time and again by those hostile to devolution. A crucial argument, frequently articulated, was that devolution undermined working-class solidarity across Britain. Class was then much more important than national identity. Working-class families in Glasgow, it was argued, had more in common with working-class families in Liverpool than they had with Highland lairds. An example of this thinking was provided in 1977 in a debate on devolution when Bob Hughes, Aberdeen North’s Labour MP, spoke against devolution,

I believe in the unity of the working class in this country, and, far from devolution benefiting those people, I believe that, in the longer term, it will damage the advance of Socialism and the control of the commanding heights of the economy.

A strong view amongst Labour councillors in the 1970s was that a Scottish Assembly would undermine local government, especially that the proposed Assembly’s powers would be used to cut grants to local government to provide the devolved government with more resources for its own areas of responsibility. The fear amongst many, and not just Labour councillors, in the new regional and district councils created in the 1970s was that power would be sucked up by a Scottish Parliament.

Labour was forced to rethink its position on devolution when the SNP won seven seats with 22 per cent of the vote in February 1974. This U-turn was motivated less from principle, though there were always genuine supporters of home rule in Labour’s ranks, and more from fear of the SNP electoral threat, a threat that had been fuelled by the opportunities the discovery of North Sea oil offered. In October 1974, the SNP won 30 per cent of the vote and 11 of Scotland’s 71 MPs and was in second place in 35 of Labour’s 41 seats. It was these 35 second places that concentrated Labour minds. Ironically, had the decision been left to its Scottish MPs or to Scottish party activists, Labour would have remained hostile to devolution. The decision to support a Scottish Assembly was taken, largely due to the trade union block vote, at a special conference held between the two general elections in 1974.

As ever in politics, our preference for neat boxes makes complexity more manageable but also exaggerates differences. Not only is it more accurate to view preferences on Scotland’s constitutional status operating along a continuum but there are continuums within and overlaps between political parties. There have been staunch devolutionists inside the Conservative Party and the SNP and staunch anti-devolutionists within the Labour Party and Liberal (Democratic) Party. But the party that is best described as the devolution party is Labour. Devolution became the official policy of the party in a way and to an extent it never has been in other parties. And for this reason, it is mainly to Labour thinkers that we turn to understand what it was they supported and why. Our approach is to focus on key individuals, partly to humanise the subject but also to emphasise evolving thinking. Devolution has always been a living idea, reflecting contemporary conditions.

So, who were the devolutionists? And what did they want?

The Devolutionists

The case for home rule had been well rehearsed long before a Scottish Parliament was established. The Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA) was set up in 1886, largely with Liberal support. The Scotsman carried an editorial favouring home rule early the following year. While the issue never entirely disappeared, its salience waxed and waned over the decades. It would be wrong to think that the creation of a Scottish Parliament was inevitable. There is ample evidence that a Scottish Parliament was very much a fringe issue until the late 1960s.

The Liberals kept the flame alive over much of the 20th century. In the late 19th century, Gladstone’s support for Irish home rule had been bedevilled by criticisms that it would involve Irish MPs having a vote on British matters in the Commons while no MPs would have a vote on equivalent Irish devolved affairs – essentially the problem that would later be called the ‘West Lothian Question’. Various options were proposed – an ‘in-and-out’ option which would have prevented Irish MPs from voting on British matters that had been devolved to Ireland – essentially a version of English Votes for English Laws. The idea of excluding Irish MPs altogether while Ireland would still remain part of the UK was proposed but the experience of ‘no taxation without representation’, which led to the American Revolution, killed that idea. The response that would find lasting favour amongst Liberals was home-rule-all-round, what is now more commonly referred to as federalism, and indeed the founders of the SHRA were supporters of this position. Liberal support for home-rule-all-round remained but was rarely given prominence and hardly developed beyond a sketchy outline.

There were, of course, many Scottish Liberals in the late 20th century who supported devolution. Scottish Liberals aligned themselves with federalism but, as with early Scottish nationalists and independence, Liberal federalism tended to be vaguely defined. They have generally been keener to make the case for Scottish home rule and treat UK-wide federalism as a longer-term objective. There have been Scottish Liberals who were probably little interested in a federal UK but were ardent Scottish home rulers. Many are best understood as devolutionists in practice who paid lip service to federalism in the knowledge that federalism was at best a distant prospect. John MacCormick, often seen as a Scottish National Party (SNP) figure, was an advocate of devolution and, after falling out with the SNP, became a Liberal home ruler. In his memoir published in 1955, MacCormick referred ambiguously to the ‘ultimate goal of a free Scotland in a Federal United Kingdom’.

