Govan win made me feel like a traitor but it paved the way for our own parliament
His Govan by-election victory is credited with reinventing the SNP as the formidable force it remains today.
But Jim Sillars has revealed the win leaves him emotionally conflicted to this day and is not something he has ever felt compelled to celebrate.
The 81-year- old, who achieved an astonishing 33 per cent swing of the vote, said: “I can’t claim to have been excited at all, or to have viewed it as a great moment of jubilation.
“I knew there was a job to do, I knew it needed to be done, and I did it to the best of my ability. It was as simple as that.
“I had been through a great deal emotionally after I left the Labour Party.
“I have always been conflicted. It is always going to be a problem when you have been brought up in a movement and you then leave it as I did.
“It remains a residual part of your life and so in Govan I just tried to remain balanced and objective.
“I have always been regarded as a traitor, but I have just had to wear that over the years.”
While he is not keen to gloat, he is clear about the importance of the victory to the SNP.He said: “The Govan result ended years in which the SNP was utterly despised by most of the Scottish population, who blamed it for allowing Thatcher’s government to get in. “Between 1979
and 1988, life for members of the SNP was most unpleasant on the doorstep. You were told in no uncertain fashion to F- off. Simple as that.
“The poll tax helped in that the SNP was seen to be active, alive and on the side of the people. The Govan by-election result seemed to cure that deep animosity towards the SNP.
“It closed that chapter and opened a new one in which the SNP was seen in an entirely different light.”
Sillars views the other big impact of the Govan upset as its effect on Labour.
He said: “The panic button was hit in the Labour Party and that led to an acceleration of the idea of devolution.
“They saw that they had to do something otherwise there would be an SNP wave that might overtake them completely.
“In my view, Govan inevitably led to the creation of the Scottish Parliament once there was a Labour government in power. I don’t know if Labour has ever genuinely believed in devolution but they tried to use it as a means of blocking the SNP’s road to independence.”
While Sillars credits his own campaign team with bringing about the victory, he admits that the result would have been closer had his rival not been let down by his own party.
He said: “Bob Gillespie was put in a cage by Labour HQ in London. He could not be Bob Gillespie. He had to act as a clone for what Labour HQ thought was the ideal candidate.
“That made it a lot easier for me to win
on the day, to win people over on the poll tax and, through that, make the case for Scottish Independence to a much more receptive audience.
“I think the result would still have been an SNP victory if Bob could have been himself, but it would have been a lot closer than it was.
“He was a decent man, the problem he had was that he was trapped in dogma.” Sillars believes his own status as a left-wing SNP candidate helped win Govan and convince the country the party had changed. He added: “ThefactThefact I had been a socialist all my days, but was an up- to- date socialist, most certainly helped.
“The old argument the SNP were tartan Tories just didn’t work after Govan. But we also had a fantastic grass roots movement – the enthusiasm was there and the belief was there and the energy and dynamism was all wrapped up in it.”
The veteran politician, whose late wife Margo MacDonald also won a Govan by-by election in 1973 – admitted Labour made a tactical error in holding the election too quickly. He said: “Labour made a bad mistake. Because they were under pressure on the poll tax, they didn’t leave the usual three months before the by-election. “They had it almost right away with a very short campaign and that played right into our hands because it allowed us to go hell for leather without any let-up for three weeks. “Labour was totally swept aside by the energy that the SNP poured in to that campaign – we were sprinting from the beginning.” With a laugh, he added: “I would say it was a seminal moment in Scottish politics. Historically, it was very important – but then I would say that wouldn’t two I.” Of theth SNP’s future, Sillars is not so enthusiastic. He said: “I have been a dissident for a long time now because I think the party has degenerated into managerialism. “At the moment, there is a grave lack ofo imagination and ability to be different. “But that is just my view and it is definitely a minority view within the party. “The SNP certainly has a reputation for discipline that outranks anything that New Labour ever achieved... and I don’t think that is a virtue.”
The problem was Bob was a decent man trapped by dogma