Institute of Governance > Online Articles & Papers, by Author > Online Articles & Papers, by Date Published Online > Election 2007 - Devolution Come of Age?

Election 2007 - Devolution Come of Age?

Eberhard Bort

to be published in Gilles Leydier (ed.), La dévolution des pouvoirs à l'Écosse et au pays de Galles, 1966-1999, Paris: Éditions Ellipses, 2007.

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Introduction

In an article Chris Harvie and I wrote after he 2003 elections, we spoke of "a small earthquake" in Scotland.1 Was the 2007 election, then, a big earthquake? As, on the fourth of May 2007, the shock of the ballot paper fiasco was being digested - nearly 150 000 voting papers had been discarded as spoilt, reducing the turn-out figure from well over 55 to an even more modest 51.7 per cent in the constituency and 52.4 per cent in the regional list vote2 - it emerged that Scotland had voted for political change. By the narrowest of margins, but with surging momentum, the Scottish National Party (SNP) had pipped Labour to the post, with 47 to 46 seats. Far from an overall majority. But that was to be expected. Under the Additional Member System (AMS), no party since 1999 had gained an outright majority.

Let us recapitulate (see Table 1): in 1999, Labour (56 seats) and the Liberal Democrats (17) formed a partnership government; the SNP (35) became Her Majesty's official opposition party in Scotland, and the Conservatives (18) were saved by the list (which they had opposed, like the whole idea of devolution and a Scottish Parliament), as they did not win a single constituency. The Greens and the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) each gained one seat, as did Dennis Canavan who triumphed against the Labour Party (which had refused to accept him as the candidate for Falkirk-West). The first session was fraught with problems - three First Ministers (after the death of Donald Dewar in October 2000, and the replacement of Henry McLeish, who fell over his Westminster office allowances, by Jack McConnell in 2001; a private referendum on Section 28 (teaching homosexuality in schools); the exam fiasco of 2000; and the albatross of the much-delayed and over-budget parliament building project. Despite these trials and tribulations, the Parliament passed 62 bills in its first four years, among them landmark legislation like Land Reform, the implementation of the McCrone agreement on education, free personal care for the elderly, and the abolition of up-front tuition fees for students. Despite apparent disappointments, public support for devolution as such remained strong. 3

The second elections, in 2003, produced a 'rainbow parliament', as the smaller parties gained seats at the expense of the SNP. Labour was reduced to 50 MSPs, but could continue its coalition with the Liberal Democrats (17); the SNP plunged to 27 seats, while the Greens added six to their existing one, and the SSP ended, five up, on six seats. Three independents and the sole representative of the Scottish Citizens Unity Party (SSCUP) completed the diverse picture.4 The tally of bills passed climbed to 112 by the end of the second term. Local Government reform (including the switch to STV - the Single Transferable Voting system) and controversial anti-social behaviour measures were the legislative flagships of the second term. Also among the plus points for the Executive and the Parliament was the open tackling of the remaining pockets of nasty sectarianism in Scotland.

Clearly, after the building saga faded into the background, the Parliament seemed to gain in confidence. Major conflicts between Edinburgh and London, as widely predicted before devolution, did not materialise. Thanks to sustained economic growth and high levels of employment, financial tensions between Westminster and Holyrood, likewise widely anticipated, were also absent.5 But, of course, the real litmus test for devolution would only come when parties of different political hues would be in charge north and south of the border.

Table 1   Scottish Parliament Elections 1999-2007

Constituency / Regional List  / Seats  
%           %  

Coinciding with the tercentenary of the Union of Parliaments, the 2007 elections in Scotland on 3 May 2007 were, from the start, deemed to be something special.The Parliament they returned looked more akin to the 1999 version - fewer parties, albeit with roles reversed between the two biggest contenders.6 Arguably, the changes they brought mark the most important development in the evolution of devolution since the heady days of the late 1990s. Labour losing its hegemony in Scotland, both at the national and the local level, after nearly half a century of political domination, was in itself a watershed. An SNP First Minister, leading a minority government with the support of the remaining two Green MSPs, has thoroughly upset the political apple cart at Holyrood.

