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The Moral Foundations of Constitutional Change in Canada and Scotland at the end of the twentieth century

October 2008
International Review of Scottish Studies 33

DOI:10.21083/irss.v33i0.518

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University of Dundee

Throughout the twentieth century the governments of Canada and Britain have overseen the realignment of state power in relation to province and nation. Legislators have grappled with the erosion of economic, political and military independence of action caused directly and indirectly by a number of trans-national political and economic develop- ments. While displaying remarkable resilience, the political structures of federalism in Canada and union in Britain have come under intense scrutiny. A series of constitutional debates took place in the response to these pressures, debates that highlighted the vitality of civil society in a constitutional world otherwise dominated by high politics. My purpose here is to examine how the global challenge to the nation-state allowed non-party political pressure groups and forums to take centre stage in constitutional change in Canada and Britain in the 1990s. With global trends also giving new vigour to the local, a process that theorists have dubbed 'glocalisation', nationalist groups have made the 'moral foundations' of their nation the rationale for adminis- trative and constitutional challenge.1 Embedded within the historical legacy of legislative and social 'milestones', this analysis examines how debate has been framed around notions of rights and distinctiveness of national character found in prioritised historical pasts. The legislation of 1867

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The moral foundations of constitutional

change in Canada and Scotland

at the end of the twentieth century

Graeme Morton*

Throughout the twentieth century the governments of

Canada and Britain have overseen the realignment of state

power in relation to province and nation. Legislators have

grappled with the erosion of economic, political and military

independence of action caused directly and indirectly by a

number of trans-national political and economic develop-

ments. While displaying remarkable resilience, the political

structures of federalism in Canada and union in Britain

have come under intense scrutiny. A series of constitutional

debates took place in the response to these pressures,

debates that highlighted the vitality of civil society in a

constitutional world otherwise dominated by high politics.

My purpose here is to examine how the global challenge to

the nation-state allowed non-party political pressure groups

and forums to take centre stage in constitutional change in

Canada and Britain in the 1990s. With global trends also

giving new vigour to the local, a process that theorists have

dubbed ‘glocalisation’, nationalist groups have made the

‘moral foundations’ of their nation the rationale for adminis-

trative and constitutional challenge.1Embedded within the

historical legacy of legislative and social ‘milestones’, this

analysis examines how debate has been framed around

notions of rights and distinctiveness of national character

found in prioritised historical pasts. The legislation of 1867

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 87

*Graeme Morton is the Scottish Studies Foundation Chair at the

University of Guelph. He is the author of Locality, Community and

Nation (1998, with A. Morris), Unionist Nationalism (1999), William

Wallace: Man & Myth (2001) and editor of Civil Society, Associations

and Urban Places (2006, with B. De Vries and R.J. Morris).

between Britain and Canada and of 1707 between England

and Scotland has in the lead up to this period been ‘recalled’

to guide each nation along its future path. The decade of

introspection which followed the failure of the Meech Lake

and Charlottetown Accords (1987-1992) to be ratified, and

in which referenda were held on Quebec sovereignty (1995),

and Scottish and Welsh devolution (1997), is for each

country one of the most crucial periods of constitutional

reform.

In Canada and Britain demands for more constitu-

tional power to be devolved are not confined to those who

identify themselves as disadvantaged. Claims for regional

autonomy have been seen in oil-rich Alberta and the financial

powerhouse of London, the latter inaugurating the first elected

mayor in the United Kingdom under local government

reform in 2000. Each provides an example of nationalism

where relative wealth not relative underdevelopment is the

motor for change.2It has contributed to a broader nation-

alism that relies less on the rhetoric of ‘we don’t want to be

governed by you’, using instead the language of ‘social

justice’, ‘social inclusion’, ‘participation’, ‘opportunity’, the

‘third way’ and the ‘third sector’.3That language is also

found in locales as diverse as Quebec and the Maritimes in

Canada and Scotland and Wales in Britain, areas with their

own mix of prosperity and disadvantage and where much of

the constitutional debate has been focussed in the 1990s. In

negotiations with the respective central states, the devolu-

tion of administrative governance has sometimes been

aimed at fundamental reform but mostly it has been piece-

meal and without obvious logic of gradual evolutionary

change. Nor has separation (always) been the intended

outcome, with power sharing being as much about strength-

ening control of the federal and union state structures, as it

has about decentralisation. Yet the impact of globalisation on

the nation-state has put new kinds of pressures on the local/

central axis and, as it developed, left spaces for non-party

political groups and forums to flourish; their appearance

suggests that state engagement with civil society is, in the

88 The moral foundations of constitutional change

medium term at least, to be anticipated when future constitu-

tional reforms are proposed.

Beginnings and Constitutional Impasse

Opinion poll evidence from 1990 cites 60 per cent of Canadians

having little or no confidence in government as an institution;

a decade later 70 per cent thought their government was

‘highly’ or ‘somewhat’ corrupt.4The Law Commission’s

reflections on how Canadians voted in response to the

constitutional debate of that decade are insightful as much

for the questions asked as for the results obtained. How

political parties were financed and how party discipline and

political lobbying were enacted revealed the Commission’s

remit, along with electoral campaigning, the actions of

special interest groups, as well as the current voting system,

democratic participation, and values and issues of political

and constitutional accountability.5It attempted to engage

‘ordinary Canadians’ in a political process that until the

Constitution Act of 1982 had long been perceived as elitist.6

The Law Commission survey found the federal government

was no longer reflecting the diversity of Canada, that the

global economy had undermined the influence of national

governments, and that technology continued to alter how

Canadians talked to one another, often in ways that the

formal political process failed to engage with.7

That these failures were identified at the end of a

period when quite fundamental political realignment was at

the forefront of public consciousness suggests reforms are

rooted in a heritage that is resistant to change.8Confirming

the hold of the past over later constitutional debates, Roger

Gibbons refutes any Canadian ‘ahistorical’ leanings by

drawing parallels between constitutional developments of the

nineteenth century and Canada in the 1990s. He identifies

the importance of the Reciprocity Act of 1854 - following

the removal of the British Corn Laws in 1844 and thus

Canada’s loss of protected British markets - as fundamental

to Canada’s modern economic development.9Driven by

the desire for mutually beneficial tariff reductions with the

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 89

United States for non-manufactured products, and main-

taining these relationships until 1866, it was long enough to

allow the economies of the British North American Colonies

to establish themselves in the post-protection world.10

Despite failure to secure a second reciprocity act with the

United States in the 1866-1900 period, and non-ratification

of a proposed agreement in 1911, Canada’s southern neigh-

bour was increasingly influential at the expense of the

colonial bind to Britain.11 Replacing all these links with the

creation of a new internal coherence became the economic

basis of the Canadian nation.

Added to the mix was the Constitution Act of 1867

(the British North American Act). This was not just in terms

of the constitutional creation of Canada, but also its long-

lasting effect on Canadian identity. Of course Confederation

and the slow creation of Canada from its provinces and

territories was a case to be made. It was an argument, and

a series of events, that LaSelva has termed the ‘moral foun-

dations of Canadian federalism’. For it to be successful it

was based on the belief that Canadians who live in different

provinces and possess diverse cultural identities, can, and

importantly, should have a common way of life as well as

maintaining a different way of life.12 In this analysis,Canadian

identity is not singular, but a balance of coexisting identities,

of the national and the local community.13 It is an inter -

pretation not incompatible with multi-national, or multi-

ethnic state nationalisms, and, indeed, would fit with

other nation-state arrangements. Yet in Canada, LaSelva

argues, Québécois separatists, Aboriginal sovereigntists

and Canadian nationalists do not all believe in this version

of Canada, projecting instead visions of an altered or

abandoned Canadian federalism, and so do by offering an

alternative set of moral foundations.14 Looking back from

the 1990s the question was asked to what extent was 1867

about a Canada of parts coming together as one, or was it a

negotiation of equality between nations. Quebec nationalists

have disputed the history of 1867, challenging its myth

by asking was it really centralist or was it, in spirit, although

90 The moral foundations of constitutional change

certainly not in words, a bargain of equality between nations?

The historical significance of Confederation for Quebecois

nationalists is the belief that it was forced on an unwilling

people, and that Canada’s federalism is ‘illegal’ because it

is, at best, a quasi-federal structure where the state has

remained remarkably unitary in form.15 Yet while the 1867

Act was strongly centralised compared to the American and

Swiss examples of federalism, it still allowed special status

to Quebec, with its language and civil law maintained under

the terms of the 1774 Quebec Act.16 From this arrangement

the moral foundation of Canada, it is countered, is of equal

nations not disparate ways of life, of two traditions not a

melting point of any number of identities. As Henderson

points out, ‘Quebecers preferred until the 1960s to consider

themselves canadiens français’ (just as the Scots were once

amenable to the term ‘North Britons’), both joined but sepa-

rate.17 These conflicting interpretations sustained the delib-

erations on constitutionalism in the 1990s and kept the focus

on ‘Quebec versus the rest’. While the milestone legislation

of the nineteenth century was the origin of political and

economic unity in Canada, through the balance of common-

ality and difference, its emphasis on equality between the

English and French traditions, rather than on multicultur-

alism, created the tension that threatened to undermine the

federal status quo in the last years of the twentieth century.

