Scotland devolution passes in 1979

[mullauna]

If the first Scottish home rule referendum in 1979 had passed and the First Secretary's Executive and the Assembly come into being, what happens when the probably Labour Party run Executive tries to neuter or nullify Thatcherism north of Hadrian's Wall? The Executive and Assembly have been established by popular consent so I don't see Thatcher abolishing it... not unless she wants Cyclone Haggis down around her head.

[stevep]

Sept 29, 2018 22:05:35 GMT mullauna said:

If the first Scottish home rule referendum in 1979 had passed and the First Secretary's Executive and the Assembly come into being, what happens when the probably Labour Party run Executive tries to neuter or nullify Thatcherism north of Hadrian's Wall? The Executive and Assembly have been established by popular consent so I don't see Thatcher abolishing it... not unless she wants Cyclone Haggis down around her head.

  Now that would have been interesting in the probably violent clash.  Given Thatcher's power fixation I doubt that the Assembly having popular consent would affect her much, as the GLC could claim the same thing, but that would have had some nasty effects in relations with Scotland.  Although she might also use it as a way of weakening Labour as it likely to strengthen the SNP and since the Tories were pretty much extinct in Scotland at the time that would reduce further any Labour [and probably alliance] representation in Parliament.  Which would further cement her majority in Parliament on a minority vote.

  It could also result in a Scots vote for independence at some stage when they get the change, as even the Tory strangle-hold on power won't last forever.  In fact you might get such a deal between New Labour and the SNP to get the Tories out.

  The only good thing out of it might be that while she's busy fighting the Scots she might be doing less damage to the rest of the country but unfortunately I wouldn't rely on it.

[kyng]

If there's going to be an independence referendum, then perhaps it could be called in 1995, to be held in 1997?

After all, at that point, Quebec had just had its own referendum where it very narrowly rejected independence, and Tory rule had lasted for 16 years. My guess is that such a referendum would see independence being rejected by a fairly wide margin, but it'd unify the pro-independence people under the SNP, who would win a large number of Scottish seats in 1997 (though, Blair would still easily win a nationwide majority anyway).

Under Blair, support for Scottish independence would decline to its OTL levels. However, in 2005, when the constituency boundaries are changed, Scotland wouldn't see such a sizable drop in the number of seats representing it in Parliament (in OTL, Scotland went from 72 seats in 2001 to 59 seats in 2005; in this timeline, that wouldn't be politically feasible)