The result of Election 2007 gains further in salience when the perspective is extended to encompass the re-establishment of devolution in Northern Ireland, the election outcome in Wales, with power-sharing between Labour and Plaid Cymru, and the accession of Gordon Brown to the UK premiership. Hitherto, devolution in Britain had been, more or less, an internal affair of the Labour Party - in power at Westminster as well as in Wales and Scotland, so that differences and conflicts could be ironed out within the Labour family, as it were. There is no doubt, the political landscape in the UK has changed - we enter uncharted waters.

This concluding chapter will take the 2007 elections as its focal point, looking back on the journey of devolution so far to see how the result can be explained, and forward to gauge what it may signify. How could the SNP overtake Labour? Was it just a protest vote against Blair and Iraq and Trident? Was it dissatisfaction with the Labour-Lib Dem Holyrood partnership? Was it the 'positive' campaign of Alex Salmond's SNP? And, what can an SNP minority government deliver? Does 2007 mark the end of the road for devolution? Or is it a new beginning? Another "new stage" in what Donald Dewar called "a journey begun long ago and which has no end"?7

Time for Change

While opinion polls saw the SNP in the doldrums a year before the elections, from the summer of 2006 onwards they showed an increasing lead for the SNP. That, in itself, was not surprising. What was, was that the polls continued having the SNP substantially ahead at the beginning of the campaign proper, and throughout the campaign - with the exception of two or three 'stray polls' which had Labour in front. In previous campaigns, the SNP poll lead had always collapsed.

Labour was shocked by the Westminster by-election defeat in Dunfermline in February 2006, which was mostly self-inflicted through ill-conceived interference of London Labour into devolved matters like the Forth bridge tolls and the building of a new Forth bridge. The SNP used the summer months for the build-up of their manifesto pledges, issuing policy after policy, while Labour seemed to snooze. With a brilliantly staged autumn conference, the SNP cemented its lead (Labour's gathering at Oban was overshadowed by Tony Blair's long farewell and the replacement of Trident, which Gordon Brown had committed himself to as early as July 2006). It looked as if the return of Alex Salmond as SNP leader in 2003 had truly galvanized the party (eventually, 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' would replace the party name on the ballot paper). Riding high in the polls, his claim that the SNP could win 20 extra seats in the election seemed increasingly more realistic.

At Haddington, in October, Jack McConnell delivered the annual John P Mackintosh lecture, where he stated that no additional powers were needed for Holyrood.8 This was, to say the least, strange and puzzling: boxing the party of change into the defensive corner (oddly reminiscent of the Tories' position in the 1980s and '90s) of the party advocating the status quo - against all the other parties who stood for change, as even the Scottish Conservatives showed a willingness to talk about increased powers for Holyrood. Had not McConnell himself initiated a review of the Parliament's powers, suggesting transfers in areas like immigration, broadcasting, control over firearms, casinos and drug policy?9 Had devolution, all of a sudden, ceased to be a process?

With the Union anniversary looming, a peculiar double-decker argument evolved - on the upper deck the debate about the Union and Scottish independence; on the lower deck the issues of devolved governance. Labour concentrated the big guns on the upper deck - repeating the mantra of 'divorce is expensive' which had been successful in 1999 and 2003. What they did not fully grasp was that (a) the SNP had mastered the double-decker argument, taking the sting out of the independence issue by promising a separate referendum (and thus decoupling the issues of devolved government from the issue of independence), while at the same time playing on the unpopular reserved issues like the Iraq war, the replacement of Trident, Gordon Brown's role in the pensions crisis, and Blair's cash for peerages scandal, and (b) that an independence referendum and the transfer of taxation powers from Westminster to Holyrood ranked seventeenth and twenty-first among twenty-five policy issues in an ICM poll for the BBC at the beginning of the campaign, way behind schools and hospitals, crime, farming and fishing10. While the SNP seemed to have taken aboard the fact that the election was about what almost all elections are about, viz. should the existing government be thrown out because it had outstayed its welcome. And Labour, having been in power at Westminster since 1997, and in the driving seat at Holyrood since 1999 (and in hegemony in Scotland since the late 1950s), was widely perceived as having been there too long for a healthy democracy. The SNP threw a plethora of attractive - if uncosted - promises into the battle: scrapping the graduate endowment tax, wiping out student debt, replacing the "unfair council tax" by a local income tax (the only dominant domestic theme in the elections), more teachers, smaller class sizes, more policemen, reduced business rates, abolition of road and bridge tolls.