Globalisation, State and the Provinces

Globalisation was and remains a long historical process

causing fast and mobile credit flows to be less and less

restrained by territory. Amongst other impacts, it under-

mines the economic influence of nation-state governments

and financial institutions.18 This realignment of trade and

economic decision-making suggests further challenge for

Canada’s economic heritage myth. The federal coherence

created by the east-west economy forged by the National

Policy of Sir John A. Macdonald, and the importance of

railroad for physically as well as symbolically uniting the

nation, have lost the economic and social relevance they

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 91

once had.19 In his analysis of the 1990s, Gibbons argued that

the policies governments have used to manage these

processes were counterproductive to national unity: that the

promotion of north-south trade resulted in the US being

more of a threat than solution to national economic pros-

perity, that the relationship with Britain became more anti-

colonial than a partnership, and that English and French

Canadians turned their accommodation increasingly to

difference. What Gibbons, perhaps uncharitably, has

labelled the ‘national dream’ shows the challenge of history

to contemporary political reform.20 Tomblin is another

who reminds us of the interrelated challenges to Canada’s

foundation history where ‘[t]he fiscal imperative, another

national unity crisis, and Canada’s ability to compete in a

globalising economy have all contributed to the rethinking

of both provincial boundaries and the role of provincial

government in the 1990s’.21 The rethinking of internal

boundaries was seen in the Liberal economic platform in

1993, the year after the failed Charlottetown Accord, when

the need for ‘joint action, and an integrated development on

the regional level’ was emphasised as a response to external

economic pressures.22 But the initial move to decentralisa-

tion had already come from the provinces, particularly in the

west and east. As early as 1953 the four Atlantic premiers

had come together along with leading business people to

create the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC), a

permanent non-governmental research body.23 In 1973 this

alliance had spread south, with the first meeting of the Con -

ference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian

Premiers held in Brudenell, Prince Edward Island. But it had

been two years earlier, in 1971, that the Council of Maritime

Premiers was formed as a means for the Maritime govern-

ments to work together on social and economic issues.24 The

first of its kind in Canada and the most significant level of

cooperation between the three legislatures in nearly twenty

years, the legislation maintained the authority of each

parliament and protected the rights of all residents to partici-

pate in the economy, yet was about promoting common

92 The moral foundations of constitutional change

‘sustainable development to stand up to the future’. To the

report’s author Charles J. McMillan, clearly ‘it was the very

lack of cooperation throughout the Maritimes that was the

greatest obstacle to Sir John A Macdonald’s Canadian vision

of 1864-1867’.25 The rationale was to maintain language

and cultural identities within a ‘strong and united Canada’,

rhetoric that appeared in tune with Canada’s foundation

principles.

When the Maritime Forum of Cabinets met in New

Brunswick in June 1991 the aim was still to protect difference

through unity. The stated priorities were to foster integration

of agriculture, transport, government procurement, techno-

logical innovation and diffusion, ‘… in which a coordinated

approach to addressing issues of common concern have

resulted in a cumulative benefit to each of [the] participating

provinces’.26 The outcome was the 1992 Maritime Economic

Cooperation Act, put in place to foster economic self-

reliance amongst the people of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia

and Prince Edward Island. Again the ambition was to

develop a single Maritime market to enhance mobility of

people, goods, services, and capital, while at the govern-

mental level opening up procurement opportunities to all

three provinces. It was a co-ordinated plan of cooperation

between the provinces to face down and debate federal

policies.27 While ostensibly core to the founding principles

of the nation, this response to global trends in trade by-

passed the federal government, despite, the concept of

Western and Atlantic regionalism not being countenanced in

a number of the provinces.28 Changes in federal spending

procedures and greater reliance on market-based decisions

had made it easier to defend a regional cooperative agenda

in Atlantic Canada. These poorer provinces argued they

had little choice but to work together as federal-provincial

transfers declined. The same forces, Tomblin continues, had

the opposite effect in the West, where trade liberalisation

enhanced the pull of north-south economic and political

forces, encouraging the reduction of welfare subsidies and

federal support for regional development, transportation,

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 93

and other east-west-orientated policies.29 Norry and Percy

thus argue that these alliances can be defended in principle

as a rational response to the challenge of the new interna-

tional economic environment and, at that time, the deficit

and debt problems of Ottawa.30 The barriers to trade flow

between the provinces remained extensive while inter -

national barriers were being removed, even with federal

attempts to reduce the burden.31 One provincial estimate

identified five hundred internal government restrictions on

the movement of goods, services, people and capital in

Canada at the start of the decade.32 And while trade between

the provinces was wallowing in paperwork, negotiation for

the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) were

begun in June 1990, taking 14 months until agreement in

1992 and then full implementation in 1994.33 At that point,

$12.5 billion was traded through customs to the United

States, with $96.6 billion in return.34 Problematic as NAFTA

has become, the trading routes of NAFTA and Europe were

now the key to successful provincial trade.35 What made

this challenge all the greater for federalism in Canada was

that despite attempts at protection, this process has been

encouraged by governments themselves, acting as the

midwives of globalization in the pursuit of economic growth

in ever more competitive markets.36 Trade with America at

the end of the 1990s may indeed have created the ‘workable

continent’ of balance and coherence, not conflict and oppo-

sition37, but it may have even further eroded the coherence

of Canada’s national economy.

‘What’s a nice country like Canada doing in a mess like

this?’38

Canada’s political structures have been challenged by the

processes of globalisation and by those who dispute any

claimed consensus of national foundation. The ‘old national-

ism’ articulated in the Tremblay Report (1956) accepted

federalism so long as it was understood as a classical variety

that enabled Quebec to maintain its traditional way of life.39

Federalism was perceived as necessary centralisation post-

94 The moral foundations of constitutional change

Great Depression and post-1945 allowing the French and

English traditions to co-exist with minimal interaction

between one another. However necessary for that time, by

the 1990s it is argued that Confederation had became

unsatisfactory, privileging difference over assimilation

despite Canada being the first nation to adopt a formal

policy on multiculturalism in 1971.40 Further contributing to

division over integration within Canada, both the Meech

Lake and Charlottetown Accords gave the provinces the

opportunity to exclude themselves from federal policy and,

importantly, to receive financial recompense for the imple-

mentation of an alternative policy at the provincial level.41

The argument has been that the failure of the two Accords

led to a ‘deep philosophical difference’ where there was no

longer a belief in ‘mega constitutional policies’ and instead

local provincial solutions were sought.42 The Canadian

government, accused of exacerbating the economic effects

of globalisation and the realignment of the provinces, is

now accused of prioritising difference over integration in its

proposals for constitutional reform.

LaSelva’s search for the moral foundations of feder-

alism is derived conceptually from civil society. Here ‘a

complex form of fraternity … can promote a just society

characterised by humanistic liberalism and a democratic

dialogue’.43 Despite the challenge to federalism so far exam-

ined, there is still to be found evidence of a Canadian belief

in the founding principles of Confederation. But it was a

belief, significantly, adapted to favour multiculturalism and,

as important, saw recourse by the federal state to civil

society. Completed on Canada Day in 1991, the year after

the clock stopped on Meech Lake, the Citizen’s Forum on

Canada’s Future, under the chairmanship of Keith Spicer,

presented itself as ‘a democratic process which Canadians

have found liberating’.44 The Citizen’s Forum had begun

with asking ‘Does the Canadian family still want to live

together? And if it does, how? If Canadians at the grassroots

level could have a substantive role in shaping their country’s

future, what would be the Canada of their dreams?’ Its

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 95

survey, in response to the possibility of Quebec’s secession,

and from other issues, came to the conclusion that ‘… a

more thoughtful and heartfelt English speaking sense of

community is in the making, and gaining quickly’.45 It was

an extensive survey, over 400,000 Canadians participated in

the forum and 75,069 toll-free ‘idea’ calls were made. There

were innumerable meetings, plays, songs, poems and letters

as well as those who joined in with local organisers to work

through government resource packs or the 300,000 elemen-

tary and secondary school children who contributed to the

separate report Young People Speak.46 The Citizen’s Forum

identified equality and fairness in a democratic society as

the greatest wish of those consulted, and although fear was

expressed over increasingly vocal minority interests, it was

recorded that natives had been treated unfairly. There was

a belief in conciliation and dialogue, the importance of

accommodation and toleration, support for diversity

(linguistic, regional, ethnic, cultural), a belief in Canadians’

compassion and generosity, and an attachment to Canada’s

national security and world image.47 It found that the

majority of participants, except for Quebec, wished to see

central government manage the economy and unify the

different groups and regions of the Canadian nation.48 Again

outside Quebec, attachment to Canada was stronger than the

provincial identity. The respondents did regard Quebec as a

‘nation’, but were vocal in denying it special privileges

above those of the other provinces.49 This reflected the rise

of ‘equality-seeking’ groups, in particular the First Nation

rebuttal of the ‘consent’ argument and the ‘long history’

analysis of Confederation.50 The report of the Citizen’s

Forum agreed that the founding cultures idea objected to by

Aboriginals was also undermined by the 37 per cent of all

Canadians who were neither French or English in origin51

(In 2001, 18.4 per cent of the Canadian population were

born outside of Canada, the highest for seventy years52).

