ABSTRACT
By the time the Scottish constitutional convention had produced its final set of proposals for a Scottish parliament in 1995, debate about home rule had been at the heart of Scottish politics for a quarter of a century. Indeed, supporters offered the most serious attempt to establish regional government within Britain in the 1970s, and in the first half of the 1990s made their demands a central issue in the wider arena of British politics. Yet in 1979 support failed to be sufficient to gain the necessary majority in a referendum on a Scottish assembly, and subsequently there remained a question mark over the extent and nature of support for Scottish home rule. In reviewing Scotland in the early to mid 1990s, the situation clearly was different from that elsewhere in Britain. The interest in constitutional change, as in the 1970s, was fuelled by a form of nationalism, unlike the regionalism which fostered debate in parts of England. This had implications for the prospects of success for the movement. Consequently, this chapter concentrates on addressing the issues surrounding the political importance of Scottish identity and the extent to which these issues changed between the 1970s and the 1990s.
