It has been a long road; often a rocky one.
The more chronologically gifted foot soldiers for devolution have less than fond memories of that first referendum in ’79. Voters whispered Yes to what seems now a pretty shilpit Scottish Assembly. By, as it happens, almost the same winning margin as the Leave vote managed in 2016.
But instead of this being hailed as the sacred will of the people, it was quickly sabotaged by an amendment passed by the London based Scottish MP George Cunningham. It said 40 per cent of the entire electorate had to have said yes. At a stroke, non voters were deemed No voters.
Eighteen long years passed before the next poll in 1997. And this time a different sort of spanner was inserted in the works. Tony Blair, never exactly Mr Devolution, decreed there would be two questions asked this time. Did the Scots want a parliament. And did they want it to have tax varying powers.
Donald Dewar, then Secretary of State for Scotland, was more concerned about the possible impact of the tax question than he ever publicly admitted. In the event, on a 60 per cent turnout almost three quarters voted for a parliament, and almost two thirds for the tax powers. At the count, Dewar’s relief was visible.
Even then battle had to be joined in Whitehall with London civil servants not in the market for readily devolving any substantial powers. The solution painstakingly devised by Dewar and his team was deceptively simple.
The 1998 Scotland Act, instead of reciting the parliamentary powers to be granted to Holyrood, merely listed anything which was to remain reserved. Everything else would be deemed devolved.
Perhaps the most satisfying moment in Dewar’s time at the Commons dispatch box was when he read out the first lines of that document: “There shall be a Scottish parliament”. “I like that” he added with a grin. These lines were reprised on the Holyrood Mace, the Queen’s gift to the new legislature.
The belt and braces was intended to be the so called Sewel Convention which decreed that Westminster couldn’t legislate on any devolved matter without the consent of the Scottish parliament.
Which is why, when the current UK government suggested post Brexit powers previously devolved would be “repatriated” to London rather than Edinburgh, so many Scottish ministers and MSP’s were spitting tacks.
The state opening of the parliament on that implausibly sunny July day twenty years ago, was for Dewar, and many Scots of his and other parties, the culmination of years of backstage struggles and not a little wrangling. (Among less edifying moments had been the Scottish Executive of the Labour Party being reminded by its London office that it actually favoured devolution.)
But it had never left the personal agendas of either Dewar or John Smith, both heavily involved in the 80’s with the Claim of Right and the Scottish Constitutional Convention. This weekend hosts two anniversaries – 20 years of the first Scottish parliament in 300 years, and, incredibly, 25 years since Smith’s unexpected and untimely death two years into his leadership.
Smith had famously described devolution as “unfinished business” whilst Dewar’s speech on that opening morning celebrated an event which was “not an end in itself but a means to greater ends.”
Those greater ends will mean different things to different people. But not in dispute is the fact that the parliament with all its mis-steps is firmly embedded in the political fabric of Scotland; still popular with the vast majority of the electorate.
Everyone who was present at that opening ceremony in May 1999 was aware of its historical significance, not least the redoubtable Winnie Ewing, Madame Ecosse, with her killer line about the adjourned parliament of 1707 being “hereby reconvened.”
It was an occasion devoid of the flummery of its Westminster counterpart, save for what one commentator wittily described as the “playing cards” – the tabard sporting Lord Lyon and his two colleagues.
Her Maj was in purple and green - echoes of the thistle colours, and the shiny new MSP’s had white heather button holes with ribbons of Flower of Scotland tartan.
It was an enormously emotional day, not least when Sheena Wellington, in her electric blue suit, sang the Burns anthem which you fervently hoped would be emblematic of what followed. The incongruity of “the rank is but the guinea stamp, the man’s the gowd for a’ that” being sweetly sung to a Queen, a couple of Dukes and a Prince of the realm was not lost on many of her audience.
That night in Edinburgh Scotland partied as if it had finally won the world cup. For some, it felt as if they had. In truth it had won something rather more durable, more remarkable. It is given to very few nations to set up a new parliament. But, on that memorable summer day Scotland did.
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