The argument unearthed by the consultation was that

all Canada’s peoples could be accommodated because it

had been done before, in the Confederation process. The

96 The moral foundations of constitutional change

Citizen’s Forum was an appeal to the inclusive Canada that

‘English Canada’ believed itself to represent, rejecting

an alternative history of Confederation tied to the two

traditions. Not ‘English Canada’ or ‘French Canada’, not

even ‘hyphenated Canadians’ - but the respondents’ recalled

a federal Canada where all cultures could be integrated.53

The Citizen’s Forum appealed to the foundations of

Canada as a country grown out of difference, yet the first

part of this article examined the argument that global

economic and political developments undermined feder-

alism, and that Quebec nationalism and First Nation

claims will thwart any manufactured consensus around

Confederation. If all parts of Canada are to stay within the

federal arrangement, the lesson from this decade, through

contemporaries’ use of history and their recourse to civil

society, is that some mechanism to accommodate diversity,

both ethnic and national, has still to be found. If it is to

happen, it will be because there develops a political will

stronger than the centrifugal pressures of globalisation

and because any future realignment reflects consensus on

Canada’s founding legislation. Perhaps the answer is to

downplay structural change and appeal instead to ‘common

values’?54 And while globalisation may overtake the

founding principles of Canada, it also provides the potential

means through which a new meta narrative could be found

to revitalise federalism.55 After all, the trick in a globalised

world, argues Dyer, is that politics must also be globalised.56

The ambiguity of the ‘distinct society’ clause within the

Meech Lake Accord and, with its collapse, Quebec premier

Bourassa declaring his intention to deal only with Ottawa

and not the provinces, did little to promote multiculturalism

or global values, playing up the two nation approach

instead.57 Various solutions have since been proposed:

asymmetrical federalism; decentralisation to all provinces;

or supra-federalism with a parliament for Canadian-Quebec

issues; but the impasse remains.58 Multiculturalism may be

the contemporary view of Canada’s foundation history in

‘English Canada’, but not elsewhere; constitutional reform is

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 97

challenged from developing alliances within the provinces, by

globalisation undermining national economic and political

unity, and by alternative histories. How likely it is that little

change will occur until, as Dyer suggests, identity is glob-

alised, and the impasse is sidelined? This deadlock stands in

comparison to Britain in the same decade. In Scotland and

Wales at least, a claim was made to the apparent ‘settled will

of the people’, a dominant view of their respective nation’s

constitutional history within Britain.59 By sidelining the

formal political process, these were again debates mobilised

in civil society.

Constitutional Reform within Britain: campaigning in

civil society

As the British state responded to the global pressures of the

second half of the twentieth century, constitutional reform,

as in Canada, was analysed amid suspicions of government

practices that were no longer relevant.60 The economic

challenge had come from the enlargement of the European

Union, deregulation of industry, and the impact of the global

operation of multinational companies on national economies.

The most vociferous proponents of constitutional change,

and where comparison can usefully be made with the debate

in Canada, were found in Scotland. In that nation it was

eighteenth-century union, rather than nineteenth-century

confederation, which acted as the historical conduit of

democracy and social integration. The moral foundations

of Scottish nationhood has been traced at various times even

earlier, to the language of the Declaration of Arbroath

(1320) and the heroics of medieval patriots William Wallace

and Robert Bruce, but its constitutional debate hung on the

equality of the nation in early eighteenth-century union with

England.61 The organised political manifestation of this

identity was located in republicanism in the 1790s and

1820s, in federalism from the 1830s, in equality and

empowerment for the localities in the 1850s, only turning

into the political structure of ‘Home Rule all round’ – a

federalist response – from the 1880s. Recognition of the

98 The moral foundations of constitutional change

institutional difference of Scotland within the UK structure

was the rationale for the creation of a Scottish Secretary and

a Scotch, later Scottish Office in 1885 to administer that

nation’s affairs. Set up in London with a staff of six and

budget of £3000, it was declared by Prime Minister Lord

Salisbury that it would ‘redress the wounded dignities of the

Scotch people’. In many ways it was a thin response in

contrast to what the Gladstonian Liberals were offering

Ireland’s push for self-determination. It fuelled dissatisfac-

tion within the Scottish Liberal Party and the Scottish Home

Rule Association formed to provide Scotland with its first

nationalist organisation mobilising a parliamentary chal-

lenge to the union of 1707.62 The Scottish Office had little

role other than one of administrative negotiation between

the local authorities and Westminster, but with its shift of

site to Edinburgh (1934-39) it is credited with being central

to significant changes in governance.63 It acted as a hub

around which a managerial class developed within Scotland,

establishing an agenda and career structure that was Scottish

within Britain.64 By its centenary it had grown to a staff of

9,700 and the fifth largest spending department in the

United Kingdom with a budget of £6.9 billion.65 It existence

meant the development of a semi autonomous Scotland,

establishing administrative power of action and the remit to

question all aspects of government. It was also part of the

process which saw the transition of civil society away from

its pre-twentieth century formation, a conglomeration of

free-standing and modular organisations and associations, to

a new layer of top-down government appointed administra-

tive structures.66 The ‘commanding heights’ of civil society

became bound up in devolved structures as the Scottish

Office gathered in powers and redistributed them through

ad hoc committees and other semi-autonomous bodies. Civil

society was no longer enshrined and empowered by the state

as much as it was permeated and, compared to what had

gone before, penetrated by the state.

The Scottish nationalists had politicised the foundation

history of the nation in the early decades of the twentieth

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 99

century, but it was a nationalism never entirely captured by

political parties. From its formation in 1934 it was more

than a decade before the Scottish National Party achieved its

first elected MP in 1945. The seat was lost eight weeks later

and civil society still appeared the clearer channel when

nationalist luminary John MacCormick mobilised two

million to sign a Scottish Covenant in the year 1949-1950.

The party’s sustained electoral breakthrough did not come

until November 1967 bang in the middle of a period in

Canada’s constitutional history when bi-lingualism was the

subject of a Royal Commission.67 In Britain, the Labour

Government had given Wales a Secretary of State in 1964,

the Conservative opposition leader Edward Heath made

his ‘Declaration of Perth’ in favour of devolving power to

Scotland in 1968, and in 1969 the Royal Commission on the

Constitution was established ‘because there was obviously

some discontent with the workings of government, and the

outward signs of that discontent seemed to reflect especially

the frustrations of those living furthest from London’.68

The Commissioners directed their analysis on all the

regions and nations of the United Kingdom, including the

Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, the regions of England

but with especial attention on Wales and Scotland. The

perceived failure of a favourable economic return from

union with England was identified as the starting point of

Scotland’s dissatisfaction with the current political arrange-

ments.69 The Commissioners held 24 public sessions

through out the UK, with television coverage of those in

Edinburgh and Cardiff being a first for a Royal Commis-

sion.70 The Report identified a series of contradictory pres-

sures destabilising the constitution. Most notable, the

existence of a national feeling that made London rule

unpopular in Scotland, yet, in apparent contradiction, it was

also perceived that the powers of the Scottish Office were

too great and were without sufficient democratic account-

ability.71 The Commissioners rejected the argument that

independence for Scotland or Wales would be economically

advantageous to those countries, even with the likely revenues

100 The moral foundations of constitutional change

flowing from oil exploration in the North Sea.72 Neither was

federalism a popular option in the evidence presented to the

Commissions; they concluded it was a system ‘designed and

is appropriate for states coming together to form a single

unit, and not for a state breaking up into smaller units’.73

The Canadian comparison was useful, but the pressures

were different. Having rejected federalism, as well as inde-

pendence or the status quo, and despite no agreement on the

form it would take, devolved assemblies were proposed for

Scotland and Wales.74 The proposals from the Commission

went beyond the report of the Scottish Constitutional

Committee report in 1970 to Heath, which supported a very

limited Scottish assembly.75 With both Labour and the

Conservatives now joining the nationalists in the push for

devolution to regain the believed equality of the 1707

bargain, momentum for constitutional reform had grown.76

The nationalists achieved their highest share of the vote at the

1974 (October) general election, gaining 11 MPs. Requiring

nationalist support to stay in power, the minority Labour

administration offered rapprochement through Our Changing

Democracy: Devolution to Scotland and Wales published as

a White Paper the next year.77 It agreed with the Kilbrandon

Report on the rejection of federalism and independence for

any part of the United Kingdom78, but stated ‘that some-

thing more is needed – the creation of elected as well as

administrative institutions distinctive to Scotland and

Wales’.79 The initial proposal called for an assembly of 142

members, two representatives for each of Scotland’s 71

Parliamentary constituencies. It was ‘to meet the growing

desire to bring democratic control nearer to home’, yet

struc tured to keep power at the centre having determined

‘there are several matters in the industrial and economic

field which cannot be handed over to the Assemblies’. Those

powers would remain with the Scottish and Welsh Secre-

taries and within the UK government.80

What was different in the 1970s from the previous 120

years of nationalist agitation was the advocacy for devolu-

tion from the political party in power amid support from its

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 101

rivals. Bruce Millan, the Labour Scottish Secretary of State,

allowed himself to be pictured in the soon to be completed

Assembly chamber in order to argue the nation’s governance

would be better managed under devolution.81 Yet the Labour

Party, as a UK party, and a party of state centralisation, was

not unanimous in promoting measures that might lead to

the break up of British-wide social and economic planning,

most notably in matters of health, welfare and income

management. Such doubt amongst Labour MPs meant

conflicting interests and further, or any, constitutional change

was far from likely. Their government’s use of a single Bill

to outline the devolutionary proposals for both Scotland and

Wales was significant for framing the general disappoint-

ment and confusion with the proposed schemes, even

amongst long standing proponents.82 The Bill contained few

specific principles on what was to be devolved to Edinburgh or

reserved for Westminster; it was remarkably uninformative

and bland in its rhetoric.83 A late wrecking clause added by

the Scots-born London Labour MP George Cunningham

required that at least 40 per cent of those entitled to vote

should endorse the measure if it was to make it onto

the statute books. Prior to its third reading, The Scotsman

published the voting record of all the Scottish MPs on the

nine divisions on the Bill hitherto. It also showed the crucial

support of five Labour MPs and all the Conservative

members meaning that the 40 per cent amendment was

passed by 168 votes to 142, with the Scottish MPs voting

33 against and 13 in favour.84 The clause had the desired

effect, turning victory into defeat for the devolutionists. Of

the 2,387,572 ballot papers counted at the referendum,

1,230,937 voted yes, 1,153,502 voted no, while 3,133 papers

were invalid.85 With non-votes from the electorate counted

as no votes, it was insufficient to change the constitution.