There were also a number of Conservative devolutionists. Alick Buchanan-Smith, Scottish Tory MP from 1964–91, was a principled supporter who had been Shadow Scottish Secretary but resigned when his party opposed devolution in 1976. He argued in a debate in 1976 that the UK was over-centralised, there was a feeling of remoteness in Scotland and that the Commons was over-loaded. Buchanan-Smith declared that opposing devolution was a ‘betrayal of all I have stood for’. He became a Minister in Thatcher’s Government but never reached the Cabinet and declined Ministerial office after the 1987 election with the intention of becoming the voice of anti-Thatcher Conservatism in Scotland and a committed devolutionist. His death in 1991 removed the last significant Tory devolutionist voice though a number of lesser-known Tories remained supporters against fierce opposition from within their party. Malcolm Rifkind, Buchanan-Smith’s junior Shadow colleague, resigned with him in 1976 but soon fell into line on the Tories’ anti-devolution stance. Rifkind became Secretary of State for Scotland in 1986 and had a more chequered record on devolution than Buchanan-Smith.

The SNP shares some credit with Labour for the creation of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP operated on the fringe of Scottish politics until the 1960s when it experienced an influx of new members bringing new skills and energy which, along with a more favourable context, saw it break through and have continuous, if often precarious, representation in the Commons from 1967. The SNP election breakthrough forced Labour to rethink its position. The persistent threat from the SNP kept Labour committed to devolution through to the early 1980s. Thereafter, Labour’s position became embedded and committed more in principle than out of fear of the SNP. Internal tensions caused the SNP difficulty. Hardliners were wary of, or opposed to, devolution but pragmatism ultimately triumphed when Alex Salmond led his party to campaign for the creation of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1997 having previously been outmanoeuvred in his party on membership of the Constitutional Convention. He had opposed withdrawal from the Convention in 1989, when he was SNP Deputy Leader, but was defeated on the issue at that time.

Labour’s support for devolution was erratic. Keir Hardie included Scottish Home Rule on his platform when he stood as the first independent Labour candidate in the 1888 Mid Lanark by-election. It is pointless now to read too much into that support. He was not espousing Scottish statehood. Would he support devolution, devo-max, independence or whatever today? The question is meaningless. And it would be ahistorical to prise him out of his time and place him into politics today. As the Keir Hardie Society has pointed out, Hardie’s support for Scottish home rule had its roots in Irish home rule, as was the case with the Scottish Home Rule Association (SHRA) of which he was a supporter. Hardie was of his time and what he did support that has relevance today was a belief that Scotland was a distinct political community and that this should be manifested in the system of government. As Secretary of the London branch of the SHRA, Ramsay MacDonald wrote in support of Hardie in 1888, in preference to an

obscure English barrister, absolutely ignorant of Scotland and Scottish affairs, and who only wants to get to Parliament in order that he may have the tail of MP to his name in the law courts.

Hardie’s election address highlighted the number of landlords, lawyers and shipowners representing Scotland in the Commons and his main objection was the absence of the ‘working men of Scotland’. His emphasis was unambiguously on class representation when it came to ‘Scottish control of Scottish affairs’. Myths can be potent and Hardie as the progenitor of Scottish devolution is a powerful myth. But it is difficult to find references to his support for home rule beyond that first electoral contest.

The interwar years saw a group of radical Labour MPs returned to the Commons committed to a Scottish Parliament. The ‘Red Clydesiders’ were strong advocates of Scottish home rule; they saw this as the best means of pursuing a radical socialist agenda. Jimmy Maxton told a home rule rally of 35,000 on Glasgow Green that being an MP had converted him to the need for a Scottish Parliament and in 1924 he told another rally that he saw no ‘greater job in life [than to make] the English-ridden, capitalist-ridden, landlord-ridden Scotland into a Scottish socialist Commonwealth’. It was classic Maxton rhetoric. Labour’s electoral advances in 1922 and 1923 in Scotland encouraged support for home rule and Bills were presented in the Commons over the following years. These proposals were broad in scope and had no prospect of being enacted. The failure to advance the home rule cause led to disillusionment and, for some, including Cunninghame Graham, to set up the National Party of Scotland. Graham, co-founder with Keir Hardie of the Scottish Labour Party following the Mid Lanark by-election, became a founding member of the National Party of Scotland and the first President of the Scottish National Party. Graham was a romantic in his socialism (he was returned as a Liberal MP in North West Lanarkshire in 1886 and became the first MP to describe himself as a socialist in Parliament) and in his Scottish nationalism. Exactly what he supported, however, was less clear. At this stage, the campaign was very much about the principle, with details left vague.

