The Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC) was an association of Scottish political parties, churches and other civic groups, that developed a framework for a Scottish devolution. It is credited as having paved the way for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
The Convention was established after prominent Scottish individuals signed the Claim of Right in 1988. The Claim of Right asserted that Scotland is constitutionally entitled to determine the best framework of government to suit its people, and demanded that the country should have its own legislative body within the framework of the United Kingdom.
The Claim of Right and the idea of a Constitutional Convention grew out of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly (CSA), a pressure group established in the aftermath of the failure to secure a devolved Scottish Assembly in 1979. The CSA was an organisation of individuals committed to some form of Home Rule for Scotland that by the late 1980s came to argue that a convention was the way forward to secure this.
Various organisations participated in the Convention, such as the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Green Party, the Communist Party, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, the Small Business Federation and various bodies representing other strands of political opinion as well as civic society in general. Representatives of the two largest churches - the Church of Scotland, the Catholic Church - as well as smaller church groups were involved as were some non-Christian communities which decided to participate. Initially the Scottish National Party (SNP) participated, but the then party leader Gordon Wilson, along with Jim Sillars, decided to withdraw the SNP from participation owing to the convention's unwillingness to discuss Scottish independence as a constitutional option.
The Conservative government of the day was very hostile to the convention and challenged the local authorities' right to finance the convention, although the courts found that they were in fact entitled to do so.
Under its executive chairman, Canon Kenyon Wright, the convention published its blueprint for devolution, Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right, on 30 November 1995, St Andrew's Day. This provided the basis for the structure of the existent Scottish Parliament, established in 1999.
Famous quotes containing the words scottish and/or convention:
“I have hardly begun to live on Staten Island yet; but, like the man who, when forbidden to tread on English ground, carried Scottish ground in his boots, I carry Concord ground in my boots and in my hat,—and am I not made of Concord dust? I cannot realize that it is the roar of the sea I hear now, and not the wind in Walden woods. I find more of Concord, after all, in the prospect of the sea, beyond Sandy Hook, than in the fields and woods.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No convention gets to be a convention at all except by grace of a lot of clever and powerful people first inventing it, and then imposing it on others. You can be pretty sure, if you are strictly conventional, that you are following genius—a long way off. And unless you are a genius yourself, that is a good thing to do.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)