Nationalists argued it was the weakness of the form of

devolution that prompted its rejection.86 About 66 per cent

of the working class voters voted yes, while less than half

of the middle class voters did so, and the Labour Party,

confounded by the recently strengthened nationalists87, and

102 The moral foundations of constitutional change

unwilling to join forces88, presented a disunited case. Yet it

is hard not to conclude that the voters were more concerned

with rising inflation and growing unemployment than a

poorly drafted constitutional proposal that their party leaders

could not agree on. Recent experience of local government

reform, in 1974, was not immediately beneficial and loudly

criticised for its expense. It inevitably led to doubts about

another layer of government and fears over the cost of

setting up something without powers sufficiently greater

than already held within the Scottish Office. This had

informed the persuasive rhetoric of the ‘Say No’ campaign:

‘More taxes. More Government. More Conflict. More

Bureaucracy. Less Power for us at Westminster. The Start

of the Break-up of Britain’.89 Defeat for devolution in

Wales, its referendum was held simultaneously with that of

Scotland, and its result was overwhelming, and the uncer-

tainty of the vote in Scotland, made it untenable for the

nationalists to continue to vote with the minority Labour

administration; the Scotland Act was repealed and Labour

lost a vote of no confidence. Two months later a general

election was held which resulted in the arrival of Margaret

Thatcher and the Conservatives into power. In a change of

policy, Heath’s declaration of Perth was ‘buried’90, and no

longer would devolution be supported by the government of

the day until Labour regained power in 1997.

‘The first glimmer [that] dawn was about to break’91

The strength of Thatcher’s state centralisation and narrow

British patriotism during her time as Prime Minister has

been analysed persuasively as the cause of her party’s

support falling away in Scotland, despite strength in

England, and for the eventual advancement of the case for

devolution.92 With divergence in the Conservative vote in

Britain, and its stated policy of opposition to devolution, the

debate and the stepping stones for constitutional action were

to be found elsewhere. As Labour’s Gordon Brown argued

in the aftermath of the referendum, the very presence

of administration would inevitably lead to something more

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 103

accountable: ‘Now that Scotland is administered, not

governed there is an overpowerful logic for full democratic

control’.93 But it would not come through the party political

process because of hostility in government and the contin-

uing failure of the SNP to take votes away from Labour. The

Scottish National Party’s Jim Sillars achieved victory in the

Glasgow Govan by-election on November 11 1988 with

a 38 per cent rise in the vote from the previous general

election, the party’s second biggest gain in its history. It

revived memories of Winnie Ewing’s dramatic by-election

victory for the SNP in 1967 and prompted Sillars to declare

‘Scotland Free by 1993’. 94 Yet a year later the SNP were

unable to go beyond 30 per cent in the opinion polls with a

new slogan, ‘Independence in Europe’.95 This failure to

advance was despite headlines such as ‘Scots worse off in

UK cash payout’, where the Scottish Office was presented

as unable to compete with the Welsh Office for resources,

let alone England, highlighting weakness in the current level

of administrative devolution.96 Added to this, the UK parlia-

ment’s Scottish Affairs Committee had failed to meet at any

time in the years 1987-92, leaving the Scottish Office

exempt from Parliamentary scrutiny and with little oppor -

tunity for Scottish Question Time and pubic accountability

of ministers.97

The constitutional debate of the 1960s and 1970s had

politicised constitutional proposals in Scotland in a way that

had been absent from Scottish nationalism since it first arose

in its modern form, but it had met a political impasse with

first the referendum defeat in 1979 and then the unflinching

opposition from the Conservative government. As in

Canada, the lack of consensus between state and electorate

pushed the focus onto civil society. Magazines such as

Radical Scotland (launched in 1983) and the broadsheet

press kept up an increasingly vociferous commentary on the

constitutional gridlock. The Scottish Government Yearbook,

established in 1978 prior to the first referendum, morphed

into Scottish Affairs in 1992, and created a public forum for

academics, policy makers, journalists and politicians. From

104 The moral foundations of constitutional change

once gaining over 50 per cent of the vote in the 1955 general

election, the Conservatives were a minority party in

Scotland, yet securely in power at Westminster. The rhetoric

of Scotland’s democracy was sharpened in opposition to this

state, but rather than through the ballot box where its votes

could not dislodge the preference of the English electorate,

it was the campaigning groups within civil society which

were to claim devolution as the moral right of the Scottish

people under union with England.

‘We say Yes, and We are the People’

Structuring this constitutional activity in the 1990s was

The Claim of Right for Scotland. This report of the Constitu-

tional Steering Group was presented to the Campaign for a

Scottish Assembly in 1988, its title evoking the Claims of

Right issued in 1689 and 1842, recalling especially the

latter’s opposition to state interference in spiritual govern-

ment at the time of the Disruption in the Church of Scotland.

Without a government appointed commission, as the Spicer

Commission was in Canada, it was a group where personal

influence created the agenda.98 The document outlined the

historical legacy of union, the ‘illusion’ of current democ-

racy and the ‘freedom than would entail from change’.99 Its

old-world gravitas inspired the political scientist Bernard

Crick to describe its Epilogue as ‘ris[ing] to the heights of

the great democratic statepapers of a former age’.100 The

management committee of the Scottish Constitutional

Convention, co-signatories of The Claim of Right, stated that

with ‘the production of the final scheme we have witnessed

men and women from all walks of life, from differing political

backgrounds and from various points of view, sharing

historically the common purpose of producing agreed

proposals for the way in which Scotland can decide its

own destiny’.101 This was not untypical rhetoric as groups,

associations and discussion forums looked to assert legacies

that empowered their actions in facing-down a government

opposed to constitutional change.

Counter arguments focused on the benefits of union

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 105

enabling the economic underpinning of Scotland’s institutions

as well as the current constitutional arrangements in Britain.

In a landmark speech to Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce

that year, the Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland

Malcolm Rifkand dismissed the demand for devolutionary

change as the actions of a few, arguing that Scotland’s

institutions and identity would be marginalised by ‘unilateral

devolution’ rather than remaining within the UK structure.102

But there were few variations on the rhetorical challenge

sustained in civil society to the policies of the government

of the day. The continuing success of the Conservative party

at the 1992 general election, despite picking up only 11 seats

out of a possible 72 in Scotland, was the kind of result

where, to borrow Rosie’s sporting metaphor, ‘The Tories got

thrashed 3-1 and still got to win the cup’. In one response to

this perceived democratic deficit, 25,000 people attended a

rally in Edinburgh on 12th December 1992, when Britain

hosted a summit meeting of European leaders, to highlight

their grievance.103 To quote the words of the pro-devolution

group Scotland United: ‘In a country where three-quarters of

the people have expressed their desire to govern themselves

through their own parliament, and where their government

have treated that desire with contempt … 5,000 journalists

from all over the world will be in Edinburgh to hear the lies

from that unelected government. It is our duty to be there to

tell the truth’.104 The Scotsman newspaper paraphrased

Rifkand’s successor as Scottish Secretary, Ian Lang, and

called it ‘a rag bag’ protest.105 Historian Bruce Lenman went

further, condemning the public squabbling between the

political leaders who took to the march, with the leader of

the SNP being accused of making ‘mischief, and ashes, of

the hopes of decent caring folks’.106

Despite the failure of the political parties to join with

each other, and with the pro-devolution groups, it was a

feature of the devolutionary debate that civil society was

embraced as the means through which the moral foundations

of Scotland’s place in Britain was to be mobilised. The

answer to a state that was so opposed to devolution was to

106 The moral foundations of constitutional change

by-pass it with as much independence of action as was

possible. By its nature, it took time to gain momentum. The

Campaign for a Scottish Assembly - renamed as the

Campaign for a Scottish Parliament - had been formed after

the failure of the 1979 referendum with the aim of uniting

cross-party support for home rule.107 The Campaign for a

Scottish Parliament brought about the Scottish Constitu-

tional Convention. Five years after publishing The Claim of

Right the group organised its own trial referendum, asking

the 28,000 citizens of Falkirk for their views in 1993. Deliv-

ered by post and by volunteers, the ballot paper asked if

Scotland should have its own parliament and, if so, should it

be separate from England.108 Results came from 7,788

returns, with 88 per cent in favour of a Scottish Parliament,

12 per cent against and, of those in favour, 54 per cent

wished it to operate within the UK and 46 per cent wished it

to be independent.109 With the equivalent of 28 per cent

voter turn out it was at the lower end of local election

polling, higher than recent postal ballots. While the method-

ology and sampling is questionable, it is important for

the argument here because not only was it an attempt to

organise action through civil society, it was an endeavour to

replicate the legitimacy of government through voter

choice.110 Other pressure groups were quick to follow.

