Devolving through panic and despair

Neil Kinnock Next year Britain--at least the Britain of a million and a half unemployed, a massive balance of payments deficit and public borrowing requirement, an investment starvation and public expenditure cuts, wage controls and the endless reverberations of inflation and depression—will have half a Parliament. There has been no mass retirement or redundancy and sadly the thirty-five-hour week has not been introduced at Westminster. On the contrary, the Commons will probably break all sitting records. For thirty days and nights, With almost biblical disregard for other matters, Parliament will consider devolution. It is an extraordinary prospect and it may be difficult to convince the British body politic that it is a productive use of Parliament at such a time. But there, the history of devolution's rise to its present Obsessional importance is extraordinary too.

For years theories of regional government eddied around university seminars and gathered library dust, emerging occasionally when administrative reform was discussed or when latter-day Home Rulers sought models for their parliaments-inthin-air.

And then, in 1966, 1967 and 1968 the Labour Government was maulcd at byelections in Carmarthen, Rhondda West, Caerphilly and Hamilton. Labour voters wishing to register their resentment at pit Closures, regional unemployment, price mflation and wage controls and their irritation at local council bumblings had an opportunity of frightening the Government without committing the unforgivable Sin of voting Tory that was too good to Miss. The nationalist parties shot to 13sePhological importance and the Wilson administration chose to avoid the selfadmonishing realities behind the desertion. They attributed the disasters to an extraordinary antipathy to centralised government and a burgeoning. Celtic desire for self-government. Of course it was rubbish and everyone—certainly those who knocked doors in those by-elections—knew it. 8.ot still the Commission on the Constitution under Lord Crowther was appointed, Probably in the hope that, in the custom of Royal Commissions, the whole issue could be painlessly put to sleep. In 1970 Carmarthen and Hamilton returned to Labour, the majorities in Rhondda and Caerphilly zoomed back to tl'e figures, the Nationalist parties fought a record number of seats and lost a record number of deposits. Devolution receded beneath a wave of Other Political controversies. That was the

year, too, in which the annual conference of the Labour Party in Scotland overwhelmingly defeated devolution proposals.

Then came oil and the CrowtherKilbrandon Report. Without the former the latter would, like other such tomes, have become parliamentary cud. Without the latter the former would still have inspired new interest and support for Scottish nationalism, but the battle for proprietorship would have been an exchange of policies without any consideration of the constitutional plumbing with which the Government now hopes to halt and reverse the Nationalist tide. But coming together, the oil gave substance to claims of Scottish economic self-sufficiency and the report legitimised the idea of a Scottish state. That was not the intention, of course, but history is made of such mistakes.

In Britain's first real multi-party general elections of 1974 Scottish and Welsh protests motivated, as ever, by economic and social blight, brought tactical voting which sent a platoon of Nationalists to Westminster.

The devolutionary counter-promises of Tory and Labour manifestoes appear to have been no defence against the Nationalist onslaught. That feature of contests between the Nats and the major parties has not changed. In the two years since then the advancing prospect, of devolution presented with all of the earnest intent of a minority government (and in politics no intent can be more earnest) has not stopped the SNP and Plaid Cymru from gaining major local government election victories. Devofanatics choose to believe that the continued unwillingness of Welsh and Scots to accept the repeated good devolutionary intentions of the Government is proof of uncontrollable impatience for those Cardiff and Edinburgh assemblies. Others who might be expected to know a little of such matters—like party canvassers --have the uneasy feeling that few voters really give a damn for devolution and are simply scourging a national Government which presides over record unemployment, wage controls, price rises and community cuts, local government dazed by the 1974 reforms and consequent prodigality and an opposition which in Scotland and Wales is not distinguishable as an alternative.

Which brings devolution to the present and, for the first time, to the annual conference of the Labour Party.

The conference will unquestionably endorse the Government's proposals for devolution to Scotland and Wales and its flaccid undertaking to 'discuss' the matter in England. The massive trade union vote, the Scottish constituency parties, a few Welsh delegates and some English representatives will combine to give a multimillion vote majority to the Government.

But none of that will sway a vote. The understandable desire not to embarrass the Government on the eve of introducing this major Bill will play a part—loyalty is fastsetting cement at party conferences. But more important, much more important, the fear that the SNP will rout Labour in Scotland (and that means Britain) unless and until devolution is an accomplished fact will be the main imperative that carries the day.

No politician should despise such a conclusion. It is, after all, expected and excusable in politics to adopt that course of action which is most likely to offer a means of gaining or retaining power. No amount of criticism of 'opportunism' from the nonpartisan will change that fact of life. But will the devolutionary commitment by Labour (or, come to that, the Conservatives) really achieve the desired end of trumping the Nats and fortifying the vote in Scotland? Even acknowledging the difficulties of Scots trapped by the current of public feeling, can devolution really rebuff populist nationalism ? And even if devolution did manage to sooth the Celts back into more traditional electoral allegiances, what would be the effect in England ?

The fact is, of course, that devolution is at very best a vote-freezer in Scotland. Few in either of the major parties, including enthusiastic devolutionists, would claim that the opening of the Assemblies is actually going to regain votes lost to the Nationalists. There is absolutely no reason why those who have already voted Nationalist for nationalist reasons should return to the other parties at the very point of devolutionary breakthrough. Others whose votes were a protest against decay, depopulation and depression will only change when those agonies are overcome.

