THE MOST significant feature Scotland was the collapse of the Scotlish National Party's vote.
The SP's share of the vote Tell from over 30 per cent in the October 74 election to just over 17 per cent last week. The party's Parliamentary representation has plummeted from 11 MPs to two.
The interpretation of this result is not too difficult to policy assembly and its championing al the scotesa Desceparat Agency. won Labour votes throughout 1978. Ibs stunning hy-election victories in Gursadden and Hamilton forescotland In general Serprisingly, the referendum result on devolution and the SUTECOUCIE Labour government to get the Scotland Act Implemented did setslow down this process.
The Labour Party was able to go into this clection as the party of devolution and point to the SNP as the party which gave Thatcher her chance by supporting the Tories in the no More than in most parts of Britain, the working class in Scotland fears the Tories economic policies.
It is difficult to find any substantial employer throughout the central bell of Scotland hasn't depended intervention The suspicion that the SNP was prepared to put this at risk weighed heavily with voters.
The second reason for the SNP collapse was that their traditional supporters, sections of the rural population and the middle classes, showed - by their rejection of the Scotland Act in the referendum - that their flirtation with the idea of CLOSIN Independence over.
Their fear of the Scottish the working class and its powerful dependence on the union with England.
The SNP faces an uncertain future, Itis, as has been pointed out by Tom Nairn, a bourgeois nationalist party without the support of the boargeoisie in u country which is dominated by the working class.
Will the SNP continue as the party of Scottish nationhood WOOLT TONI the fantasies of the middle classes?
Or will it be able lo grasp the potential of the Westminster aspirations?
The collapse of the SP vote allowed both the Tories and Labour celebrute Certainly for the Party its increase in the share of the Scottish vote by 6 per cent and the retura to ne on politics offers it some comfort.
The demand for the assembly could be seen by some of the Labour Party's more opportunist members as a way or attacking Tory policies, fuelled by the discontent of the Scottish working class could lead to a massive anti-Tory. anti-Union movement.
cause great dificate for the Lahour Party in Britain.
Similarly. receiving 42 per cent of the pall in Scotland, the Tories 31 per cent. the INDEEEEE celebrations could be cut short.
minority Scotland, whose policies huve been decisively rejected by the will INVESTEE erhups impossibl mplementing their They are pledged to cut the power Development Agency and the regional incentives ployment. They pledge to bury the Scotland prospect succeens ines projec without the Scottish fighting back is remote.
A footnote on the Scottish Labour Party. Despite the large the quite significant vote in the this Paisley constituency formerly held by the SLP, the loss of the Labour two seats spells the end of this party Sillar has already said that 'after 20 years in the fight for socialist policies in Scotland' he has decided to look for another occupation.
would Labour party in the Tories difficult - IXSA 01 Scottish for emhave also of their working class * Thatcher analysed Honing like this is common in Scotland and elsewhere Views from the left UNDER the headline The the coming period.
The one that's different Morning Star denounces the