-Caveat Lector-
>From Int'l Herald Tribune
Paris, Tuesday, May 4, 1999
Preparing to Vote, Scots Count Costs of Separatism
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By Tom Buerkle International Herald Tribune
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GALASHIELS, Scotland - As in many towns in the Borders region of southern
Scotland, the prosperity of modern Britain seems to have passed by
Galashiels. The traditional mainstays of agriculture and textiles have been
in decline for decades, while the recent failure of the computer
circuit-board maker Viasystems has cost nearly 1,000 jobs and underscored
the difficulty of attracting new sources of wealth to the area.
But despite the best efforts of Scottish Nationalists to exploit the
economic distress before elections for a regional Parliament on Thursday,
there are few signs that people here are ready to bet that their future lies
with an independent Scotland.
''I don't want independence,'' said Jean Lee, a saleswoman at the local
Scottish Power appliance shop, who added that she thought one consequence of
independence would be higher taxes.
''I think Scotland's a poor enough country without paying higher taxes,''
she said.
That sort of hard-headed calculation appears to be taking place in the minds
of many Scots, and it is welcome news to the Labour Party of Prime Minister
Tony Blair.
After agreeing two years ago to give Scotland its first Parliament in nearly
300 years, Labour was initially dismayed to see its support slump to the
benefit of a surging Scottish National Party, which regards devolution as
just the first step toward full independence.
But in recent months Labour has restored its standing as Scotland's dominant
party, in part because of a campaign warning that independence could cost
billions of pounds, as well as pledges of higher spending for schools and
hospitals.
Most recent polls have indicated Labour would win the largest bloc in the
129-seat Parliament and form a government, probably in coalition with the
Liberal Democrats.
''I believe people don't want to plunge into another morass of
constitutional argument,'' said Donald Dewar, who is leading Labour's
campaign and is very likely to become first minister of Scotland. ''The
overwhelming economic consensus is that there is pain in separatism.''
Victory in Scotland and in Wales, where Labour also leads in the race to
elect a new Assembly on Thursday, is critical to Mr. Blair's ambitious
program of constitutional reform in Britain. Mr. Blair contends that
devolution will produce more responsive and democratic government without
breaking the ties that bind the regions together in the United Kingdom.
Alex Salmond, the fiery leader of the Scottish Nationalists, has railed
against Labour's campaign, but many in his own party privately blame him for
several tactical blunders.
The party dulled its appeal at first by playing down its independence
demands, calling a referendum on the issue its 10th priority behind such
prosaic matters as abolishing tolls on the bridge to the western island of
Skye. Then, Mr. Salmond left the party vulnerable to charges that it stood
for higher taxes by pledging to forgo a planned 1 percent cut in income tax
rates to bolster spending on health and education.
Perhaps most important, Mr. Salmond was the only political leader in the
country to criticize Britain's role in the bombing of Kosovo, calling it
''an impardonable folly'' that worsened the plight of ethnic Albanians.
The Nationalists' stumble highlighted the difficulty of transforming its
emotional appeal for independence into a coherent program for government
that could withstand the scrutiny of a tough election campaign.
''They were never put under the spotlight until now,'' said David Steel, the
Liberal Democrat candidate who is widely expected to become speaker of the
new Parliament.
''Scottish nationalism, Scottish identity is an emotional issue,'' said Ron
Hawkes, an unemployed electrical engineer who drives a taxi in Galashiels to
make ends meet. ''But no one's really convinced that the SNP knows what
they're doing with their figures.
''No one's going to vote for economic suicide.''
Undaunted by the criticism, Mr. Salmond has sought to refocus his campaign
on independence in the past week.
The actor Sean Connery, who remains widely popular here despite being a
Bahamas-based tax exile, fired up a gathering of party faithful in Edinburgh
last week by insisting that ''Scotland should be nothing less than equal
with all the other nations of the world.''
The Nationalists also released a long-awaited economic program for
independence, claiming that although Scotland would have a modest government
deficit, in contrast to Britain's surplus, it would meet the economic
criteria for joining the single European currency.
''Across the U.K., there seems to be an acceptance that independence is
coming,'' Mr. Salmond said. ''The only question is when the train is going
to get to the station.''
The new approach appeared to generate a bounce in the latest opinion polls,
and the Nationalists looked set to emerge as the main opposition to Labour
in the new Parliament.
Such a result could turn the Nationalists into Scotland's version of the
Parti Quebecois, waiting in the wings to play the independence card whenever
Scots' frustration with the national government in London rose.
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