Will Scots’ wishes be respected?

TWO of Labour’s failed leaders, Gordon Brown and Iain Gray, have rejoiced at Sir Keir Starmer’s plan to offer the Scottish Parliament greater powers as the best of both worlds. So did Sir Alec Douglas Home in 1979.

The former Conservative

Prime Minister’s offer never materialised. But it killed off Labour’s Devolution Bill. Scottish Labour politicians, colluding with the Tories, then buried it.

Thus, John P Mackintosh’s admirable four-year campaign, prior to his early death, came to nought. Twenty years then passed till Cannon Kenyon Wright’s Constitutional Convention won a Scottish Parliament for us in 1999.

When John triggered his devolution campaign on October 12,1974, he told me: “My major interest, in Parliament, is to revive Home Rule as Keir Hardie, the Labour leader and fellow Scot did, in his first leaflet, 1895. I want a Scottish Assembly to handle Scottish affairs.”

“What if it becomes a demand for independence?” I asked. “So be it. If that is the will of the Scottish people. And why not?” he asserted. As his close friend, who held a cord at his funeral, I know these words to be true.

In 1979, John Smith, then Labour leader and fellow

Scot, declared: “Devolution is unfinished business. Independence should be accepted if proven, by democratic process, to be the settled will of the

Scottish nation.”

Donald Dewar, First Minister, another fellow Scot, stated in 1999: “This is about more than our politics and our laws. This is about who we are. How we carry ourselves. Devolution is a process not a destination. A new stage in a journey. Devolution is a work in progress. It is not an end in itself.”

Thus, three brilliant Scottish politicians, plus the founder of the Labour Party, have all supported a referendum on independence for Scotland.

Today, with 58 per cent of voters now in favour of Scotland’s independence, the important question that must be answered by Mr Gray and Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, is this: “Do you agree with the view formerly expressed by Keir Hardie, John Smith, Donald Dewar and John Pitcairn Mackintosh that the democratic will of the people must be respected?”

Arthur Greenan, Founder, The John P Mackintosh Memorial Lecture Fund, East Linton.