Common Cause, a group of academics and thinkers, became

an influence on public opinion.111 Scotland United was

another. Set up in 1992, it was notable for its mass demon-

strations in Glasgow. It proposed the sale of a ‘Scottish

Parliament Bond’, ranging in value from £5 to £100, to fund

the estimated £2.5m cost of a Scotland-wide referendum,

with the bonds redeemable when the parliament was estab-

lished.112 Democracy for Scotland organised the high profile

vigil on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, outside the Scottish Office

and next door to the former Royal High School, the long

identified home of a future Scottish parliament. Scotland

Forward was launched with a gathering of 600 in Edinburgh’s

Assembly Rooms, using readings from writers such as

Alisdair Gray, A.L.Kennedy, Liz Lochead and Douglas Dunn

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 107

plus comedy nights, ceilidhs and political debates to raise

money for its activities.113 The Coalition for Scottish Democ-

racy acted as an umbrella organisation for these groups

while the creation of a Scottish Civic Assembly to represent

the whole breadth of Scottish civic life and society was

adopted by the Coalition for Scottish Democracy.114 A series of

‘destiny marches’ converged on Edinburgh to commemorate

the first anniversary of the 24 hour vigil, and at every town

passed on their way a ‘Declaration of Calton Hill’ was read,

stating their demands; upon arrival at their final destination,

a ‘Democracy Cairn’ was built.115 With Doctors for Devo lu -

tion making the case for the devolution of health care,

without doubt the range and depth of organisational activity

promoting constitutional change had reached a new intensity.116

The Constitutional Convention comprised 80 per cent

of Scotland’s MPs and MEPs plus councillors from the

Regions, Districts and Islands. It included representatives

from the Scottish churches, from industry, and members of

the Scottish Labour Party, the Social and Liberal Democrats,

the Green Party, the SDP and the Communist Party.117 It

also embraced the Scottish Trades Union Congress and a

number of civic groups, but the Scottish Conservatives and

the Scottish National Party were not involved. After six

years of campaigning the Convention and the Labour

and Liberal coalition came to a proposal for a 129 member

Scottish parliament with tax-varying powers. Its proposals

were made in an announcement full of foundation history

symbolism connected to the Union of 1707 and its descent

from equality into ‘greed, grab and gluttony’ that was now

to be ‘righted’.118 It was an emotive launch on St Andrew’s

Day 1995 where the headlines were captured by Canon

Kenyon Wright, the co-Chair of the Convention, who asked:

‘What happens when that other voice we know so well

says, ‘We say No, and We are the State’. Well, we say Yes,

and We are the People’.119 The Convention’s document

Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right outlined the histor-

ical argument for devolution and proposed the form it could

take.120 The principle of subsidiarity, where decisions are

108 The moral foundations of constitutional change

taken at the lowest possible level, was built in to the scheme.121

Its tax-varying powers of 3p in the pound were described

as a ‘Tartan Tax’ by Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth.122

Forsyth had explored the option of devolution as a response

to the perceived remoteness of London rule, but came to the

conclusion that more need only be devolved to the local

authorities and to present himself as the ‘listening Secretary

of State’.123 Forsyth made a high profile attempt to appease

national identity in Scotland with the return of the Stone

of Destiny after 700 years. The Stone, upon which the kings

of Scotland were crowned, was removed from Scotland

by Edward I in 1296 or 1297.124 Perhaps because of the

mixed message of monarchical symbolism at a time of

fierce democratic debate, the crowds that witnessed its

return stood in hushed silence.125 But it was the economic

argument, not the symbolic one, which sustained the

Unionist opposition to devolution, an analysis picked up

by others. Writing in 1996 the Montreal based journalist

Sean Denny’s contribution to the debate noted that

throughout the year since Quebec narrowly voted to remain

part of Canada the talk of independence had undermined

investors’ confidence. He informed a Scottish readership

that the corporate world had helped people travel from all

over Canada to attend the No rally in Montreal on 27th

October, with some Canadian airlines offering up to 90 per

cent discounts on fares for some of the 150,000 who gath-

ered there.126 Yet in Scotland the fears from the business

community were receding in comparison to their anxieties at

the general elections of 1979 and 1992 (when Labour was

close to victory and promising an Assembly).127 Debates,

and attacks, about what Scotland received via the Barnett

formula, first devised in 1978 to determine Scotland’s block

grant from Westminster, continued but were no longer

decisive.128 The SNP’s refusal to participate in the Constitu-

tional Convention was set aside, along with their insistence

that independence be their only cause, as they joined the

political-civil society coalition and supported the ‘Yes, Yes’

campaign in the 1997 referendum.129

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 109

For the Liberal Democrats, the publication of the White

Paper on devolution for Scotland and for Wales was a route

to UK-wide constitutional change embracing more open

government, a Bill of Rights, electoral reform and further

decentralisation.130 It was accompanied by plans, later aban-

doned, for regional devolution in England.131 The SNP’s

Citizens not Subjects blueprint called for a written constitution

and a single chamber parliament, with sovereignty resting

with the people not the Crown.132 The white paper was

filled with words that would not be out of place in classic

subscriber based voluntary organisations of the nineteenth

century, including ‘confidence’, ‘prosperity’, ‘fairness’,

‘investment’ and ‘democracy’.133 Labour Scottish Secretary

Donald Dewar declared at is launch: ‘The time is right, the

scheme is right – now is the time for Scotland to choose.’134

Notable was the proposal to gain democratic control of over

100 unelected quangos, the state-grab of civil society which

had increased over recent decades. It was a long-term target

of the broadsheet press, and an example of unfinished busi-

ness being dealt with.135 But not all regarded this as the

‘settled will’ of the people. The white paper was insufficient

to appease the Scottish Socialists who maintained a demand

for independence136, while for others it was but a pause

before the ‘inevitable’: Scotland on Sunday produced a

mocked-up version of its front page declaring Scotland’s

vote for independence, arguing that devolution was but a

means to that end.137 The joint Labour-Liberal campaign for

the 1997 referendum, ‘Yes-Yes’ (yes for a Scottish parlia-

ment and yes for tax-varying powers), resulted in 74 per

cent who voted in favour of a Scottish parliament while

63 per cent voted for that Parliament to have tax-varying

powers.138 In November 1998, the Campaign for a Scottish

Assembly announced its dissolution after nearly nineteen

years of activity.139 The parliament began its first session in

May 1999 with Winnie Ewing, as the oldest member, given

the honour of presiding, and proclaiming three-century-old

foundations: ‘The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on

the 25th day of March 1707, is hereby reconvened’.

110 The moral foundations of constitutional change

Creation of the parliament has not stopped debates

over an apparent democratic deficit in Scotland, but it continues

with less vibrancy. Gerry Hassan suggests one of ‘The

Myths that hold Scotland Back’ is that it is a free and open

social democratic country. He continues the criticism of the

unelected quangos still to be found in the gap between civil

society and the devolved parliament despite earlier attempts

to disempower them.140 Others think the Scottish Parliament

should do more. An ICM Poll in the first year of the new

parliament found 61 per cent believed it should use its

tax-varying powers to increase government spending.141

Surveys by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust found that 72

per cent wanted to strengthen the parliament’s powers at that

time and 66 per cent when the same question was asked in

2004.142 The ‘settled will’ that brought the parliament into

being is unclear about how far that power should be used.

Others warned the fledgling institution to tread warily.

Former Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind compared post

parliament Scotland with the never ending constitutional

debates in Quebec and the negative effect that uncertainty

had on the provincial economy compared to the rest of

Canada. He asks if Scots want to give their parliament a

chance to achieve stability or ‘do we want a period of con -

stitutional turmoil with serious consequences for our economic

wellbeing?’143 Some maintain that devolution has gone far

enough. A group of English MPs in Westminster complained

to the Scottish Affairs Committee in 2006 about the con -

tinuing influence of Scottish MPs and voiced opposition to

a Scottish MP ever becoming Prime Minister.144 When

such fears became reality with Gordon Brown (representing

Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) succeeding Tony Blair as

Prime Minister in 2007, and his appointment of Alistair

Darling (Edinburgh South West) as Chancellor, complaints

of unfair treatment continued.145

The many constitutional proposals and reforms that

have dominated politics and society in the last quarter of the

twentieth century have seen ‘English Canada’ and ‘English

Britain’ persist in laying claim to particular histories, just as

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 111

those provinces and nations within each country have called

upon their own foundations. In Canada and Britain the

principles of past settlements are different, in each there is

variation in the constitutional parameters within which

national identity is formed. But both examples have shown

how civil society became the preferred home of democratic

renewal for all shades of opinion. When the state could not

achieve consensus on constitutional change, as was the case

in Canada, the people were consulted through a civic forum

to seek the way forward. Regional and inter-Province

co-operation came to support federalism but also to provide

a challenge to its coherence. Civil society was proffered as

the solution to an impasse, and increasingly so as support

for Quebec’s independence declined from a 1990 high

when that option was narrowly defeated in the 1995 refer-

endum.146 When the state was opposed to a perceived

‘settled will’ of the people, as in Scotland, civic groups were

formed to by-pass that state. In both cases the democratic

deficit of the state had widened under the pressures of the

global market, exacerbating lost legitimacy.147 It suggests

that civil society developed greater claim over the moral

foundations of the nation in the lead up to this period and

that it continued to claim this legacy. Change could not and

cannot be effected without the power of the state, but the

will of the people, however expressed, is paramount. One

cannot readily predict what further developments will occur

in Canada and Scotland, yet the lesson from the end of the

twentieth century is that much will depend on how, and by

whom, the moral foundations of the nation are commanded.

112 The moral foundations of constitutional change

Notes

The author is indebted to the Canadian High Commission in London

for funding the research upon which this chapter is based and to

Ian S. Wood for donating his archive on Scottish politics.

1On the globalisation of the local, see A. Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and

Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, Theory, Culture and

Society, 7: 2-3 (June 1990), pp. 295-310 and P. Dicken, ‘The Roepke

Lecture in Economic Geography: Global-Local Tensions: Firms and

States in the Global Space-Economy’, Economic Geography, 70: 2

(April 1994), pp. 101-128. The title of this chapter is indebted to S.V.

