BURNS NIGHT MASSACRE

George Cunningham remembers

how he conspired to destroy devolution ten years ago

LABOUR'S manifesto in October 1974 promised elected assemblies for both Scot- land and Wales. The election gave Labour only a tiny majority but the principle of devolution had the backing of the Liberals and the Scots and Welsh Nationalists and that should have been enough to get the legislation through.

During the two years it took the Govern- ment to produce its first Bill, the Labour MPs who were against it insisted that a referendum should be held to see if there really was the overwhelming demand for devolution that the Government claimed. Some of those critics within the party had to be won over if the Bill was to pass. So, in the middle of the Second Reading debate in 1976, the Cabinet reluctantly conceded that, after the legislation was through, referendums would be held in both coun- tries to decide whether it was to be implemented. It was in the ground of that fatal concession that we planted the delayed-action bomb that later blew up devolution.

The first Bill died three months later when Labour rebels voted down a guillo- tine motion to curtail debate. Bloody and bowed, the Government ploughed on, with separate Bills for Scotland and Wales in the next session.

Besides those of us in the Labour Party who were prepared to vote directly against the Bill, there were others who would only inflict wounds. We were a mixed bunch future members of the SDP like Bruce Douglas Mann, Colin Phipps and myself, but also leftwingers like Eric Heffer, Den- nis Skinner, Joan Lestor and, of course, the present Leader of the Labour Party. How to get such a motley lot into one effective harness?

Labour anti-devolutionists met regularly to plan strategy. At our first meeting after the summer recess in 1977 Robin Cook, then member for Edinburgh Central, made an interesting announcement. Robin had been against devolution before getting elected but felt bound to vote for the Bill because of the manifesto promise. Now he told us that during the summer he had encountered just one person in his consti- tuency who cared at all about it and he was

SNP. He would propose an amendment to the Bill to say that unless one third of the electorate voted Yes, devolution should not go ahead even if more people voted Yes than No. I later got the credit and the blame (the hate mail still comes) for this kind of test but I did not invent it. My role was the get the one-third figure changed to 40 per cent (a vital difference as it turned out) and to do the hard graft of cajoling and head-counting to get the amendment through.

It took many days and long nights for the Bill to plough through to the referendum clause and during that time the whips were busy. Tam Dalyell and I were generally left alone as incorrigible. When Michael Cocks, Labour chief whip called me in for the third degree all he could manage was, 'You realise you're bringing Michael Foot's shingles back!'

As often happens in politics, the mis- takes of our opponents counted as much as our own efforts. On the day before the crucial vote was due, I overheard John Smith, minister in charge of the Bill, say in an unguarded moment that the order of business was to be changed so that my amendment might not come to a vote at all. I rushed into the chamber, denounced the Government for skulduggery, and sent briefing to all members. The embarrass- ment forced Michael Foot to withdraw the idea. So it was that the 40 per cent test was voted into the Bill at one minute to eleven on January 25 1978 — by 15 votes. The whips were surprised that my lists had been more accurate than theirs and sought revenge by another procedural abuse, hanging about in the division lobby to 'Have a look at the Ombudsbird on page 3!' prevent Joe Grimond's Shetland amend- ment being called before the guillotine fell. But they reckoned without Myer Galpern, the ex-Lord Provost of Glasgow who was in the chair that night. Myer despatched the Sergeant at Arms into the division lobby, sword in hand, to sort out the whips. As Big Ben started to strike eleven Joe moved his amendment and the Gov- ernment went down to another heavy defeat. As one member of the press lobby said, it was a Burns Night massacre.

Three weeks later came the final battle when the Government tried to knock the amendment out again. This time they put up a backbencher to do their job for them and I could not have asked for a better man — Dennis Canavan was as unlikely a person to win over waverers then as he is today. Michael Foot made the mistake of speaking too early, leaving me with almost the last word in a highly charged House. We won by 45 votes.

At the time it was far from clear that this marked the end for devolution. The cur- rent wisdom was that the vast majority of Scots wanted it. But the passing of the amendment changed the atmosphere. Till then the public assumed fatalistically that the plan was going through, like it or not.

The referendums were held on 1 March 1979. In Wales the No votes were four times the Yeses. As Neil Kinnock said about his band of fellow Welsh rebels, 'They said we were a gang of six. We turned out to be a gang of 956,330.' Scotland was different. Thirty-three per cent voted Yes and 31 per cent No. But for the 40 per cent rule, devolution would have gone ahead. Robin Cook's one-third figure would not have stopped it for we would have had to concede that sick voters and double registrations meant that one-third of those truly able to vote had voted Yes.

The SNP tried to force the Government into going ahead regardless. Under the rule, the Government was obliged to table an order to repeal the Act but that order could have been voted down. I also feared a 'Frankenstein' scenario' in which the Nationalists would do a deal with Labour to leave the Act on the statute book, not implemented but not repealed, to be sum- moned from its grave as soon as there was a majority to support it.

Mercifully, the SNP had never been good on parliamentary procedure. They thought that only the Government could bring the repeal order to a vote, but they were wrong. They could have done it themselves and, if they had, there just might have been enough Labour rebels fearful to repeat their anti-government votes when the Nationalists were poised to bring the Government down.

Some of us veterans of that struggle who are no longer in the House wonder that the Labour Party — and others — has still not accepted that you cannot create a federal arrangement in part, but only part, of a country.