The shock by-election victory which resulted in devolution

Published on Sunday 2 November 2008 19:53

Jim Sillars's win 20 years ago set the agenda for a major watershed in Scottish politics, writes DAVID TORRANCE

THE American political humorist PJ O'Rourke once wrote that he did not understand the British tradition of holding by-elections. Why, he wondered, didn't we just let them go by? In some countries they do – Germany for example – but in the UK, these semi-regular mid-term polls ensure that political apparatchiks and scribes do not get bored.

For a long time it looked as if Gordon Brown would have preferred the pending by-election in Glenrothes to go by. But a week is a long time in politics, particularly during a global financial crisis, and a dramatically altered context means the Fife battle is no longer make-or-break for the Prime Minister. Rather it has become an intriguing barometer of how a resurgent unionist Labour government is performing compared with Scotland's Nationalist government.

Twenty years ago next week there was another such test, only on 10 November, 1988 there was a Conservative rather than Labour government, and the Govan by-election meant little to a Thatcherite administration which saw no prospect of capturing such irretrievably socialist territory. For Labour and the SNP on the other hand, the outcome was to have a lingering legacy.

When the aggressively articulate Jim Sillars won Govan with a swing of more than 20 per cent it was a wake-up call for a Labour Party prevaricating over devolution and pursuing the "no mandate" argument against Thatcher's government. As a Nationalist, Sillars had no problem arguing just that, while his victory usefully reduced the "feeble 50" Scottish Labour MPs to the "frightened 49".

It has often been written that Labour only signed up to the Scottish Constitutional Convention – the cross-party body which eventually agreed the blueprint for a devolved Scottish Parliament – following its defeat in Govan. In fact Donald Dewar, the shadow Scottish secretary, had become convinced of the need to participate two months before. In a speech at Stirling University he warned that "Scots are going to have to learn to live dangerously for a while".

Living dangerously by voting SNP was obviously not what Dewar had in mind, but the result in Govan did push Labour into unequivocal support for the Convention. Many in the party remained unconvinced but succumbed to political reality. Labour leader Neil Kinnock had compared devolution with environmental conditions in the Himalayas: you knew they occurred, but it didn't mean they were a pressing concern.

Pledging to join the Convention gave Labour breathing space. And when it became clear it would dominate proceedings because of the Convention's structure, the prospect emerged of steering the SNP into a strategic cul-de-sac. The cost of Labour involvement, therefore, was SNP participation and the Nationalists – spotting the cul-de-sac – strategically withdrew.

The formal SNP line was that the Scottish Constitutional Convention had refused to consider full independence for Scotland. But then the Convention – which met for the first time on 30 March, 1989 – was as anti-Scottish Nationalist in its political objectives as it was anti-Thatcherite. As Richard Finlay has written, "Home rule climbed up the political agenda as much on account of its expedient value as on its own merits".

But in the immediate aftermath of the Govan result it seemed a cross-party movement would not be necessary to fulfil the SNP's "big idea". The party dominated opinion polling for the next four months and in January 1989 stood at 32 per cent according to System 3, its best performance since 1977, just four points behind Labour.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, hardened their already stringent anti-devolution position. Malcolm Rifkind, the Scottish secretary, argued that Labour had been punished for its "flirtation with nationalist rhetoric". Right-wing Scottish Tories went further. Allan Stewart reasoned that independence made more sense than devolution and wondered if it was time for Scots to make up their minds once and for all in a referendum.

Michael Forsyth said the "logjam of Scottish politics" had been broken by the SNP's victory. Indeed, ever since the 1987 general election – which left just ten Tory MPs in Scotland – pent-up frustration at Labour's inability to deliver had accompanied growing opposition to the introduction of the poll tax. The Govan by-election conveniently allowed Scottish politics to let off steam.

It also gave the seal of approval to the SNP's new policy (or slogan) "Independence in Europe", the brainchild of its victorious candidate, Jim Sillars. Curiously it acknowledged, in an internationalist context, the constraints of the SNP's independence pledge. But 20 years later the party is constrained by a somewhat bleaker international context which makes even independence in Europe look quixotic.

The aftermath of Govan also served to remind the SNP that its support was volatile. By the time Sillars' protg Alex Neil fought the Glasgow Central by-election in June 1989, the party's post-Govan momentum had collapsed. And at the general election that followed in 1992 Neil's clever slogan "Free by '93" sounded (despite an increased vote share) as hollow as "'Independence in Europe".

Nevertheless, the Govan by-election marked the end of a torrid period for the SNP. After the internecine strife of the early 1980s, and the uncertainty in political direction that followed the 1983 election, it finally had a coherent message and electoral appeal, albeit only in one mid-term poll. The result, however, also decided the long-term direction of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The most significant destination was the Scottish Constitutional Convention through which the two parties agreed the system and structure which arguably enabled the SNP to form a minority administration in 2007.

Thursday's Glenrothes poll will not have such a profound influence, but the fact that the Nationalists even stand a chance of winning owes a lot to what happened in Govan almost 20 years ago.