The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Not forgotten:
A look at Donald Dewar’s legacy, 20 years on from his untimely death.
When the Scottish Parliament reconvened on July 1 1999 almost 300 years after it was abolished as part of the Union with England, the words of Scotland ’s first First Minister Donald Dewar went down in history.
He said: “‘There shall be a Scottish Parliament.’ Through long years, those words were first a hope, then a belief, then a promise. Now they are a reality.”
As Secretary of State for Scotland in Tony Blair’s Labour government at Westminster, the Glasgow Anniesland MP fulfilled his late friend John Smith’s pre-1997 general election promise of devolution – pushing through the legislation, leading the first cohort of MSPs, and also over seeing the commissioning of the Holyrood building that exists today.
However, the Scottish Parliament was plunged into mourning on October 11 2000, when Mr Dewar, a much respected politician described as the “father of devolution”, died suddenly aged 63.
The former solicitor had suffered bleeding on the brain following a fall. His death was marked by warm tributes from around Scotland and the world.
Former Fife Labour parliamentarian Henry McLeish, who worked with Mr Dewar as a minister in both the UK and Scottish governments and succeeded him as first minister, said the untimely death shocked and saddened everyone in Scotland.
Reflecting on the 20th anniversary of his death, however, Mr McLeish said Donald Dewar’s “glowing” legacy lives on through devolution itself and the Scottish Parliament we have today.
Taking on the “enormous responsibility” of delivering on the Scottish constitutional question that had “ebbed and flowed” since 1707, Mr McL eish described Mr Dewar as being “sharp, intelligent, with a lot of political skill – a hard worker who was very tuned in to the intellectual and political soul of Scotland”.
Crucially, however, despite being a “great unionist” who had “no truck with nationalism”, Mr De warsaw the establishment of the Scottish Parliament as a “journey not a destination” – a view Mr McLeish says many in Labour failed to understand.
“In his speech at the opening of the parliament, it was obvious this wasn’t the end of the story,” said Mr McLeish.
“The genie was out of the bottle and it wouldn’t be going back in. I think it was at that point Donald Dewar made a very instructive point about the future.
“For a lot of his colleagues, it was hoped that devolution would end the success of the SNP and, after the parliament was set up, we could move on at Westminster. But I had an inkling – and I know he certainly did – that that was not what was going to happen. A door had been opened and we had no idea who or what would be going through that in the years that lay ahead.”
The priority of the early Scottish Parliament was to show that it worked.
“Remarkable achievements”, such as free personal care, a ban on smoking in public places, free tuition fees and minimum alcohol pricing, showed that it did.
The aim of devolution was for Scots to “be more engaged”. However, Mr McLeish said the problems the Labour Party have experienced in today’ s S NP dominated Scottish political landscape are largely down to “failing to gain traction in the post-devolution period”.
Mr McLe ish , who succeeded Donald Dewar as first minister before standing down after a year amid the “Office- gate” scandal, said it is impossible to know what difference Mr Dewar might have made to politics had he lived longer.
Mr McLeish is certain, however, he would have “got the message out there” that the Labour Party in Scotland had to change.
“We had to see a different vision,” he said. “We had to see Scotland as Scotland. We needed to be more Scottish than we had been before. But Labour didn’t do that. They failed to take the SNP seriously.”
Former Scottish Parliament presiding officer Tricia Marwick may not have shared the same politics as Donald Dewar.
However, the former Fife SNP MSP speaks highly of a man who took a keen in teres t in w ider parliamentary business.
Mrs Marwick was very active campaigning about MS in Scotland around the time of his death.
She recalls having a members’ debate when normally there are very few people in the Chamber.
However, at the start of the debate Donald Dewar came into the Chamber and just sat there, listening.
It was very unusual then and now for a first minister to do that.
“That was the last time he was in the Chamber,” recalled Mrs Marwick, who was elected as an SNP MSP in the first Holyrood poll in 1999, and became the first female presiding officer from 2011-2016.
“The whole body politic in Scotland was in a state of shock.
“I was the SNP business manager at the time and an emergency meeting of the parliament bureau was f ixed to reca l l the parliament for a debate on a motion of condolence.
“The Labour minister for parliamentary business, the late Tom McCabe, was almost inconsolable.
“I had previously asked him to tell me what arrangements the Labour Party wanted and I would ensure that was what happened.
“At the bureau meeting there was some different v i ew s abou t th e arrangements but between us we made sure the recall and the arrangements for the day were exactly as the Labour Party wanted.”