Analysis: A chance to learn some very valuable lessons from our past mistakes

By DENNIS CANAVAN
Published on Saturday 11 February 2012 01:00

THIS excellent exhibition is a valuable record of a very important period in Scotland’s political history.

I was very much involved in the Referendum campaigns of 1979 and 1997, and the exhibition brought back many memories, both good and bad.

It is worth re-calling that, after the disappointing result of the 1979 Referendum, many politicians, including Labour politicians, wanted to ditch completely the party’s commitment to a Scottish Parliament, but the all-party Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, later re-named the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, kept the flag flying during these difficult years.

That led to the setting-up of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, which played a major part in developing and delivering the plans for the Scottish Parliament which eventually became a reality, but we had to wait 20 years after the bitter disappointment of 1979.

The 1997 Referendum meant that the Scottish Parliament was created by the people of Scotland. The Scottish Parliament is, therefore, the property of the people and not the property of any one group of politicians.

I hope that the exhibition will also stimulate thought and help to inform the current debate on Scotland’s future, especially with another referendum coming up in 2014.

Lessons can certainly be learned from past mistakes. For example, it is interesting to see some of the scaremongering propaganda leaflets issued by the “ No” campaigners, especially in 1979.

They were obviously designed to terrify voters into voting “No” on the spurious grounds that a Scottish Parliament would be too expensive and would lead to intolerable tax burdens on the people of Scotland.

We were told that a Scottish Parliament would be a recipe for unmitigated disaster. Such negative campaigning worked to some extent in 1979 but failed miserably in 1997 because the people of Scotland were then able to see through such negative scare-mongering tactics and they voted overwhelmingly for a positive vision of a better, more democratic Scotland.

• Dennis Canavan, former Labour MP and Independent MSP

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12

The West Awake

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 03:48 PM

1 Many thanks, explains a lot of course. Labour and principle are unhappy bedfellows.

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Dr. James Wilkie

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 01:33 PM

#10: The answer is Yes. Every scrap to do with the Strasbourg action that led to the restoration of the Scottish Parliament and Government has been suppressed and withheld from public scrutiny. There might be a chance of getting hold of the CoE assessment in view of the promise by the Foreign Office in 1999 that it would be released, but it would not provide the complete background to devolution. Even more relevant would be the papers of the Foreign Office and Cabinet Office dealing with the Strasbourg action from September 1993 onwards. ………………………………………………………………………… John Major's Conservative Government deliberately dragged its feet on the issue, and was no doubt thankful that this hot potato finally landed on the lap of Tony Blair, who had done his best to kill it from October 1993 onwards, even before being elected in 1997. He, with Alastair Campbell and others, were none too scrupulous about the methods they used, but in the end they had no option but to whittle the now unavoidable devolution down to the minimum they could get off with and keep it under London control by a number of means, with Donald Dewar as their hatchet man. This latter aspect is a study in itself, but it would take up an inordinate amount of space here, to my regret.

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The West Awake

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 01:10 PM

Dr Wilkie "The English Attorney General's recent refusal to allow the relevant documents to be released" Are you saying that the documents which the English Attorney General is withholding includes the 1996 report on the UK by the CoE Committee of Ministers? Do you foresee this document being made available through other means (leaks etc)? Has the UK Govt. the right to withhold this documents forever? I am assuming there must also be further relevent communications, such as UK Govt responses to the 1996 report etc. Are those also included and being withheld? The release of such documents could well have the effect of swinging the referendum, what efforts are being directed to obtain their release?

