In 1979 the people of Scotland were given a chance to decide
their future. But was this one of the cynical episodes of recent times? This is
tale of UK Government intrigue and double dealing and how the fallout changed
the course of history.
‘Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat
it’. A quote by George
Santayana (16 December 1863 in
Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in
Rome, Italy) was a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist.
In 1969 Colonel Gaddafi had seized power in Libya in a
military coup. He now controlled a substantial part of the world’s oil supply.
In 1973 the Yom Kipour war between Israel, Egypt and Syria
erupted. The Americans supplied the Israelis with arms. OPEC responded by
raising the price of oil.
Remember the UK’s troubles in the 1970s: the strikes, the
crippling OPEC and oil supply crisis? The UK was so broke that it had to go to
the world’s banker the IMF for a loan. The IMF loan had its price, spending
cuts, and the impact of those cuts sent shock waves through Britain.
With the discovery of oil in the North Sea in the late 1960s
those people who believed Scotland should be a self governing nation received
an unexpected boost.
The black gold that has poured out of the North Sea has
pumped billions into the UK Treasury’s coffers. In 2005 the amount of money
totalled about 230 Billion pounds sterling in taxes from the oil companies on
the oil they have extracted.
Why was the evidence suggesting that an independent Scotland
could be amongst the richest countries in Europe and stamped SECRET and buried
in the UK’s archives for 30 years? The ‘McCrone’ Report was only released under
the Freedom of Information Act 2005.
An extract from the McCrone Report…
Large
revenues and balance of payments gains would indeed accrue to a Scottish
Government in the event of independence. The country would tend to be in
chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree and its currency would become
the hardest in Europe. The Scottish Pound would be seen as a good hedge against
inflation and devaluation, and the Scottish banks would expect to see
themselves inundated with a speculative inflow of foreign funds.
In March 1973 the SNP felt confident enough to take on the UK
Labour Party in their safe Westminster Parliamentary seat of Dundee East.
Dundee Harbour had become a base for oil rig supply ships. Their candidate
believed that Scotland should get a share of the profits from the oil.
The SNP’s growing profile raised the prospect that Scotland
may one day achieve independence and rest control of the oil from London and
the Westminster Parliament.
It was a future scenario that attracted the interest of some
powerful vested interests.
In 1974 the USA State Department appointed one of its most
distinguished diplomats to Edinburgh as Consul, Richard Funkhauser, who was
also an oil industry professional. But the arrival of the senior diplomat and
what he was there for caused some confusion.
The American Consul General was negotiating in some way; I
never knew the detail of it; with the SNP, according to Tony Benn, UK Secretary
of State for Energy June 1974 to May 1979 and Secretary of State for Industry
March 1974 to June 1975.
According to Gordon Wilson who became leader of the SNP in
September 1979 and held the post until September 1990 ‘There were rumours that
he might have been with the CIA which of course is the natural view of people
in those days when Governments were being brought down by that organisation
throughout the world’.
Whatever Funkhauser’s brief he listened to all sides. During
an earlier visit to Whitehall in 1973 he had a meeting with a high ranking
Foreign Office official who warned him that the Scottish Nationalists were a
very serious threat. But the man from Washington DC was not swayed by
Whitehall’s hardline. He adopted the pragmatic approach that the Nationalists
may well some day be in control of the oil.
In the past civil servants, MI5 and Special Branch were used
by Westminster to obstruct and even sabotage the Scottish Nationalist movement.
Did Edinburgh Police deliberately encourage young
Nationalists to commit bomb outrages and suopply them with dummy explosives?
It seems likely the police force in Edinburgh and everywhere
else in Scotland were given orders from the UK Government to take anything they
saw regarding nationalism or devolution seriously.
It was their opinion that we should keep an eye on everyone
as much as possible.
They would encourage the weakest or most wayward of them to
cause trouble. You would then inform the police where they could be found. This
would result in them being charged and bringing disrepute to their community or
group.
Gavin McCrone states ‘There were those in the civil service
who took a rather different view of this than they would normally do of
political issues because they felt that they had to work for the integrity of
the United Kingdom.’
