Mr Tony Blair yesterday launched his party's campaign for the Scottish parliament elections with a strong call on its members to argue the case that devolution of power within the United Kingdom is the best way to preserve its integrity and international role. When he launched the programme of devolution in summer 1997, shortly after his overwhelming election victory, he did not anticipate how powerfully Labour would be challenged by the Scottish Nationalists on a programme of "independence in Europe". They are neck and neck with Labour now in the polls as it becomes increasingly clear that devolution is not a once-off event but a long-term process full of significance for the future of the United Kingdom as a whole. Many Labour members are reported to be unhappy with Mr Blair's role in the campaign, preferring that he would allow the Scottish leadership to direct it. Given the political dynamics devolution has set in train, any London prime minister would face similar criticisms. But Mr Blair has established political control over New Labour by a ruthless use of centralised power and a sharp nose for party dissidents, wherever they are to be found. Scotland's civic and public-service culture ensures that old and new left-wing opponents are disproportionately represented there, which makes Mr Blair's task of ensuring compliance all the more difficult.
Such tensions are grist to the SNP's political mill and are readily exploited by its canny and skilful leader, Mr Alex Salmond. Inevitably, devolution is constrained by fiscal and administrative links to London, despite the transfer of responsibility for so much of everyday life to the Scottish parliament including health, education, transport, agriculture, culture and economic policy. European policies, for example, bear heavily on all these spheres and will become much more transparent under the new arrangements. But there are bound to be conflicts between Scottish and London interests, including, for example in the Agenda 2000 negotiations, where it will be alleged that London will always prevail. Similar arguments surround North Sea oil interests and the balance of fiscal flows within the UK as a whole.
The SNP would almost certainly prefer not to win this first election but to have the opportunity in opposition to develop such tensions to its own advantage over the first term of the assembly. Labour has the disadvantage of being the established party, vulnerable in many fiefdoms of local power to a fresh and alternative approach. But there will be many voters who will support the SNP in assembly elections, but not in Westminster ones - and not in any referendum on separation either, when and if one were held. The Conservatives have no Westminster seats in Scotland but are rapidly accommodating to the new political realities there having accepted the positive outcome of the referendums on devolution and the three per cent taxation limit in September 1997, which they opposed in the campaigns. A great deal will therefore depend on how Mr Blair and his Scottish Labour colleagues manage the campaign and the subsequent administration they are expected to dominate. For all the attention Mr Blair has devoted to devolution in Scotland and Wales, not to mention his tremendous commitment of time and energy to the Northern Ireland peace process, the overall picture of constitutional change in the UK remains curiously incoherent and ill-defined.