In Wales where support for devolution is much less pronounced than in Scotland— indeed it is a minority interest—the creation of a £15 million Assembly in Cardiff could actually lose votes for the Labour Party. It isn't that the Welsh are submissive or lacking in national pride—all evidence is to the contrary—although to be sure we haven't got oil. The Welsh attitude arises from a knowledge of the way in which public expenditure bread is buttered, and they have no enthusiasm for jeopardising that necessary and unapologetic relationship with England for the sake of getting yet another tier of bureaucracy, on top of the varieties already with us, and the bills that go with it.

In England the reaction to devolution for Scotland and Wales is difficult to forecast Two possibilities exist : Regions suffering exactly the same profound economic and social problems for exactly the same reasons as Scotland and Wales are reported to be fearful of 'the extra political clout' (to use the awful Kilbrandonesque jargon) awarded to the Assemblies. They might, as a consequence, seek a similar constitutional status for regional moots. If they do, and if their search is rewarded. Britain is then on the way to a federal constitution by slip, slide and default.

The other main possibility is that it will soon become apparent that the extra power and influence of the Assemblies were something of a pipe dream. Devolution is, by definition, a condescension of power. Both the distribution of public expenditure in Britain and the block grant procedures proposed by the Government will ensure that the purse strings stay in Whitehall and the allocations to Scotland and Wales become a matter of easily identifiable sums and well publicised annual dcbate at Westminster. That is what the 'diversity within unity' that we hear so much of from ministers surely means. It might ostensibly be an advance for public scrutiny of expenditure and an assurance of harmonious negotiation of cash allotments. But political clout? London government will be hyper-sensitive to charges (from Durham and Liverpool, Norwich and Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and, not least, London) of favouritism or appeasement in the disbursement of funds and state employment in steel, shipbuilding and the other public corporations as well as administration and civil service dispersal. The clouters may so easily be clouted. In place of the understanding exercised by English representatives and English voters of the particular needs of Scotland and Wales a new acquisitiveness and new calculations of relative contributions and rebates of money and power will be made.

Borders in men's minds are much more important than borders on maps. Devolution will produce such borders and, irony of ironies, they will be produced in the name of preserving the unity of the United Kingdom. Defence of regional interests, a reasonable and not a malevolent duty of local government and parliamentary representatives, will formalise differences in a way that even the most seductive arguments and campaigns of nationalists could not. In Parliament English MPs will wonder —with considerable justification—whether Scottish and Welsh members should conti nue to determine English affairs when financial, administrative and legislative decisions are conceived and finalised in the Assemblies. Labour members used to treat eleven Tories from Ulster with jocular derision. Will the same bonhomie be ex tended to scores of Scottish and Welsh MPs who make the difference between victory and defeat in important House of Commons divisions?

Government changes were conceived in panic and born of appeasement. They are a constitutional response to economic and social anger and are as relevant to the real needs of Wales and Scotland as a fur coat to an empty belly. To listen to that small number of devolutionists with longproven enthusiasm for the change one could be excused for thinking that Smith Square working patties got down to compiling recommendations while the ink dried on the Act of Union. But to a very large number of the people who will have to live with devolution in Scotland. Wales and England the Government's proposals are at least baffling, at worst outrageous.

The issue may have been hotly debated and canvassed in Scotland: in Wales it played no significant part at all in the last general election and it is only now catching widespread public attention. Apart from a manifesto paragraph the people of England have no close acquaintance with the major changes at all. In a matter of such transcending importance, worthy of half a Parliament, the Government has no more of a public mandate for pursuing its devoludon proposals than did Edward Heath in pursuing and gaining British membership of the Common Market. Even worse, devolution has not had one hundredth part of the public consideration given to EEC membership since the late 1950s.

Whatever the shortcomings of plebiscatory politics—and there are many— there is only one method of accurately measuring the public will and adequately educating the public mind on an issue of major and irreversible constitutional change and that is by asking them the direct question. In some circumstances the need for such judgments is met by general election. There is no prospect of or necessity for a general election on devolution and the Government must, therefore, make provision for a referendum. In order to permit the expression of a maximum number of opinions on devolution two questions should be asked in Scotland. Wales and England separately and simultaneously: (a) Do you agree with the devolution proposals of HM Government YES/ NO.

(b) Do you believe that independence from the rest of Britain should be granted to Scotland/Wales/England (whichever is appropriate) YES/NO. That provides an opportunity for those who want neither devolution nor separa tion to vote No, No; for those who want devolution but not separation to vote Yes, No; for those who want separation but not devolution to vote No, Yes and even for that calculating handful who want devolution leading to separation to vote Yes, Yes. It is necessary to ask the second question in order to avoid the conclusion that anti-devolutionists and separatists would combine to defeat devolution. It is a nicety, albeit a necessary one, since if more than fifty per cent of the population opposed devolution for whatever reason it could hardly have the public confidence and support which such profound changes in the system of government should enjoy. But nicety is a small price to pay for greater accuracy and willingness to accept the final majority result in each country.

Referenda, it is commonly held, are only advocated by those who think they can win and undertaken by governments who know they can win. That may be so, but if the Government has not the confi dence to believe that it can carry a referen dum on devolution it should not have the gall to impose such a constitutional settle ment without public support. In any case, if the Government does not ensure public understanding of its proposals and provide the electorate with a vote we shall all be losers in the confusion, rivalry and resentment that will follow. Only Nationalists can profit from such confusion while the Government which set out to give 'renewed vigour and strength' to our democracy simply demonstrates its ignorance of real needs and its remoteness from public feeling.

Democracies must change to survive— only totalitarian states can stagnate and live. But in making changes democratic governments must carry the people with them and people and governments must give and accept proof of the people's will. Devolution does not yet carry the people and the Government has not yet sought the people's will. They must.