BRITAIN: Labor Runs Afoul Of a Muddy Loch

In France, the guillotine dispatches condemned criminals. In Britain, it is a device designed to cut off endless parliamentary debate—much as cloture is used in the U.S. Congress. Begun in the 1880s to combat the obstructionist tactics of Irish Nationalist Charles Parnell and his colleagues, the guillotine has been a welcome procedure for circumventing parliamentary bottlenecks. But when employed prematurely to close off debate on major, hotly contested legislation, it can stir up the wrath of M.P.s on both sides of the floor. Last week Prime Minister James Callaghan’s Labor government ran into just that kind of resistance when House Leader Michael Foot tried to ram through a guillotine vote to restrict debate on the devolution bill, which would give limited home rule to Scotland and Wales. Furious, 22 rebellious Labor M.P.s joined the opposition long enough to blunt the guillotine motion by 312 to 283, a stunning 29-vote margin; 15 other Laborites abstained.

Bilateral Talks. Following its humiliating defeat, the government announced plans to hold bilateral talks with the opposition parties to see if any means could be found to save the devolution bill. But the vote seemed to consign the measure either to endless debate (only three of its 116 clauses had been considered in eleven days of discussion) or eventual abandonment for this session of Parliament. It drastically undercut Labor’s position with Scottish voters and, though not a vote of confidence, raised the question of the Labor Party’s ability to govern. For the first time since Prime Minister Callaghan took office eleven months ago, it appeared that his government might be forced to call general elections before 1979, when they are next scheduled to be held.

The government defeat was the climax to a long and somewhat cynical campaign by Laborites and Tories alike to check the growing influence of nationalist sentiment in Scotland. Building on Scots’ resentment at being treated like country cousins by Westminster —and fueled by the development of North Sea oil off Scotland’s coast—the independence-minded Scottish National Party in the past six years has become second only to Labor as the most powerful party in Scotland. With many of Labor’s traditionally safe seats in danger during the 1974 election campaigns, worried leaders came up with a limited home-rule bill, promising a regional (“devolved”) assembly for Scotland if Labor was returned to power. Though the Tories, too, belatedly endorsed devolution, the Labor initiative wooed enough Scottish voters to cling to power in Westminster. Even so, the Scottish nationalists boosted their representation in Parliament from one seat to eleven, cutting into Labor support.

Devolution Scheme. The trouble was that while Labor had thought up the devolution scheme to keep Scotland part of the United Kingdom, the Scottish National Party shrewdly endorsed the measure as the first step toward total sovereignty. The S.N.P. endorsement troubled backbenchers on both sides of Parliament. Political leaders in economically deprived English regions began to talk of local assemblies of their own. Liberal M.P.s wondered whether a federal system for the entire U.K. might be a sensible idea. Furthermore, as parliamentary debate on the government’s bill opened, the original devolution question became mired in a muddy loch of contiguous issues, including possible referendums, local taxation and proportional representation.

Callaghan’s gamble on slicing through such secondary matters with the guillotine could have proved a deft ploy. Had it passed, the devolution bill, carrying the hopes of important Scottish and Welsh constituencies, would have been hard to turn down. But too many M.P.s of all parties resented the attempt to end the debate. Then the Tory shadow spokesman on devolution, Francis Pym, proposed an alternative—an all-party convention to discuss the whole devolution matter. The adroit Tory maneuver may have encouraged wavering Laborites to defect on the guillotine vote.

The defeat leaves the Labor government severely hobbled. With the death of Foreign Secretary Anthony Crosland and last week’s loss of an additional seat in a by-election, it had already become a minority government. Scottish nationalists, who have generally voted with Labor during the past year, vowed to get revenge for what they felt was Labor’s “betrayal.” In fact, declared S.N.P. Leader Donald Stewart last week: “We shall seek to bring down the government at the first convenient moment.”