Scottish Nationalists Score Come-From-Behind Win

Scottish nationalists were celebrating Friday a stunning victory in a special parliamentary election that produced one of the largest electoral reversals in postwar British history.

The Scottish National Party overcame a previously huge Labor Party majority to win the parliamentary seat representing the Glasgow constituency of Govan.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s ruling Tories, who control only 10 of Scotland’s 72 parliamentary seats, came in a distant third.

For the Labor Party, struggling in the opinion polls nationally, the result was a disaster. Party leader Neil Kinnock acknowledged that it was a “very bad” result but also dismissed it as just one by-election. Other Laborites were less sanguine.

Scottish left-winger Ron Brown termed it “a grave setback” and said it was a reaction to the Labor Party’s retreat from its socialist traditions to try to secure a more moderate image.

The party’s Scottish organizer, Jimmy Allison, said: “It would be unwise to dismiss this as just an anti-Thatcher, anti-Tory vote.

“There is no doubt that many traditional Labor voters used this as a protest vote but, nevertheless, it would be unwise to assume that they would come back to Labor at the next general election.”

The Nationalist candidate, Jim Sillars, overcame the 19,500 Labor majority to win by 3,554 votes. It represented a 34% swing in what was considered to be one of Labor’s most secure seats in the country.

A similar victory 15 years ago by Sillars’ wife, Margo MacDonald, sparked a resurgence of Scottish demands for full independence. There was speculation Friday of another outbreak of nationalism to challenge the Labor Party’s political dominance in Scotland. Labor favors an orderly passing of power from Britain to an elected self-governing Scottish assembly.

Sillars said his victory was a vote of no-confidence in Kinnock and a rejection of Labor’s policy that Scotland should be “a prisoner of England until England decides not to vote Tory.”

Another central feature of the Nationalists’ victorious campaign was opposition to the government’s plan to introduce a new tax, a per-capita charge that eventually will replace property taxes as a source of local revenues.

The tax is to be introduced in Scotland first, and the Nationalists are calling for a campaign of non-payment. A recent opinion poll showed that 76% of Scottish voters opposed the tax. But the Scottish Labor Party voted against withholding payment.