In 1977 Berwick upon Tweed became central to a new campaign
by the civil servants of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. They wanted to
redraw the offshore border between Scotland and England (subsequently done when
devolution was finally granted in 1999) so that it ran North East, not due east
from Berwick upon Tweed.
Writing to Prime Minister James Callaghan’s Foreign Secretary
Anthony Crossland claimed that the recognised border due east of Berwick upon
Tweed would never stand international scrutiny and goes on to suggest ‘seeking
to inspire articles’ with selected public opinion formers’ and briefing back
bench MPs.
Crosland’s civil servants advised the Prime Minister:
‘However the dividing line was drawn it would give England a considerable area
of what are now Scottish waters. It might also have the effect of putting into
English waters a certain amount, and possibly even a great deal of oil’. ‘Information
Division has sought for a long time in briefing to undermine SNP claims to
North Sea Oil. In the process it has played on the Shetland Orkney uncertainty,
as well as the angle of any dividing line between England and a hypothetically
independent Scotland’.The line ’Indeed it is part of my ‘standard sales
patter’’ appeared in the same document.
March 1st 1979 Scottish Devolution Referendum Day.
Polling day opened. Both UK Labour and the Scottish
Nationalists were supposed to be campaigning for the same goal i.e. a Scottish
Assembly to be based in the Royal High School building in Edinburgh to deal with
Scottish internal affairs.
According to Gordon Wilson, future SNP leader ‘The Labour
Party in Dundee made no attempt to get out their vote and the same was true of
many other parts of the country. They didn’t fight for it. They didn’t believe
in it. They didn’t want it.’
There was also still the issue of the Cunninghame amendment
to the Scotland Act 1978. 40% of the registered electorate had to vote in
favour of a Scottish Assembly.
This important referendum was arguably conducted on an
electoral role that was substantially out of date.
According to Jim Sillars ‘When you actually looked at that in
detail the dead voted NO, because every electoral register dies about 1% a
month. So the dead counted NO; anyone who had been placed on the electoral
register like some of the American students in Edinburgh for example in the
halls of residence; they counted NO’.
The actual results of this referendum were as follows…
Western Isles 6218 Yes, 4933 No
Dumfries and Galloway 27162 Yes, 40239 No
Shetland Islands 2020 Yes, 5466 No
Central 71296 Yes, 59105 No
Fife 86252 Yes, 74436 No
Orkney Islands 2104 Yes, 5439 No
Border 20746 Yes, 30780 No
Tayside 91482 Yes, 93325 No
Grampian 94944 Yes, 101485 No
Lothian 187221 Yes 186421 No
Strathclyde 596519 Yes 508599 No
Highland 44973 Yes 73274 No
TOTALS 1230937 Yes 1153502
Therefore in spite of the majority in favour of a Scottish
Assembly the terms of George Cunningham’s 40% amendment meant not enough had
voted in favour.
It was therefore arguably fundamentally undemocratic. ‘Why
they asked is First Past the Post good enough for Westminster elections? Why
was a good enough for the referendum on the EEC? Why was it good enough for
those measures but not good enough for Scotland?’
Why was the evidence suggesting Scotland could be amongst the
richest countries in Europe stamped SECRET and buried in the UK archives for 30
years?
Extrract from the McCrone Report…
It is
hard to see any conclusion other than to allow Scotland to have that part of
the continental shelf which would have been hers if she had been independent
all along.
Margaret Thatcher swept to power in the UK General Election
of May 1979. For the next 11 years a committed unionist Prime Minister would be
in power.
The money from the oil off Scotland’s coast bank rolled
Thatcherism. The revenue from the North Sea allowed Margaret Thatcher to
reverse the policies of the 1970s. She believed in the free market or ‘laissez
faire’ economics. She even sold off Britain’s national oil company.
North Sea Oil increased the value of the pound and increased
the exchange rate. The City rejoiced as foreign capital flooded in and boosted
the financial services sector.
But there was a down side. Margaret Thatcher used that money
to restructure the economy of the UK as a whole. But in Scotland not everyone
agreed with how she spent the North Sea Oil revenues.
Throughout the 1980s there was escalating industrial unrest
in Scotland as unions fought to keep jobs. Massive unemployment followed. Money
that was at one time earmarked to boost industry was used to deal with the
consequences of its disappearance.