LaSelva, The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism: Paradoxes,

Achievements, and Tragedies of Nationhood (Montreal and Kingston:

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996).

2The clearest exponent of the underdevelopment thesis is E. Gellner,

Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983); For the debate in

Scotland, see M. Hechter, Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in

British National Development, 1536-1966 (London: Routledge and

Kegan Paul, 1975), chs. 1-2 for the theory, and chs. 3-6 for the empirical

evidence. For the counter argument, see T. C. Smout, ‘The core and

periphery in history’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 18: 3 (1980),

and, in reply, M. Hechter, ‘Internal Colonialism Revisited’, Cencrastus,

10 (1982). T. Nairn, The Break-up of Britain, 2nd edition (London:

Verso, 1981) ch. 1; D. McCrone, Understanding Scotland: the sociology

of a stateless nation (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 57-62; A. Giddens,

The Nation-State and Violence (London: Polity, 1985), pp. 161-171,

209-221.

3A. Giddens, The Third Way and Its Critics (Malden, Mass.,

Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). In practice, see An Accord between

the Government of Canada and the Voluntary Sector (Cat. No. CP32-

75/2001, December 2001).

4Renewing Democracy: Debating Electoral Reform in Canada.

Discussion Paper (Law Commission of Canada, Catalogue number:

JL2-20/2002), pp. 5, 11.

5Renewing Democracy, pp. 2-4, 13-14. The Commission based its

approach on The Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party

Financing (Lortie Commission) of 1992.

6The argument for the dominance of ‘democratic elitism’ in Canada is

made in M. Burgess, ‘Obstinate or Obsolete? The State of the Canadian

Federation’, Regional and Federal Studies, 9:2 (Summer 1999), p. 7.

7Renewing Democracy, p. 11.

8Burgess, ‘Obstinate or Obsolete’, pp. 9, 11, 13-14.

9This is also known as the Elgin-Marcy treaty.

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 113

10 R. Gibbons, Conflict and Unity: An Introduction to Canadian

Political Life, 3rd edition (Ontario: Nelson Canada, 1994), pp. 16-17.

11 D.C. Masters, ‘Reciprocity’, in W.S. Wallace (ed.), The Ency-

clopaedia of Canada, Vol. V (Toronto: University Associates of Canada,

1948), pp. 228-230. A Whiggish history, entitled ‘The Road to the

Agreement’ is outlined in the Canadian government’s The Canada-US

Free Trade Agreement: Synopsis, second edition, 17-11-88. (Published

by the Minister of Supplies and Services Canada, 1988), pp. 2-4.

12 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations.

13 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations, p. 9

14 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations, p. ix

15 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations, p. x

16 Savoie has argued that MacDonald created an easily understood

concept of the ‘centre’ which the provinces could readily regard as

beneficial, D. J. Savoie, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration

of Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto, Buffalo, London: University

of Toronto Press, 1999), pp. 20-22; A. Henderson, Hierarchies of

Belonging: National Identity and Political Culture in Scotland and

Quebec (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press,

2007), p. 22.

17 Henderson, Hierarchies of Belonging, p. 45.

18 P. Hirst & G. Thompson, Globalization in Question (Cambridge:

Polity, 1996); M. Linklater, ‘Globalization of the Media: the impact on

national cultures’, in J. M. Fladmark (ed.), Sharing the Earth: Local

identity in global culture (London: Donhead, 1995); M. Mann, ‘Nation-

states in Europe and other countries: Diversifying, developing, not

dying’, in G. Balakrishnan (ed.), Mapping the Nation (London: Verso,

1996); I. Wallerstein, The Modern World System (New York: Academic

Press, 1989); G. Morton & A. Morris, ‘Civil Society, Civic Community:

breaking the rural-urban continuum in the global age?’ in C. Di

Domencio, A. Law, J. Skinner, M. Smith (eds.), Boundaries & Identities:

Nation, Politics and Culture in Scotland (Dundee: University of Abertay

Press, 2001).

19 Gibbons, Conflict and Unity, p. 22.

20 Gibbons, Conflict and Unity, p. 17.

21 S.G. Tomblin, Ottawa and the Outer Provinces: The Challenge of

Regional Integration in Canada (Toronto: James Lorimer & Co.

Publishers, 1995), p. 1

22 Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for

Canada (Ottawa: Liberal Party, 1993), p. 59.

23 Tomblin, Ottawa and the Outer Provinces, p. 80.

24 Council of Maritime Premiers In the Sprit of Cooperation: Laying the

Foundation 1991-1993, p. 6. A review of their activities can be found in

114 The moral foundations of constitutional change

their 20th anniversary report, published by the Council of Maritime

Premiers, pp. 11-12.

25 Standing Up to the Future: the Maritimes in the 1990s (The Council

of Maritime Premiers, December 1989), pp. 1-3.

26 The Maritime Forum of Cabinets, June 17-18, 1991, held in Moncton,

New Brunswick produced reports on, amongst other matters, ‘Economic

Integration of Maritime Agriculture’, Transport Regulation’, ‘Govern-

ment Procurement and Contracting’, and ‘Improving Technological

Innovation and Diffusion’, p. 1.

27 Council of Maritime Premiers In the Sprit of Cooperation, pp. 7-8, 9-13.

28 Tomblin, Ottawa and the Outer Provinces, p. 5.

29 Tomblin, Ottawa and the Outer Provinces, p. 9.

30 K. Norrie and M. Percy, ‘A Canada-Quebec partnership: the

Economic Dimensions’ in R. Gibbins & G. Laforest (eds.), Beyond the

Impasse: Toward reconciliation (Montreal: Institute for Research on

Public Policy, 1998), p. 85.

31 J. Shields & B. M. Evans, Shrinking the State: Globalization and

Public Administration ‘Reform’ (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 1998),

p. 25.

32 Canadian Federalism and Economic Union: Partnership from Pros-

perity (Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1991), pp. 1, 17-21.

33 NAFTA What’s it all about? (External Affairs and International Trade

Canada, c.1994), pp. 10-11. The initial success of NAFTA was recorded

as a 97% ‘very satisfied’ rate amongst its clients in 1994, NAFTA Secre-

tariat, Canadian Section, 1999-2000 Estimates A Report on Plans and

Priorities (Honourable Sergio Marchi, Minister for International Trade).

34 NAFTA What’s it all about?, p. 3.

35 Shields & Evans, Shrinking the State, p. 30.

36 J. Brodie, ‘The Challenge of Governing: Women and Changing State

Forms’, in J.J. Guy (ed.), Expanding Our Political Horizons (Toronto:

Harcourt Brace), p. 386.

37 Victor Konrad, quoted in A. Smith, ‘Doing the Continental: Concep-

tualizations of the Canadian-American Relationship in the Long twen-

tieth Century’, Canadian-American Public Policy, 44 (Dec. 2000), p. 25.

38 The Economist, ‘A Survey of Canada’, (June 29th 1991), p. 3.

39 The Tremblay report; report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on

Constitutional Problems. Edited and with an introduction by David

Kwavnick, Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems

(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, c.1973).

40 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations, p. 178.

41 Gibbons, Conflict and Unity, p. 30. The notwithstanding clause has its

origins in Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1981) and in a

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 115

decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1988 on the use of the

French language in the cases of Chaussures Brown and Devine.

42 D. G. Lennihan, G. Robertson, R. Tassé, Canada: Reclaiming the

Middle Ground was published as part of the IRPP’s Governance Project,

‘Canadian Federalism: Options for Change’ (Montreal: The Institute for

Research on Public Policy (IRPP), 1994), pp. 5-6.

43 LaSelva, The Moral Foundations, p. xiii. Examination of the concept

of civil society in a number of national settings can be found in G.

Morton, B. de Vries and R.J. Morris (eds.), Civil Society, Associations

and Urban Places: Class, Nation and Culture in Nineteenth-Century

Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006).

44 Citizen’s Forum on Canada’s Future, Report to the people and

Government of Canada, 1991, p. 2.

45 Citizen’s Forum, p. 3.

46 Citizen’s Forum, p. 16.

47 Citizen’s Forum, pp. 35-42. Survey work in 1995 found this self

confidence continuing with 97% of Canadians regarding their country as

the best in the world, quoted in H.D. Clarke and A. Kornberg, ‘Choosing

Canada? The 1995 Quebec-Sovereignty Question’, PS: Political Science

and Politics, 29:4 (December 1996), p. 676.

48 Citizen’s Forum, p. 47.

49 Citizen’s Forum, pp. 49, 65. To quote the report: ‘Forum participants

were very often quite willing to recognise Quebec’s cultural and

linguistic distinctiveness. What they cannot accept is that the provincial

government of Quebec should have special powers deriving from this

cultural distinctiveness that would have the effect of creating two

different definitions of the rights and obligations of Canadian citizen-

ship’, pp. 54-55.

50 Lennihan, Robertson, Tassé, Reclaiming the Middle Ground, pp. 63,

68, 86-7.

51 Citizen’s Forum, p. 57.

52 Ethnic Diversity Survey: Portrait of a Multicultural Society (Statistics

Canada, Catalogue no. 89-593-XIE, Minister of Industry, 2003), p. 4.

53 Citizen’s Forum. p. 88.

54 Lennihan, Robertson, Tassé, Reclaiming the Middle Ground, pp. 6,

58, 61, 101-102. See also, P.R. Russell, ‘The End of Mega Constitu-

tional Politics in Canada?’, PS: Political Science and Politics,

26:1 (March 1993).

