Scotland's Constitutional future

'As Canon Kenyon Wright so honestly told the nation, the Convention is seeking a devolution settlement as a means of saving the union.'
Jim Sillars, in the Scotsman July 1st 1989.

Why the SNP is not in the Constitutional Convention

A Scottish Constitutional Convention was first proposed by Dr Gordon Wilson, SNP Chairman and MP for Dundee East in the early 1980s. Many people, therefore have found it difficult to understand why, in the words of the Convention itself 'The Scottish National Party, although involved in the initial preparatory work, was ultimately unable to accept the principles of consensus underlying the Convention's aims, and therefore did not join its deliberations.'

Jim Sillars explained the SNP's position as 'The SNP has three principled objections to the Convention. First, it has never been elected and thus lacks essential legitimacy. Second, that its membership does not accurately reflect Scottish opinion. Third, that it refuses to acknowledge that there are three choices before the people: the status quo, devolution, and independence in Europe, but insists on pursuing only a devolutionary settlement.

'It is a matter of public record that the SNP was willing to join if those three principled anxieties were dealt with, and we suggested how this could be done.

'We suggested that the Convention be given democratic legitimacy by the device of all parties putting a common statement into their European election manifestos seeking the endorsement of the people for the Convention; that the membership should be adjusted in line with the results of the European elections; and that at its end the options of the status quo, the Convention's devolution scheme and independence in Europe be put to the people in a referendum.

'These were sensible proposals which would have given strength to the Convention's present hollow claim to speak for Scotland; lent credence to its claim to be representative, and placed upon its final submission, through an honest multi-choice referendum, the incontestable authority of the people.

'The rejection of them, upon which Labour was most insistent, meant that the SNP could not join. We would not want to take part in an undemocratic body with out a mandate claiming to speak for Scotland. It also means that the Convention, a self-appointed group which deliberately body-swerved the electorate, lacks the democratic legitimacy which would invite belief in its 'claim of right' to speak for Scotland. Without that democratic legitimacy it has no chance of acting for Scotland.

'But acting for Scotland is not its underlying purpose. As Canon Kenyan Wright so honestly told the nation, the Convention is seeking a devolution settlement as a means of saving the union.

'Of course, not everyone gathered within its ranks is a unionist. There are people who so enjoy travelling the self-government road they do not look too carefully at their fellow passengers. Do they never ask themselves why they always travel but never arrive?

'But for all that there will be a few naive passengers, the Convention is a unionist set-up. The Labour party, which manages it and controls it, is unionist to its core. It was in order to ensure that the Convention would not deviate from its true purpose that Labour was so insistent upon rejecting the idea of an honest referendum on the choice of the union or independence in Europe. They would not risk the union in a ballot-box decision.

'By beating the Scottish drum, Labour and its allies hoped to hide the true unionist nature of the Convention. By constantly accusing the SNP of 'letting Scotland down' they hoped to coerce us into it, and absorb the threat we pose to the union.

'That we did not succumb to the pressure, and were too intelligent to be fooled in a continuing cause for anger among our opponents. They are angry because in refusing to commit ourselves to a unionist-devolution scheme, we saved our own policy of independence in Europe from being smothered. If the low level of reply to that policy, from Labour and Tory in the House of Commons debate is any guide to reality, then the unionists are worried. We on the other hand can be confident.

'Independence in Europe can be delivered to the Scottish people themselves because there is an internationally-recognised right to self determination. No devolution package can be delivered by Labour's Convention without the approval of Westminster, which in Labour eyes remains the sovereign decision-making body of the British Sate. It has a veto.

'When Labour's Convention fails to deliver, the Scots will be OK, because the SNP and its policy will be there intact as the only way out of the unionist prison.'

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