In fairness, it has to be said that Jack McConnell tried hard to make education the central plank of Scottish Labour's election campaign11 - but the SNP seemed "to dominate the media agenda."12 Labour did not manage to make its themes the focus of the campaign. In the end, Blair's long good-bye, the ongoing fiasco in Iraq, Trident, cash for honours, nuclear power, pensions, treatment of asylum seekers, etc cast a long shadow over the campaign. Blair and Brown's presence in the campaign highlighted those 'reserved' matters - and reinforced the public perception of negativity about Labour. A Populus poll for The Times a fortnight before the election put Labour in the UK on 29 per cent, showing support for the party falling to a level last seen when Michael Foot was leader in the 1980s.13

Labour got bogged down by the independence bogey, their apocalyptic rhetoric annoying at least as many voters as they were frightening into voting for the status quo. What worked in 1999 and 2003, now became increasingly counterproductive, but Labour kept ploughing on, not realising that there were seriously diminishing returns, while reminding the public constantly of those reserved Westminster political issues that highlighted the impotence of the Scottish Parliament in those reserved matters, thus playing into the hands of Salmond's argument:

We've now had seven years of devolution and I think there's a pretty overwhelming feeling in Scotland that now we've got a parliament, we may as well make it a real parliament with real powers, so it can do real things for Scotland.14

Moreover, if Scotland was, as Labour argued, incapable of sustaining itself as an independent country, was that not Labour's fault in the first place - in government since 1997/1999? If Labour in Scotland and in the UK had done such a wonderful job over the last decade, why was Scotland still on the drip? This 'Scotland a basket case' rhetoric obviously alienated some influential Scottish business leaders so much that they publicly declared their support for the SNP - and filled the party's coffers to the brim. Among them the controversial bus-tycoon Brian Souter who donated £500,000, and Tom 'KwikFit' Farmer who was good for £100,000. The former Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir George Mathewson also endorsed the party's stance on independence. Through the Scottish Independence Convention and non-party campaign group Independence First (combining the pro-independence parties), cult author Irvine Welsh, his fellow-writer Alasdair Gray, and folk singer Dick Gaughan threw their weight behind demands for an independence referendum. Other prominent support came from Archbishop Keith O'Brien and the historian and former Tory candidate Michael Fry. A sign of the frustration with Labour, but also an indication of how far the SNP had travelled since 1999. The same is true for endorsements by the media. While hitherto the Scottish political landscape was remarkable for the paradox that not a single paper supported the largest opposition party, this time five national newspapers recommended, even if sometimes couched in unionist caveats, a vote for change and for an SNP-led government.15

From the start of the campaign, it was clear that it would be a 'two-horse-race' between Labour and the SNP. It is generally agreed that Annabel Goldie had a good campaign for the Scottish Tories, but there was no Cameron effect north of the Border. The Lib Dems had lured themselves into the belief they could manage a major break through after Dunfermline, but they ran a bland campaign in which their new leader Nicol Stephen did not establish himself sufficiently. They stood for an increase in the powers of the Parliament, based on the findings of their own Steel Commission.16 But the only issue involving them directly in the campaign was the possibility of a coalition with the SNP - and the potential stumbling block of the independence referendum, which the Lib Dems refused to even contemplate. After Dunfermline, their relationship with Labour was strained.

