[Militant No. 446, 9th March 1979, p. 1 and 16]
By a narrow majority [51.6%], those who voted in the referendum in Scotland came out in favour of an Assembly as proposed in the government’s Scotland Act.
Although the Yes vote – 32.5% (with 37.1% abstaining) – falls short of the 40% minimum imposed by MPs who were out to block devolution, the Labour government must act decisively on this simple majority and go ahead with the setting up of an Assembly in Scotland.
The establishment of an Assembly is an important democratic reform to satisfy national aspirations of Scottish people. It would also be a step forward for the labour movement.
The spokesmen of big business will exert tremendous pressure to block an Assembly in Scotland. Their use of the 40% quota of registered voters, which they are now brandishing as a ‚constitutional safeguard‘ is completely hypocritical. If this qualification had applied to parliamentary elections, hardly a government since 1945 would have been eligible to assume office.
In Wales, it is a different question. The referendum produced an overwhelming No (79.9% of voters against). Not even the Welsh-speaking and Nationalist areas returned simple majorities in favour of an Assembly in Wales.
This result reflects a rejection by working-class voters of the poison peddled by Plaid Cymru and other middle-class nationalists. The class issues of jobs, wages, houses, and economic policies are uppermost in the minds of workers.
Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that devolution is buried once and for all, even as far as Wales is concerned. If, with the exacerbation of the crisis in British capitalism, future Labour governments fail to carry through fundamental socialist measures, it cannot at all be ruled out that there would be a resurgence of national sentiments – which would have to be recognised by the labour movement.
As far as the referendum in Scotland is concerned, the most striking feature of the result is the polarisation on class lines. By and large, the biggest Yes vote was in the Labour strongholds, notably the industrial areas like Strathclyde.
In the traditionally Tory areas, and also the areas where the SNP formerly gained support from the Tories, many who previously expressed support for an Assembly clearly voted No with the Tories.
This result was in no small measure due to the massive press and publicity campaign mounted by the bosses through the Scottish CBI and the Tory Party itself (with some freelance assistance from Labour MPs who campaigned for a No vote).
Since 1974, the Tories have cynically changed their position. Then Heath, and even for a time Mrs Thatcher, supported the idea of devolution, even promising an Assembly with more powers than those now proposed by the Labour government.
Under the Heath government. big business was only too pleased to build up the SNP to act as a safety net for disenchanted Tory voters. Through the press they even fanned the flames of nationalism – aiming to undermine the support for the Labour Party.
However, the SNP’s demands, not simply for devolution but for separation, alarmed the Tories and big business. They began to fear for their hold on Scotland with its important industries and new oil resources.
In the referendum campaign, therefore, they deliberately set out to scare the voters with the prospect of separation, painting a lurid picture of the dire economic consequences for the people of Scotland.
At the same time, recent industrial struggles against the government’s 5% pay limit have brought the social and economic issues to the fore as far as the majority of workers are concerned. Many workers who are lukewarm to the present limited Assembly plans voted Yes out of loyalty to Labour.
The class polarisation of the referendum vote is clearly a confirmation of the trend which resulted in three devastating by-election defeats for the SNP last year.
Given this development, it is a biting condemnation of Labour’s campaign that the Yes vote achieved only such a narrow margin. There can be little doubt that bitter disillusionment with the Labour government’s economic policies led to many workers simply staying at home.
Had Labour conducted a bold campaign for a Yes vote, had it demanded real powers of autonomy to make the Assembly viable and tied this to a socialist programme for a Labour-dominated Assembly, there could nevertheless have been an overwhelming Yes vote.
Because no such campaign was conducted, the very position of the Labour government is now in the balance. The SNP has threatened to bring down the government within weeks unless it rapidly produces proposals to set up the Assembly. With no clear majority in parliament, there is now the possibility of a general election being forced on this issue in the coming period.
However, if the SNP, together with the other nationalists and the Liberals, combine with the Tories to bring down the Labour government, the ensuing general election would not be fought simply on the question of a Scottish Assembly.
The Tories would seize on a parliamentary crisis, regardless of the immediate issue, as an opportunity to open an offensive against the whole labour and trade union movement in an effort to return a government carrying out anti-working class policies in the interest of big business.
In a general election Labour should fight for an Assembly in Scotland. But above all, to guarantee a Labour victory, it would have to campaign on the basis of socialist policies capable of solving the burning problems of workers throughout Britain.
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