55 Lennihan, Robertson, Tassé, Reclaiming the Middle Ground,

pp. 36, 55. The opportunity for exploiting communication changes

in the modern globalisation process is discussed in A. Morris and

G. Morton, Locality, Community and Nation (London: Hodder and

Staughton, 1998), pp. 119-131.

116 The moral foundations of constitutional change

56 G. Dyer, ‘Globalization and the Nation-State’, Behind the Headlines,

53:4 (September 1996), p. 14.

57 R. Sheppard. ‘The Road to Meech Lake’, in Granatstein and

McNaught (eds.), “English Canada” speaks out, pp. 44-5.

58 Whittaker, ‘With or Without Quebec?’, p. 19.

59 The phrase is attributed to Labour leader and Scottish MP John Smith

who died in 1994 while in office.

60 This debate focused on Thatcherism and ‘rolling back’ the state in

the 1980s before attention turned to expansion of the European Union in

the 1990s. S. Hall and M. Jacques, The Politics of Thatcherism (London:

Lawrence and Wishart, 1983); D. Kavangh, Thatcherism and British

Politics: The End of Consensus? (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1990); S. Kendrick and D. McCrone, ‘Politics in a Cold Climate:

The Conservative Decline in Scotland’, Political Studies 37: 4 (1989);

P. John, ‘Centralisation, Decentralisation and the European Union: The

Dynamics of Triadic Relationships’, Public Administration, 74: 2 (1996).

61 G. Morton, William Wallace: Man & Myth (Stroud: Sutton Publishing,

2004) charts the use of the Wallace myth in national identity since the

sixteenth century.

62 G. Morton, ‘The First Home Rule Movement in Scotland, 1886 to

1918’, in H.T. Dickinson & Michael Lynch (eds.), The Challenge to

Westminster: Sovereignty, Devolution and Independence (East Linton:

Tuckwell Press, 2000), pp. 120-121.

63 I. Levitt, ‘The Scottish Secretary, the Scottish Grant Equivalent and

the Treasury, 1885-1970’, Scottish Affairs, 28 (Summer 1999); I. Levitt,

The Scottish Office, 1919-59 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1995).

64 A. Brown, D. McCrone and L. Paterson, Politics and Society in

Scotland (Houndsmills and New York: Macmillan Press and St Martin’s

Press, 1996), pp. 12-16.

65 The Scotsman, 15 December 1984. Four years later it had a staff of

6500 and a budget of £8 billion.

66 G. Morton, ‘Civil society, municipal government and the state:

enshrinement, empowerment and legitimacy, Scotland, 1800-1929’,

Urban History, 25:3 (December 1998), pp. 348-367.

67 The Scottish National Party’s Winnie Ewing won the Hamilton by-

election in Scotland while the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and

Biculturalism in Canada, which was set up in 1963, reported in 1967

and resulted in the Official Languages Act implemented two years later

by Prime Minister Trudeau. The Royal Commission on the Constitution

in the United Kingdom was established in 1969 under Lord Crowther

and, after his death, chaired by Lord Kilbrandon under whose name it

became known. Tom Nairn used the term ‘neo nationalism to compare

Scotland and Quebec in this period with each being a nationalism borne

out of relative advantage’, see his The Break-up of Britain.

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 117

68 Royal Commission on the Constitution, 1969-1973, Volume 1:

Report (Cmnd. 5460) (Chairmen, Lord Crowther, Lord Kilbrandon),

p. 3. Hereafter, Kilbrandon Report.

69 Kilbrandon Report, p. 25.

70 Kilbrandon Report, p. 11.

71 Kilbrandon Report, pp. 107-108. 112-114.

72 Kilbrandon Report, pp. 140, 146.

73 Their plan to have around 125 members, directly elected, that would

sit in Edinburgh for about 40 days each year to scrutinize Scottish

legislation, was deemed inadequate, Kilbrandon Report, p. 157.

74 ‘Eight of us favour a scheme of legislative devolution for Scotland.

Of those, all but two favour legislative devolution for Wales also.

Those two favour for Wales an assembly with deliberative and advisory

functions. One of us favours assemblies with deliberative and advisory

functions for both Scotland and Wales, with the addition in the case

of the Scottish assembly of some powers in relation to Parliamentary

legislation. Two of us, who support the principle of uniformity, favour

schemes of executive devolution for both Scotland and Wales (and for

the regions of England)’, Kilbrandon Report, pp. 336-7.

75 Kilbrandon Report, p. 293.

76 Lord Willie Ross was Heath’s Scottish Secretary who continued to

remind his party of its manifesto commitment to a Scottish Assembly,

The Scotsman June 11 1988 describing the constitutional debate of the

1970s.

77 Cmnd. 6348 (HMSO: November 1975).

78 Cmnd. 6348, p. 4.

79 Cmnd. 6348, pp. 4, 9.

80 Devolution: The new Assemblies for Scotland and Wales (Central

Office of Information, London: 1976), pp, 3. 13.

81 Yes! (Scottish Region of the General Executive Council of the

Transport and General Workers Union, c.1979).

82 J.P. Mackintosh, ‘Weakness of the devolution Bill’, The Scotsman

6 December 1976.

83 This point is made by Anthony Lester in the amusingly entitled

‘A Mess of English Porridge’, The Sunday Times 12 December 1976.

84 The Scotsman 22 February 1978.

85 Referendum on Scottish devolution: certificate of the Chief Counting

Officer, Sessional Papers 1979-80, Cmnd. 7530.

86 The former Conservative prospective MEP and writer Michael Fry,

despite supporting the Act, reflected on its failure to deal the West

Lothian Question (that is, Scottish MPs being able to vote on English

matters but not, once a Scottish Assembly was in place, English MPs

118 The moral foundations of constitutional change

voting on Scottish issues), the danger of excessive government, over-

representation of Scotland at Westminster and the proposed method of

election, M. Fry, ‘Claim of Wrong’, in O. D. Edwards (ed.), A Claim of

Right for Scotland (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1989), p. 96.

87 N. Ascherson ‘Back from the depths on Black Friday’, The Scotsman

3 March 1979.

88 Helen Liddell, at the Labour party’s launch of the Yes campaign,

declared her party would not ‘soil its hands’ with cross-party coopera-

tion, G. Hassan (ed.), A Guide to the Scottish Parliament (Edinburgh:

The Stationary Office, 1999), p. 26.

89 The Assembly. Know Your Mythology (Glasgow: Scotland Says No

Campaign, c.1979).

90 The Observer 4 March 1979.

91 K. Wright, The People Say Yes. The Making of Scotland’s Parliament

(Glendaruel: Argyll Publishing, 1997), p. 23.

92 McCrone, Understanding Scotland, pp. 146-173.

93 G. Brown, ‘Radical strategy for a Scottish Assembly, The Scotsman

11 April 1980, extract from H.M. Drucker and G. Brown, The Politics

of Nationalism and Devolution (London: Longman, 1980).

94 The Guardian 12 November 1988.

95 The Labour party responded with their own slogan, ‘independence

within the UK’, to stress the advantages of devolution over indepen-

dence. On Sillars, see: Scotland on Sunday 5 November 1989.

96 The Scotsman 17 November 1989.

97 Observer Scotland 8 July 1990. In 1993 The Conservatives were

unable to fill their six places on the Scottish Affairs Committee with

MPs representing Scottish constituencies, a further sign of Scotland’s

democratic deficit, The Scotsman 18 July 1993. The Conservatives

had won 11 seats at the 1992 election (compared to 49 Labour seats)

and won no seats in either Scotland or Wales in 1997 (Labour returned

56 MPs in Scotland).

98 The role of public opinion in the construction of civil society has been

more forcibly analysed by Habermas, see J. Habermas, The Structural

Transformation of the Public Sphere. An Inquiry into a Category of

Bourgeois Society, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1989).

99 A Claim of Right for Scotland (Edinburgh: Report of the Constitu-

tional Steering Committee Presented to the Campaign for a Scottish

Assembly, 1988), clauses 2.1-2.8, 3.1-4.9, 7.1-8.5.

100 B. Crick, Labour and Scotland’s Rights (East Lothian Constituency

Labour Party, c.1989), p. 17.

101 Towards Scotland’s Parliament. A Report to the Scottish People

by the Scottish Constitutional Convention (Edinburgh: The Scottish

Constitutional Convention, 1990), p. 3.

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 119

102 Glasgow Herald 16 April 1988; The Scotsman 16 April 1988.

103 The importance, or not, of this turnout was the subject of an open

letter debate between writer William McIlvanney and Shadow

Scottish Secretary George Robertson, published in Scotland on Sunday

10 January 1993.

104 Scotland United, Target Edinburgh 12.12.92 Demand Democracy

(flyer). The reference is to the three-quarters of the electorate who chose

political parties in favour of devolution at the 1992 general election.

105 The Scotsman 17 December 1992.

106 Bruce Lenman, ‘This common behaviour devalues the cause’,

The Scotsman 18 December 1992.

107 Scotland’s Parliament. Scotland’s Right. The Blueprint for Scotland

(Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, n.d., c.1997).

108 The Guardian 9 December 1993.

109 Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh Branch Newsletter,

February 1994; The Scotsman 14 December 1993.

110 The Scotsman 14 December 1993. The organizers noted that with

only 50 volunteers, rather than the 200 they believed necessary, they

were unable to collect every completed questionnaire, Campaign!

The Newsletter of the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, 4 February

1994, p.1.