Whatever happened to the 'rainbow'? The Scottish Socialists had torn themselves apart - in a very public split in 2006 following Tommy Sheridan's libel case against the News of the World. Both the SSP and Sheridan's new party, Solidarity, failed to have an impact on the campaign, fighting each other as much as their real political opponents. The Greens, by contrast, hoped to build on their successful transformation from a one-man-band to a fully-fledged parliamentary party. It remains their secret why they picked Mark Ruskell as their campaign manager - perhaps their least well-known MSP? Whether it would have made much of a difference if Robin Harper, Mark Ballard and Patrick Harvie would have been more to the fore, is a moot point - perhaps the focus on the two main contenders in this two-horse race would have crushed, or squeezed, the smaller parties anyway.

What the result also showed was that the AMS scraped by delivering - had Labour ended in front of the SNP, despite the Nationalists' gaining most votes both at constituency and regional levels, this would have led to further criticism of the electoral system as being not proportional enough. When the result was out, it seemed that even those who had not voted for the SNP took some satisfaction that change had been effected. Part of that was the realisation that the Scottish Parliament would only be able to prove itself purely devolved if the settlement was - as it would at some stage anyway - to be tested by different parties in power at Holyrood and Westminster. Simply put, London had to be forced to cease thinking of Edinburgh as a local dependence of the Labour Party.

New Politics Plus

After the election, most pundits thought that, regardless of what they said during the campaign, the SNP would form a government with the help of the Liberal Democrats. But as the Lib Dems set as a precondition that the Nationalists drop their plan for an independence referendum, and Alex Salmond refused to do that before talks started, talks were never even entered. As the SNP had ruled out the Tories (and the Tories had ruled themselves out for any coalition), the Lib Dems had no intention of continuing with Labour in any shape or form, and power-sharing between Labour and the SNP was not on the cards (even if Ian Paisley can tango with Gerry Adams, and Rhodri Morgan with Ieuan Wyn Jones, it is difficult to imagine such a cohabitation in Scotland between Labour and the SNP), there remained only the Greens, and the prospect of a minority government.

Eventually, the SNP signed an agreement with the two Greens which ensured that their two MSPs voted for Alex Salmond as First Minister and supported his ministerial appointments. In return, the Nationalists gave their backing to a climate change bill as an early measure and nominated Patrick Harvie MSP as the convener of one of the Holyrood committees (Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change). But it is not a coalition deal. No ministerial posts for the Greens. And they are not obliged to back Alex Salmond in a confidence vote or support the SNP's budget plans. It is an even looser arrangement than the "confidence and supply" model of co-operation which the Greens had talked about during the campaign.

Consultation and consent are the only way for a minority government of 47 out of 129 seats to achieve anything. Alex Salmond made that clear in his first few days as First Minister. 'New politics plus', was a phrase used by commentators. A lot had been said and written about the 'new politics' around the 1999 election, and although some of it evolved, especially in the Parliament's powerful committees, there was a sense that stable Labour-Liberal Democrat government had reinforced more traditional, Westminster-style politics at Holyrood.

The first measures of his government were populist and consensual, at least among a majority of the Parliament - steps to prevent ship-to-ship oil transfer in the Firth of Forth, the abolition of the graduate endowment tax, the scrapping of the Forth bridge tolls. The media gave Salmond the full benefit of his honeymoon period. Otherwise critical commentators like George Kerevan (The Scotsman) or Iain Macwhirter (The Herald/Sunday Herald) heaped praise on the new administration, and especially on Alex Salmond.

The abolition of the council tax took its first hurdle, as the Lib Dems shared the SNP's intent, but as their model of local income tax is substantially different from the SNP's, one of them would have to give if a replacement was to pass in the Chamber. There is a limit to what can be done consensually, "governing by diktat and parliamentary statement",17 and the vote on the Edinburgh transport schemes (introduction of a tam system and a railway link to the airport) was an early crunch point. On 27 June, Cabinet Minister John Swinney accepted the first resounding defeat for the government - Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories had supported an amendment in the name of Wendy Alexander MSP to keep the Edinburgh tram project on track and review the airport rail link until the autumn. Despite previous speculation to the contrary, nourished by remarks of Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson and Alex Salmond himself, the government declared it would respect the will of Parliament and act accordingly, thus avoiding the threat of a no-confidence vote.18 That's the new politics for you…