Gavin McCrone states ‘Looking back on it now you can say that
a large part of the oil revenues were used to pay for the unemployment that was
created in the early 1980s. That is not really what one would have liked to see
if you look at it objectively. If there had been a special fund for North Sea
Oil it could have financed all sorts of important things in Britain’s
infrastructuren which could have been important for economic develiopment’.
Gordon Wilson says ‘Not only did we have an unsympathetic
Prime Minister who was wiping out our industry but she was using money from
Scotland’s oil’.
Extract from the UK Government documents…
North
Sea Oil revenues could be used for the improvement of the North and South
circular roads to motorway standards and to build an outer ring road. Building
of the proposed Channel Tunnel might be reconsidered.
Further extract from UK Government documents…
The
notion that North Sea Oil revenues could used for the improvement of the north
and south circular roads may very well appeal to the commuting civil servant,
but it is impossible to present it as a measure to strengthen the UK economy as
a whole and it would therefore be political suicide for any Government that was
anxious to retain seats in Scotland.
Jim Sillars states that ‘What it brought home to us was that
no matter what political decision was taken north of the border it didn’t
matter unless it coincided with the decision taken south of the border. ‘
In this blog post I have sought to reveal how successive UK
Governments have used, and at time abused their power to keep Scotland in the
Union and sabotage the causes of devolution and independence. We have also
looked at UK Government files that show…
1.
How the Police were diverted from catching
criminals to spy on legal and peaceful SNP demonstrations.
2.
How the will of 2 million Scots was defied by
simply ignoring their demand for devolution.
3.
How the Edinburgh Police encouraged young
nationalists to commit bomb outrages and supplied them with dummy explosives.
4.
And how evidence that an independent Scotland
could be among the richest countries in Europe was stamped SECRET and buried in
the archives.
For anyone that cares about democracy such behind the scenes
attempts to undermine legitimate political movements are a cause for concern at
the very least. However, during this investigation it’s been of some comfort
that we are now able to access confidential files and documents that some
politicians might have preferred to remain secret forever.
Extract from the McCrone Report…
North
Sea Oil could have far reaching consequences for Scottish membership of the EEC
because of the tremendously increased political power it would confer. As the
major producer of oil in Western Europe Scotland would be in a key position,
and other countries would be extremely foolish if they did not seek to do all
they could to accommodate Scottish interests. This paper has shown that the
advent of North Sea oil has completely overturned the traditional economic
arguments against Scottish nationalism. For the first time since the Act of
Union was passed it can now be credibly argued that Scotland’s economic
advantage lies in its repeal.
Nick Robinson, BBC Economics Correspondent states ‘North Sea
Oil runs out very slowly whereas the flow of cash from the City can run out
just like that’.
The SNP Scottish Government would very much like to get their
hands on the oil revenues but argues that there should be an oil fund.
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz, ForMemRS,[1] FBA (born February 9, 1943),
is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He is
a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in
Economic Sciences (2001)
and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is a former
senior vice president and chief economist of the World
Bank and is a former member and
chairman of the (US president's) Council of Economic Advisers.[2][3] He is known for his
critical view of the management of globalization, laissez-faire economists (whom he calls
"free market fundamentalists"),
and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and theWorld
Bank.
He argues that the Scottish Government are absolutely right
on the matter of an oil fund. To him it is so upsetting and striking, and it
must be particularly for the citizens of the UK, that in a sense the UK
squandered that wealth and you mistook the success of the Thatcher era as a
success based on good economic policy when it was really a success based on
living off of your wealth and leaving future generations impoverished.
This article explains exactly why I and many others became a believer in
Scottish self determination i.e. the incompetence of UK Governments to manage
Scottish resources, and their ability to lie and cheat and use underhand
methods to maintain the integrity of the UK at all costs no matter what the
cost to the inhabitants of the whole of the UK or indeed in this case one part
of it. Scotland is a nation subsumed within the UK nation state. I am yet to
hear a reason why it cannot be a valuable but equal player in the modern world
in its own right. Why anyone would want to maintain the UK after the above, no
matter what the starting conditions for an independent Scotland is beyond me. I
cannot comprehend it.
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