111 Common Cause described itself as ‘a civic forum on Scotland’s

democratic future’. Its trustees were: Neil Ascherson, Moira Craig,

Judith Gillespie, Billy Kay, Isobel Lindsay, Bob McReadie, Jean

McFadden, William McIlvanney, Joyce McMillan, Stephen Maxwell,

Alan Miller, Andrew Morton, Tom Nairn, Marion Ralls, Debra Storr,

William Storrar.

112 The Scotsman 29 December 1992.

113 Scotland Forward, The Campaign for Scotland’s Parliament.

Newsletter one (n.p., c.1997).

114 Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, Briefing Note No. 15

(Replacing No. 4 ‘The Scottish Senate’).

115 The Scottish Secretary threatened to sell this building which had

become a nationalist totem, see Agenda of the National Autumn Confer-

ence of the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, 20 November 1993.

That the Royal High School was overlooked in favour of the Holyrood

site for the Scottish Parliament provides further confirmation of this

opposition. The Scotsman 10 April 1993, The Scotsman 11 April 1993.

116 Campaign for a Scottish Parliament, Briefing Note No. 17. An

insightful anthropological study of devolution campaign in civil society

is provided by J. Hearn, Claiming National Scotland: National Identity

and Liberal Culture (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2000).

120 The moral foundations of constitutional change

117 Scottish Constitutional Convention A Parliament for Scotland:

Discussion Leaflet (n.p., n.d.).

118 The Guardian 1 December 1995.

119 The Scotsman 1 December 1995. The sub-headlines were grabbed

by Rev Robert Waters’ description of the Union as being married to a

prostitute, with England depicted as a faithless harlot unable to resist

the material goods that selling her body could bring. Wright notes the

uncomfortable reception accorded this speech by Waters and his own

attempts later that day to stress the respect for all nations held by the

members of the Convention, Wright 1997, pp. 225-6.

120 Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right (Edinburgh: Constitutional

Convention, 1995).

121 The Scotsman 18 October 1995.

122 The Herald 11 July 1995. He also described the proposed tax powers

as producing a ‘jobs holocaust’, The Scotsman 24 October 1995.

Michael Forsyth replaced Rifkand as Scottish Secretary of State for

Scotland in 1995.

123 The Scotsman 18 October 1995, The Scotsman 5 October 1995.

124 For a brief history of the Stone, see F. Wallace Connon, The Stone

of Destiny (London: The Covenant Publishing, 1951).

125 See the report of its arrival in Edinburgh Castle overseen by the

Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth and, representing the Queen,

Prince Andrew, in Scotland on Sunday 1 December 1996. For its

journey from England, see: The Guardian 16 November 1996.

126 Sean Denny from the Montreal Gazette writing in Scotland on

Sunday 17 November 1996.

127 Scotland on Sunday 3 November 1996. One prominent businessman

called for a government taskforce to ease the private sector into home

rule, and help end the business community’s isolation from the debate,

The Scotsman 23 April 1996.

128 The Scotsman 14 November 1997.

129 The questions were: ‘1. I agree that there should be a Scottish Parlia-

ment or 2. I do not agree that there should be a Scottish Parliament’;

then: ‘1. I agree that a Scottish Parliament should have tax-varying

powers; or 2. I do not agree that a Scottish Parliament should have tax-

varying powers’.

130 The Scotsman 29 August 1997.

131 The Scotsman 1 December 1997.

132 Citizens not Subjects: The parliament and constitution of an indepen-

dent Scotland (Edinburgh: Scottish National Party, 1997). The Scotsman

7 February 1997.

Graeme Morton IRSS 33 (2008) 121

133 The Herald 25 July 1997. See R. J. Morris, ‘Civil Society, Subscriber

Democracies and Parliamentary Government in Great Britain’, in

N. Bermeo and P. Nord (eds.), Civil Society Before Democracy: Lessons

from Nineteenth-Century Europe (New York: Rowman and Littlefield,

2000); R. J. Morris ‘Urban Associations in England and Scotland,

1750-1914: the formation of the Middle Class or the Formation of a

Civil Society’, in Morton, de Vries and Morris (eds.), Civil Society,

Associations and Urban Places.

134 The Herald 25 July 1997, The Scotsman 25 July 1997. The Govern-

ment issued an information leaflet on the proposals: Scotland’s

Parliament. Your Choice (The Scottish Office: The Stationary Office

Scotland J13420 8/97, 1997).

135 Scotland Forward, The Campaign for Scotland’s Parliament,

Newsletter two (n.p., c.1997).

136 Campaign for Genuine Self-Determination (n.p., c.1997).

137 Scotland on Sunday 12 January 1997 prior to the general election

and subsequent referendum vote that year.

138 Preliminary results in The Scotsman 12 September 1997; full results

in The Scotsman 14 September 1997.

139 Campaign. Newsletter of the Campaign for a Scottish Parliament

(November 1999).

140 Gerry Hassan ‘The myths that hold back Scotland. The contradic-

tions at the heart of Scottish social democracy have to be faced up to’,

The Scotsman 17 July 2000.

141 The Scotsman 4 February 1999.

142 Cited in The Scotsman 20 December 2000, ‘State Of The Nation

Poll’, The Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd., 2004, p. 9.

143 The Scotsman 15 January 2001.

144 BBC News website 19 June 2006,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5094178.stm. It is notable that the

‘devolution Prime Minister’, Tony Blair, born in Edinburgh, emphasized

his loyalty first and foremost to the England of his childhood.

145 ‘Brown urged to get rid of the ‘Scots Mafia’’, Scotland on Sunday,

1 June 2008; The Herald 2 June 2008.

146 Henderson, Hierarchies of Belonging, p. 72.

147 See: M. S Weinert, Democratic sovereignty: authority, legitimacy,

and state in a globalizing age (New York: University College London

Press, 2007); Mann, ‘Nation-states in Europe and other countries’.

122 The moral foundations of constitutional change

ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.

Globalization in Question

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Full-text available

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Politics and Society in Scotland

Book

Jan 1998

List of Tables - Preface - List of Abbreviations - Chronology - Scottish Politics, 1707-1995 - Politics, State and Society - Politics and the Scottish Constitution - The Scottish Economy - Policy-Making in Scotland - Party Politics in Scotland - Electoral Change and Political Attitudes - Women and Scottish Politics - Ethnicity, Culture and Identity - The Scottish Question and the Future of Politics - Guide to Further Reading - References - Index

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In recent months there has been increased attention given to the post Parliament political situation in Scotland and, in particular, the relation between the dominant political party in the Parliament and the Westminster Government (Scottish Affairs 1997, nos 19-21). Even with Labour forming the largest group, there has been considerable speculation about possible sources of conflict ranging from educational policy to public transport, abortion law and fishery rights. Given the differing historical traditions, the dominant size of English institutions and wide diversity of interests between the regions of the UK, such conflict seems almost inevitable. Issues which previously could have been resolved by civil servants working with cabinet ministers in a myriad of Whitehall committees under the guise of 'collective responsibility' will form the subject of open debate when Scottish ministers are obliged to face a different constitutional body. Nevertheless, beyond the possible conflict over particular policies, there is a larger issue which is bound to dominate Edinburgh/Westminster relations and which the present UK Government, by announcing a three year comprehensive spending review, has largely side-stepped. Without doubt many have considered that the history of Scottish administration this century has been dominated by an acute concern amongst the Scottish electorate over public expenditure and the Treasury's reluctant recognition of Scottish conditions (McCrone 1992; Paterson 1994). It is perhaps this issue which has propelled the Scottish electorate into demanding an assertive Parliament and one which, if the opinion polls are correct, demands that the leading party speaks for the Scottish 'interest' with added voice. Yet, this in itself raises important issues of how far the UK Treasury should fund particularly Scottish ventures and Ian Levitt is professor in the Department of Historical and Critical Studies, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR 1 2HE. Scottish Affairs should be obliged to meet the exigencies of Scottish 'sentiment', irrespective of parallel English or other regional need. Moreover, it is by no means certain that either a future UK Conservative government or the British electorate will continue to accept a higher level of tax, if, on the one hand, the Parliament has its own tax-raising powers and, on the other, tries to argue that Scottish education, health and other needs require additional revenue transfer from England. To understand the predicament of the UK government towards future public expenditure in Scotland, it is necessary to consider the origins of the Scottish 'grant equivalent', the debates that ranged over its continuance and the role of the Scottish Secretary in promoting a political position that underpinned 'generous' grant allocation as an important binding mechanism of Unionist thought. Recent work has discussed the evolution of this thought and asserted the importance of public expenditure in the equation of support, but without providing a detailed discussion of the arguments used by Scottish Ministers in Cabinet or with the Treasury (Finlay 1998; Mitchell 1998). Other work has charted the differential growth of public expenditure in Scotland, but again without locating the policy debates that underpinned the additional grant-aid (Short 1981; Lee 1995). Further work has reviewed the impact and implication of the decision in the late 1970s to allocate public expenditure within the UK for 'domestic services' by a territorially based formula (the Barnett formula), initially according to shares in population, but more latterly re-adjusted because of alleged greater Scottish needs (Heald 1994). One thing is certain. The original grant was neither deliberately sought, nor did it evolve in any planned or consistently articulated fashion. However, by the 1960s there was broad political and administrative acceptance that Scotland's economic and social infrastructure required additional investment as a permanent feature of UK public policy. The paper will begin by looking at the introduction of the 'Goschen' grant, as it was termed, from 1888-1896, the evolution of argument for differential grant-aid during the inter-war period and finally Scottish attempts to institutionalise higher levels of aid across a much wider field of public expenditure between 1945 and 1970.

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