Parliament, the parties and the Scottish question, 1974-1979
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Date
18/01/2023Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
18/01/2028Author
Johnston, Robbie
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Abstract
This thesis investigates the rise and fall of the Scottish assembly project of the
1970s. It provides the first full-length historical study to focus on the devolution
debate of the 1974-1979 Parliament. At the heart of the study lies one main
question: why did the offer of Scottish political autonomy fail to materialise after
1974? Based on intensive archival research, this thesis argues that high politics at
Westminster and strategies pursued by the main parties were pivotal to devolution’s
demise. First, it demonstrates that devolution forged a far more important part of the
respective strategies of the Labour and Conservative Party leaderships than is
presently recognised in the historical literature. Placing devolution at the heart of the
struggle for power in the dramatic 1974-1979 Parliament, this study shows how the
Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan instrumentalised the assembly bills in a bid to
prolong the life of his premiership. The Scottish question was scarcely any less
important to the then Leader of the Opposition, Margaret Thatcher. Under her tenure,
the Conservative Party mounted an unyielding parliamentary opposition to the
Government’s proposals in the hope of ousting Labour from office. Second, the
research seeks to highlight that the prospect of a Scottish assembly inspired a much
more concerted and, indeed, fiercer pushback from within the Houses of Parliament
than is generally appreciated. The resistance to devolution at Westminster is
typically framed in terms of maverick individualism on the part of ‘rebel’ Labour MPs
such as Tam Dalyell and George Cunningham. However, this study argues that the
opposition was much more broadly based. In this way, the first half of the thesis
shows how a cross-party alliance came into being to delay and, ultimately, wreck the
Government’s legislation. Finally, this study offers a close analysis of the electoral
contests that led to the decline of political nationalism and the collapse of devolution.
Rejecting a compartmentalised view of these politics, this study presents a dynamic
picture in which the electoral scene and power-politics at Westminster were
intimately connected. To this end, the second half of the thesis is devoted to the
crucial votes that took place in the latter part of the decade. After re-examining the
fiercely fought (but largely forgotten) Scottish by-elections of 1978, the study then
offers a fresh analysis of the assembly referendum of the following year.
Reconstructing the strategies and interventions of the parties and the campaign
groups, the final chapter shows how the anti-devolutionists produced a remarkable
turnaround during the early months of 1979. It was a development with momentous
consequences; for it was the indecisive result of the referendum vote that
precipitated the fall of the Callaghan Government, paving the way for Margaret
Thatcher’s watershed victory at the 1979 General Election.