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Dr. James Wilkie

Sunday, February 12, 2012 at 01:37 AM

You can read about it in the Scotland-UN Committee papers at www.realmofscotland.com

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Anagach

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:12 PM

7 Dr. James Wilkie ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for that, its an area of which I was unaware.

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Dr. James Wilkie

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 10:29 PM

Dennis Canavan was indeed deeply involved in the recall of the Scottish Parliament. He played a key role in the work of the Scotland-UN Committee's international diplomatic activities by putting parliamentary questions at Westminster over a period of more than 10 years. We are still awaiting honest answers to some of them. ……………………………………………………………………………………. It should not be forgotten that the implementation of devolution to Scotland and Wales was a diplomatic and not a political move. By 1993 it had moved into the international arena, when the Council of Europe took it in hand as part of its programme of monitoring the democratic systems of all the European states in the light of the international rules of pluralist democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights. The 1996 report on the UK by the CoE Committee of Ministers had to be on the same basis as those covering the reforming states of Eastern Europe after the breakup of the Communist system. ………………………………………………………………………………… The CoE review of the UK's local and regional democratic systems was damning. The ultimate humiliation was that it bracketed the UK with Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Moldova and Ukraine as six states that were having "major problems in meeting standards of democracy." ………………………………………………………………………………. Having issued a statement that failure to comply with the international standards of pluralist democracy would be "inconsistent with membership of the Council", in March 1997 - pointedly just a few weeks before the election that brought Tony Blair's government to power - the CoE issued another statement, this time listing an escalating series of sanctions that would be applied to any state that did not "fully and swiftly comply with the basic democratic principles that are at the heart of the European Ideal." The message could not have been clearer, and there was no alternative but to comply.………………………………………………………………………………… On 18 January 1999 Dennis Canavan put a parliamentary question to Foreign Minister Robin Cook to ascertain when the Council of Europe's report on the UK's democratic system was going to be published. The reply was given Tony Lloyd: "The conclusions of the Committee of Ministers will be made public when available." ………………………………………………………………………………... Thirteen years after these conclusions became available, we are still awaiting their publication, doubtless for good and sufficient reason in the light of the present constitutional discussions. The English Attorney General's recent refusal to allow the relevant documents to be released under the Freedom of Information legislation now probably means that the Labour Party will continue to parrot their slogan of "We gave you devolution", despite having tried to kill it by any and every foul tactic in their book, until they were finally forced to implement it, kicking and screaming, with the international authorities looking over their shoulders.

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gratislobotommy

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:59 PM

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Alexander D Lindsay

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 02:53 PM

Dennis Canavan says: "The 1997 Referendum meant that the Scottish Parliament was created by the people of Scotland. The Scottish Parliament is, therefore, the property of the people and not the property of any one group of politicians." That is a striking statement. It is contrary to the recent view taken by Jim Wallace that the Scottish Parliament is entirely the property of Westminster in the question of the referendum. Wallace's view was also recently contradicted by several legal experts in the UK Constitutional law group.

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The West Awake

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 11:34 AM

2 - While I agree the MSM is undoubtedly biased against independence, with not one paper supporting for instance, I cant say I find the Herald too bad. Their editorial line is interestingly not "We oppose independence", but rather "we remain to be convinced". The BBC is indeed biased, sometimes subtly, sometime overtly, but I have to say I find Brian Taylor makes a good try at objectivity, all the more creditworthy considering who pays his salary!

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housty45

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 08:06 AM

If we fail to learn the mistakes from the past we will continue to make them.

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SlyFifer

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 07:58 AM

The simple reason negative campaigning won't work this time round is that in 1979 there was no internet and no on-line news outlets as there are now. With the utterly awful MSM and the totally dreadful BBC Scotland, I simply read and look at these for a laugh. I go to on-line sources for better balance and I find it there. Rampant unionism and embittered negativity is easily understood and ignored, reflected in the accelerating decline in circulation figures for the Scotsman and the Herald. How much lower can their sales go before they reach bankruptcy ?. Will they be around much longer ?. Will we miss their constant talking down of Scotland and their utter disrespect for the duly elected majority administration that is the SNP ?. The dead tree media will be soon like the resource they use to print their bile - dead !.

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Kinghob

Saturday, February 11, 2012 at 06:26 AM

"Such negative campaigning worked to some extent in 1979 but failed miserably in 1997 because the people of Scotland were then able to see through such negative scare-mongering tactics and they voted overwhelmingly for a positive vision of a better, more democratic Scotland."-----------------------------------------------Well said Mr Dennis Canavan-I was only 15 in '79 and was flabbergasted by the labour clause that counted those who didn't bother to even vote as a 'no'.........

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