Ayr by-election 2000

'Well now, Cecil Parkinson, you're the chairman of a fertiliser firm. How deep is the mess you're in at present?' Jeremy Paxton on BBC television, 1 st May 1997.

By-election call for abolition of Scots Parliament

By Robbie Dinwoodie in the Herald

Although the party's more familiar aim of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union remains its key policy plank, for the Ayr campaign candidate Alistair McConnachie will be stressing another of its policies, the scrapping of the new bodies in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, and the restoration of Westminster as the UK's sole legislature.

Last May, Phil Gallie failed by just 25 votes to recapture the seat in the Scottish Parliament he had lost to Labour at the General Election two years previously. Now a strong anti-devolution intervention by the UKIP could damage their chances of recapturing it this time round, following the resignation of Ian Welsh as Labour MSP.

Mr McConnachie said: "We think there are enough Tories out there who would vote for the abolition of the Scottish Parliament that we are going to have to beat them away with a stick. The Conservatives cannot make this argument any more. They are signed up supporters of the new dispensation. People from other parties will be sympathetic too."

He said his party wanted to "go back to having one Parliament for one island," instead of having in Edinburgh "an expensive talking shop which is serving only to destabilise the Union."

Such an intervention could be as damaging for the Tories as the Scottish Socialist Party's on Labour in such a tight contest. Labour has been damaged by the manner of Mr Welsh's abrupt departure, while Phil Gallie's decision not to resign his list seat and fight his former constituency hardly looked like a vote of confidence. The result could be a three-way tussle with the SNP.

However, Scottish Conservative leader David McLetchie said last night: "We are confident that Conservatives recognise the validity of the democratic vote and it was clear that the overwhelming number of Scots supported devolution."

3 rd February 2000