To preserve the Union
'So, Sir, you laugh at schemes of political improvement?' 'Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.'
The Scotland Act, which comes before the judgment of the Scottish people on Thursday, is certainly laughable. Would that it were no more than that. If the Scottish Assembly is instituted it will be the most important constitutional change the United Kingdom has known since the Irish Free State came into being; more important in fact than any since the Union of 1707 which 'devolution' is designed to improve on. We pass by the contemporary referendum in Wales, not out of indifference to the Welsh but because Welsh devolution is clearly of less significance, and it seems much less than likely that the referendum will pass in Wales.
Scotland is in different case. It is there that devolution has its origins, origins which are succinctly described on another page by Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper. None of the political parties has a principled enthusiasm for devolution. The Conservatives are the party of the Union (though one might not know it from their timorous and nerveless showing in recent years). The Liberals — as far as their Policies can ever be clearly understood — favour a federal System, which devolution is not. The Scottish National Party wants separation. The Labour Party has a tradition of centralism, of opposition to fissiparous national movements. Until the last moment the Labour Party in Scotland held out against the devolution proposals, and had to be cajoled and bullied into line.
However, Labour has another tradition: it has always relied on the misnamed Celtic fringe for its parliamentary strength at Westminster. In 1964, for example, Labour won 10 fewer English seats than the Tories, yet achieved an absolute majority in Great Britain. As all the Kingdom knows, the Scotland Act is an unscrupulous attempt to Shore up that electoral advantage. It is certainly not designed to meet genuine Scottish needs or wishes. The Scottish people believe that they are badly governed. So they are; so are all the British people. The SNP has enjoyed a protest vote, has been the repository for resentment Which English voters might have expressed — if Tory supporters — by voting Liberal or — if Labour — by abstaining. Instead of going to the root of this discontent the Government has attempted to muffle it. The muffling device is a sad sign of the age. The remedy proposed for bad government is more government. It is as if a man drinking two bottles of whisky a day thought to solve his problem by drinking a third. A fourth and fifth, indeed: it may be that by the end of this year the unfortunate Scots will live under no fewer than five levels of elective administration, District, Region, Edinburgh Assembly, Westminster and European Parliament. Does anyone — does any single Scot — believe that Scotland will be better administered as a result?
Not that such a question troubles Mr Callaghan and Mr Foot. In their calculations the administration of Scotland is of small importance. Let the Scots have their plaything at the Old Royal High School. Let them send thither representatives of whatever political character they choose, to enact whatever domestic Scottish legislation they may, however foolish or pointless or even barbarous: just so long as Scotland continues to send its 71 Members to Westminster, most of them in the Labour interest. The SNP's electoral venom will have been drawn by devolution; that is devolution's essential purpose.
The cynicism of this constitutional manipulation is breathtaking, its inequity shocking. Both Scotland and Wales are over-represented at Westminster as it is. That is to say, fewer voters on average elect a member for a Welsh or a Scottish than for an English seat. If the balance were equal, Scotland would have 57 seats at Westminster instead of 71. Further than that: when devolved legislative powers have been granted to one component part of a country it has formerly been held that it should have a lesser representation at the central legislature than the other parts. Thus, because Northern Ireland had its own legislature at Stormont it returned only 12 members to Westminster as against the 17 or 18 which would have represented parity with England. On an analogy with Ulster, Scotland with its own Assembly should return no more than 42 MPs to Westminster; and even then the question might be asked whether in equity these Members should vote on matters of purely English domestic concern — and they may well hold the balance — when matters of Scottish domestic concern have been completely removed from the competence of Westminster.
This, the 'West Lothian question', has been guilelessly ignored by the Government. Perhaps it will be a temporary problem. It is reasonable to assume that if, the Assembly having come into being, the Conservatives subsequently win the general election they will activate the Boundary Commission and substantially reduce the number of Scottish seats at Westminster. When that happens it will not be for Mr Callaghan, king of the gerrymander, to complain.
Nor, though, should it be for any Tory, English or Scottish, td rejoice. The loss of the Union would be a heavy price to pay for the Labour Party's cutting its own throat. And the loss of the Union is the prospect facing us. Labour, and some bien pensant Tories, think that devolution will preserve the Union. In that case, why is the SNP supporting the Scotland Act? Why is it campaigning so hard for a 'Yes' vote? The nationalists do so because they believe that a devolved Assembly will be, as Professor Trevor-Roper puts it, a springboard to separation. They foresee everincreasing tension between Edinburgh and Westminster, tension at last reaching breaking point. Why should anyone suppose that their hopes will prove to be unfounded?
We have left unargued the essential case for the Union, because we do not believe that most British people need to be persuaded of it. The Union was a political work of genius which for more than 250 years has conferred incalculable benefits on both Scotland and England. Scotland especially benefited. She retained her distinctive institutions, above all her law and her Kirk, while enjoying all the economic advantages of a united island. Those Scots who wish for an end to those advantages, for a complete separation of their country from England, should certainly vote 'Yes'. All other Scots should weigh the consequences of their vote carefully. If they wish to preserve the Union at all there is, we believe, only one rational course: not abstention but an unmistakable and unqualified 'No' in the referendum.
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