Former Labour MP Dennis Canavan claims Scottish independence would create a fresh
renaissance for the party.
Canavan predicts Labour would be a far better political force, get a fresh lease
of life, and be more in tune with its roots if a Yes vote prevailed in the 2014 referendum.
The 70-year-old was addressing YES Scotland campaign rallies in Lewis and Benbecula.
Around 100 people attended the Stornoway forum - half of them either Labour voters
or not linked with anyparty.
Dennis Canavan who held the Falkirk West seat for Labour for quarter of a century
left the party in 1999. He became an independent MSP with the highest majority of
any candidate in the 1999 elections. When he retired from front line politics, First
Minister Jack McConnell praised him as "an outstanding parliamentarian over a long
time.”
Canavan who is now chairman of the YES Scotland board, stressed he was not a nationalist
in any way.
He prefers the term “internationalist” and “doesn’t want Scotland to become a wee
backwater country.”
Instead Scotland should have an “equal-terms relationship with her neighbours and
international community.”
The maverick socialist politician said he was a “recent covert to the cause of independence”
because “Westminster is completely out of touch with the people of Scotland.”
His “conversion is not based on emotions but on my experience of life and particularly
my parliamentary experience.”
He reckoned the London government, “at times treats the people of Scotland with absolute
contempt.”
In contrast, the Scottish Parliament is readily more responsive to the “needs, values
and aspirations” of Scots, he said.
The Land Reform Act is just one example, Westminster had not time for it. Now we
have the right to buy the land and the right to access,” he highlighted.
Higher education is another area where Scotland has led the way, he told the audience.
On the mainland many are envious of the track record of island schools which prepare
young people to go on to university and “thanks to the Scottish Government they pay
no tuition fees.”
He slammed Tony Blair and his government for “abolishing students grants, even for
students from low income families.”
A Scottish Parliament has also introduced free prescriptions - harking to the Bevan’
s basic socialist principle of a National Health Service.
Canavan added: “Many New Labour politicians of today don’t even know Labour’s history
- that one of Labour’s founding principles is health care should be free at point
of need.”
In addition the Scottish Parliament took in free care for the elderly - which is
not available south of the border, he said.
“The Scottish Parliament is different in approach and policies to decision taken
in Westminster.”
Mr Canavan emphasised that the Scottish Parliament “could do so much more” after
a YES vote in 2014 with “powers over the banks could stop bankers brining the economy
to the brink of ruin and running away with all their bonuses.”
With more powers it could “have stopped illegal warfare” and the stockpiling of nuclear
weapons “just a few miles from our biggest city.”
He wanted “full fiscal autonomy rather than relying on a block grant from Westminster.”
The independence campaigner stated “The Scottish Parliament is the only parliament
in the world I can think off which is completely dependent on another parliament
for its money.”
“Can we afford it,” he asked, while signposting to Gers which means Government Expenditure
and Revenue Scotland - a political measure introduced by a former Conservative government
to show how Scotland need financial support from the UK.
Canavan seized on Gers recent revelations which indicates Scotland put more cash
into the UK financial pot than it took out.
The figures show 9.9% of UK public sector revenue was raised in Scotland but only
9.3% came back.
On the “bedroom tax,” he reckoned “the Poll Tax was the limit for the Westminster
Government to impose on Scotland.
But “more iniquitious than the Poll Tax they come up with this bedroom tax.”
He desired an independent Scotland because it would “come up with a much more fairer
benefit system” where the “rich pay more, the poor less and the very poor pay nothing
at all.”
Labour renaissance under independence, says former stalwart 13/3/13