Scottish Constitutional Convention
In 1989 the Scottish Constitutional Convention was formed encompassing the Labour Party and the Lib-Dems as well as other parties, local authorities, and huge sections of "civic Scotland". Its purpose was to devise a scheme for the formation of a devolution settlement for Scotland. Suddenly the prospects for a Scottish Assembly seemed much brighter, despite the fact the SNP decided not to take part as they felt that independence would not be a constitutional option countenanced by the convention.
The convention produced its final report in 1995 and, with the return of a Labour government in 1997, devolution seemed assured. Later that year the Scottish people voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing the devolved Scottish Parliament in a referendum, and the first elections for that body took place in 1999.
Read more about this topic: Scottish Assembly
Famous quotes containing the words scottish and/or convention:
“Better wear out shoes than sheets.”
—18th-century Scottish proverb, collected in J. Kelly, Complete Collection of Scottish Proverbs (1721)
“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)