Gordon Brown offered important insights into the early 20th-century debates in an appendix on ‘Home Rule and the Labour Movement’ to his doctoral thesis on The Labour Party and political change in Scotland, 1918–1929. His insights remain pertinent. ‘If Scottish sentiment was important in determining voting behaviour in 1929, it was Labour – not the nationalists – who could mobilise it.’ That would remain true into the 21st century. Labour had a claim to be Scotland’s national party, though not a nationalist party. Brown’s other comment on home rule was particularly relevant and will be addressed later in this book:

while Labour lost much of its initial enthusiasm for home rule and concentrated attention on economic and social questions during the twenties; the real problem for Scottish Labour was that it wanted to be Scottish and British at the same time. No theorist attempted in sufficient depth to reconcile the conflicting aspirations for home rule and a British socialist advance. In particular, no one was able to show how capturing power in Britain – and legislating for minimum levels of welfare, for example – could be combined with a policy of devolution for Scotland.

That unresolved conflict explains Labour’s abandonment of home rule in subsequent decades of the 20th century. The need to reconcile these conflicts remains an ongoing and unavoidable challenge.

The trade union movement and Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) played important roles in keeping home rule alive in the 20th century. The Scottish Trades Union Congress held a debate in 1968 at which miners’ leader Mick McGahey argued that Scotland was a nation, ‘Not a region of Britain, not a district, but a nation in its own right and entitled to demand a right to nationhood’. But there was more to his thinking than that Scotland was a nation. He believed the devolution of aspects of economic policy making would not undermine working-class solidarity. McGahey’s ashes were buried in the foundation of the Scottish Parliament. Jimmy Reid would be another long-term advocate of a Scottish Parliament who had been a leading member of the CPGB and ended up a member of the SNP. His views too were rooted in a belief that Scotland was a nation and he adopted an instrumental view that a Scottish Parliament would be better placed than Westminster to deliver the kinds of policies he supported. The CPGB favoured a federal UK from the early 1960s. The strength of the CPGB in the unions and union links with the Labour Party ensured that a home rule voice would be heard during this period when Labour officially turned its back on devolution.

John Mackintosh was one of the most consistent advocates of a Scottish Parliament. He combined a deep understanding of national identity, government and the relationship between the two. He had been Politics Professor at Strathclyde University before becoming Labour MP for Berwick and East Lothian in 1966 and would later become Politics Professor at Edinburgh University while still a serving MP. In 1968 he published The Devolution of Power, making the case for major reforms across the UK. Many of his insights remain relevant. In an essay in 1974, weeks before the SNP scored its best result in elections to the Commons until 2015, he explained the ‘new appeal of nationalism’. He noted that Scottish national identity continued to exist through the traditional carriers of nationality – the Church, educational system and local government system. He recognised too that Scots also had a ‘British dimension’ to their identity in which they had taken reasonable pride for over two centuries but that a ‘gloom hangs over the country, a sense of failure’. This declining ‘sense of self-esteem and self-confidence of the British’ was undermining Britishness but there remained a ‘residual hold’ of the ‘dual nationality’. He warned that Britishness would continue to decline ‘so long as there is no pride in being British’ and only a successful period of Government in London would halt this.

Devolutionists in the Labour Party were a diverse group. They included radical socialists and social democrats. Some supported devolution from conviction, while others supported it for reasons of electoral expediency. There was always a strong strand of Scottish national identity in Scottish Labour that transcended views on devolution. For some devolutionists, a Scottish Parliament was a means of making decision-making more accountable, more democratic. Alongside this was a view that it would permit Scotland to be bolder, more experimental in policy making. While Labour officially adopted devolution in 1974, it remained deeply divided and many who supported it then did so without enthusiasm. That began to change after 1979. The decision to hold a referendum on devolution in 1979 was a means of holding a divided party together. The inclusion of the 40 per cent rule, stipulating that the Government should move a repeal order on the legislation setting up a Scottish Assembly unless 40 per cent of the eligible electorate voted for devolution, created a major hurdle. In the event, while a slight majority of voters supported devolution (52 per cent to 48 per cent – notably the same margin that voted for Brexit across the UK in 2016) this amounted to only 32.5 per cent of the eligible electorate. This meant the issue returned to Parliament. Prime Minister Callaghan was caught between a rock and a hard place as Labour had lost its overall majority in the Commons and 38 Labour MPs signed a letter to Callaghan saying they would support repeal when a Government Minister moved such an Order in Parliament. Gregor Mackenzie, Rutherglen’s MP who had been Callaghan’s Parliamentary Private Secretary in the 1960s, told Callaghan on the morning of the referendum that he expected 39 per cent to vote for devolution but ‘certainly a 36 per cent’ vote. Callaghan acknowledged that 39 per cent would be much ‘easier to deal with’ than a 36 per cent. The 32.5 per cent proved well below expectations of supporters and what would be required to get Parliament to vote against repeal.

The SNP