Yet, the SNP had to admit early on that some of their central manifesto pledges could not be kept. Graduate endowment tax adieu - but where was the promised write-off of student debts? An ambitious target of 80 per cent reduction of carbon emissions was set for 2050, but no longer was there any talk of annual targets. Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill announced at the end of June that it could be as late as November before the SNP would come up with a legislative programme for the parliamentary term.19 And what about that referendum, which was envisaged for 2010, one year before the next scheduled Scottish Parliament elections? Little chance, with 79 MSPs belonging to 'unionist' parties, and only 50 in the independence camp. But a White Paper was promised to be published within the first hundred days of being in office. Would, perhaps, a new constitutional convention, as favoured by the Liberal Democrats, be enough to satisfy the 'fundamentalists' in the SNP? What were we to make of Tory interventions in favour of a referendum, sooner rather than later, with the intention of having independence resoundingly voted down and thus laid to rest for a generation?20

How would the new administration deal with London? And vice versa? There was the old claim to £23 millions which London saved when the Scottish Parliament introduced free personal care for the elderly. The Barnett formula for the distribution of revenues across the UK, with rumblings in England that Scotland gets more than a fair share, fuelled by Alex Salmond who wants this debate? Oil revenues? The conflict brewing about the closure of post offices? Representation at the European level? Civil service reform? Would Alex Salmond turn out to be Gordon Brown's "worst nightmare"?21 Brown's ostentatious 'Britshness' and Salmond's 'Scottishness' slugging it out? Or would 'British' pragmatism ensure a workable relationship? Salmond pledged to revive the institution of joint ministerial committees which had last met in October 2002, in order to better coordinate policies between the UK and Scotland. These could either become battlegrounds - or a stabilising factor, if Richard Lochhead's dictum of "partnership and co-operation"22 prevails.

The opposition parties, and in particular Labour, needed time to come to terms with their new role. For a party like Labour which dominated Scotland at national and local level for decades to be dethroned in such a spectacular way (locally even more decisively than nationally) is a bitter pill to swallow. Brown and Blair's childish delay in even acknowledging Salmond's election to the post of First Minister played into the hands of the SNP-leader. As did the 'stushie' about Blair's memorandum of understanding with Colonel Gaddafi on the extradition of prisoners, without having bothered to consult the Scottish Executive beforehand (the most prominent Lybian prisoner in the UK sits in a Scottish prison - the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset ali Mohmed al-Megrahi). Was Labour in denial? Was the defeat perhaps not decisive enough? Could it lure the party into believing that 2007 was only a glitch, due to Blair and Iraq? And that a come-back would be easy? Questions about leadership were being raised. Is Scottish Labour run from Scotland or from London? How to deal with the formidable Alex Salmond? Would Jack McConnell face a leadership challenge in the autumn of 2007.

The big lacuna in the whole devolution process has been England (after the failure of the referendum in the North-East in November 2004). Could a functioning Northern Ireland assembly, and an invigorated Scottish Parliament, and the increased powers of the National Assembly for Wales trigger new attempts at rolling out devolution to the English regions? Otherwise, the dreaded West Lothian Question will not go away. Prime Minister Brown's announcements of further constitutional reform did not offer a solution for this "constitutional elephant in the room".23 For Alex Salmond, the solution to the 'English Question" is clear: amicable repeal of the Union:

The 18th-century Union is past its sell-by date. It's gone stale for both our nations. What we both need now are the political and economic powers to make our nations work, to tailor policies to suit our different circumstances, and to speak for ourselves in Europe and the wider world - while acting together where our interests converge.24

The first 'foreign' visit of Alex Salmond saw him in Belfast, hobnobbing with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. Could there be a concerted demand for a lower corporate tax for the 'Celtic' regions and nations, perhaps joined by Rhodri Morgan on behalf of Wales? Particularly with Plaid Cymru as part of his government? A ganging up by the Celts against London? An enhanced role for the British-Irish Council, as Tom Nairn had announced a tad prematurely at the turn of the century?25 The Irish Independent  seemed to hint at that possibility:

Mr Salmond's visit to Belfast, in the early days of the new Executive and shortly after his own election as First Minister in Scotland, is an event of some political significance. It indicates the possibility of a shake-up of loosening ties in the centralised UK state, and the possibility of new relationships developing between the constituent parts (and indeed across national boundaries) as the regions, with new-found confidence, begin to flex their muscles.26

In February, the SNP had laid out its plan, based on the current British-Irish Council, formed after the Good Friday Agreement and involving ministers from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England as well as the crown dependencies (Channel Islands and Isle of Man) meeting to discuss areas of common concern. After Scottish independence, Salmond envisaged the convening of a 'beefed-up' version, modelled on the Nordic Council.27

Would Salmond's minority government last the full term? Or could it all unravel? Could there be a switch to a more comfortable coalition arrangement, should the going get rougher, as happened in Wales in 2000 (when Labour, eventually, came to an agreement with the Liberal Democrats)? The Greens have already signalled that they would be prepared to consider a more formal pact with the SNP if the Liberal Democrats decided to take part in government. Could Salmond's double mandate (MP and MSP) cause him trouble?28 What about the internal cohesion of the SNP? Twenty new MSPs could mean a lack of experience, and unknown quantities in terms of loyalty to the leadership, particularly if it should become clear that there is no chance of getting a majority for an independence referendum. Or other policy differences manifest themselves. After all, formulation of policies in opposition is one thing, uniting behind and implementing policies as a government is a different matter. Would devolved government change the SNP, turn it gradually into a Catalan-style nationalist party, content to govern a devolved Scotland, albeit with substantially increased parliamentary powers, or would the SNP stick to using devolution primarily to bring about independence as soon as possible?

As the Damocles sword of a no-confidence vote hangs permanently over the head of the government, the Parliament's role in finding consensual decisions has been enhanced. This has granted, as some commentators have remarked, a "new lease of life" for the devolution blueprint.29 By transcending the Labour-designed and Labour-led blueprint, Devolution may actually have come of age.

Conclusion

Devolution in the UK, and in its most advanced form in Scotland, bore the stamp of the Labour Party. But it created its own dynamic. The 2007 elections opened a new chapter in the territorial politics of the UK, with Nationalists now in government in all three devolved legislatures: Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. "Britain is now becoming a multi-national state, a federal country by default."30 Will Gordon Brown's constitutional reforms pay respect to this?

Having an SNP government in Edinburgh is a reality check for the devolution settlement. It also is a test for the robustness of the concordats between the devolved and the UK administrations. Only the change of governments can show whether devolution can absorb, and adjust to, that kind of political change.  Having an SNP government in Scotland certainly causes a double dilemma for Gordon Brown he would have preferred to live without: he must not play into the hands of Alex Salmond by letting his antipathy to the SNP impair his judgement and the evolution of a pragmatic working relationship between UK and devolved government; on the other hand, if he wants to win the next UK general election, he must not be perceived by the voters of Middle England as being too Scottish, or even in cahoots with the Nationalists in government north of the Border.

It should be interesting to see how Brown pursues further constitutional change, perhaps even a written constitution for the UK.31 It remains to be seen whether the majority view in the Scottish Parliament as to increasing the powers of Holyrood will prevail and produce results. It could be a double-edged sword for the SNP - the comparative being the enemy of the absolute. More powers could diminish the demand for outright independence.

So, how big was the earthquake in May? And what will be its long-term effects? Will the devolved parliament ultimately give way to an independent one? Possible. But, as David McCrone contended, "a betting person would be unwise to wager the mortgage on such an outcome, at least in the short term". Comparing the Scottish situation at the beginning of the twenty-first century with Ireland's break-away at the beginning of the twentieth, he concludes: "We live now in [a] very different kind of world - a world of federations and confederations of autonomous nations within states within the European Union. Self-government is a question of degree, not of kind."32

Self-government has certainly been boosted by the 2007 election results. Was it, in the end, a vote for an independent-minded Parliament and First Minister, rather than for independence? The owl of Minerva, as we know, flies at dusk - and whether Election 2007 marked the Union's sunset or, rather, a new lease of life for Devolution remains an open question.

(Published Online: 27 July 2007)

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