Plan Would Grant Scotland Semi-Independent Status

Seven hundred years after the Scottish hero known as Braveheart defeated the English, Britain’s new Labor government announced Thursday a historic blueprint for granting semi-independence to Scotland.

The plan, immediately attacked by Conservative politicians who predicted it could lead to the breakup of the United Kingdom, would give Scotland its own “devolved” parliament with limited taxing powers but far greater responsibilities for making local government decisions now almost entirely controlled through the British Parliament at Westminster in London, and its Scottish Office.

The Scots themselves will decide in a referendum if the change will take place. The date of the vote, Sept. 11, should stir a flutter of nationalistic pride in many a Scottish heart. That was the day in 1297 that William Wallace, the so-called Braveheart, kept the English army from overrunning Scotland in his famous victory at the Stirling Bridge.

“It’s a great day for Scotland,” Scottish Member of Parliament George Galloway said yesterday during a raucous parliamentary session after the government’s long-awaited announcement of its Scottish proposal. “From somewhere above the rafters, the whole host of heroes who have stood and fought for home rule will be cheering.”

The creation of subsidiary parliaments for Scotland and Wales was a key part of the Labor Party platform that swept to victory three months ago.

But a Conservative member, Stephen Day, warned direly that the plan was “destroying the concept of the nation-state … how can (this) preserve the United Kingdom?”

It’s the specter of a future breakup that Conservatives and many others in the United Kingdom fear. Years from now, they warn, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England could all be separate nations with separate governments - and the United Kingdom would become a “former” just like Yugoslavia.

But Secretary of State for Scotland Donald Dewar said the new plan was a plus for democracy. “This is a scheme of devolved power,” he said in Parliament Thursday. “It recognizes the principle that people in Scotland or any other area have a right to determine their own future.”

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SCOTLAND AT A GLANCE Associated Press Facts and figures on Scotland: People and land: 5.1 million people on 30,420 square miles. History: Joined with England under a single Parliament in London by the 1707 Act of Union. Scotland retains a separate legal and educational system, and the Presbyterian Church is the state religion. England and Scotland have had the same monarch since 1603 when England’s Queen Elizabeth I was succeeded by James VI of Scotland (James I of England). England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland form the United Kingdom. In 1979 referendums, the Scots and Welsh rejected separate assemblies. Proposed change: A 129-member assembly in Edinburgh with power to increase or decrease income tax by up to 3 percent and pass laws. It will have sole authority over health, education, local government, housing, police, courts, transport, agriculture, sport and arts. Referendum vote: Sept. 11; 3,995,923 eligible voters. What wouldn’t change: Scots would still elect lawmakers to the 659-member House of Commons in London and they would still be entitled to vote on education, health, etc., in England and Wales. Scots’ per capita share of state expenditure - $7,523 per person vs. $6,035 in England - would stay the same. Politics: Results in Scotland in the May 1 general election with party’s previous number of lawmakers in parenthesis: Labor 56 (49); independence-seeking Scottish National Party 6 (4); Liberal Democrats 10 (9); Conservatives 0 (10).