 | 'We have always, in this party, made it clear that we are for everyone who lives here and we don't care where you came from, we're just proud that you've chosen Scotland as your country.' SNP President, Dr Winnie Ewing MEP, at the 1996 SNP Conference. |  |
If, as expected, Mr Dennis Canavan steps down from his Westminster seat in Falkirk, he would be presenting the SNP with a better prospect than Hamilton for staging one of its by-election spectaculars.
Defence Secretary George Robertson's almost certain departure for Brussels will mean a by-election in Hamilton South, where the Nationalists require a near impossible 24% swing from the General Election.
But the SNP is well aware that Mr Canavan's seat is much less secure. The rebel left-winger and long-time Home Ruler, who was expelled from Labour after protesting about his rejection as a party candidate for Holyrood, sits on a Westminster majority of 13,783, which represents 59% of the vote.
The Nationalists came second in the General Election with 23%, leaving them requiring a swing of 18% to take the seat.
This begins to look less daunting when it is remembered that Mr Canavan enjoyed huge personal support that saw him triumph in his battle as an Independent MSP by winning the largest Holyrood majority in Scotland with 55% of the vote. Labour took only 19% and the SNP 18%.
Even more alarmingly for Labour, the vote in Falkirk West at the Euro-elections saw the party taking only 36% and the SNP coming close with 31%, albeit on an exceptionally low turnout that is unlikely to be replicated in a high-profile by-election.
An SNP spokesman said last night: "We have a reputation for thriving on by-elections. We always rise to the occasion."
Mr Canavan has told his former Constituency Labour Party he will abide by its wishes on the question of standing down and creating a by-election. He is now on holiday but he said earlier it was up to the CLP to decide the course of events. His fight was never with his local constituency, he said, but with the party hierarchy who denounced him as "just not good enough".
By standing against an official candidate he was deemed to have expelled himself from the Labour Party, although Mr Canavan has always stressed that was not his wish.
By respecting the party's wishes on the timing of a by-election he will take another step back towards the fold. Endorsing his successor as Westminster candidate would be a further step.
The SNP would need a swing of 24% to steal Hamilton South, which remained Labour in the Scottish Parliament elections despite a swing of 10% to the Nationalists.
Labour believes the SNP's epic triumph 32 years ago when Winnie Ewing took the seat and changed the course of Scottish politics is now almost unknown to a new generation of voters. Party strategists must have calculated that history will not repeat itself when Mr Robertson leaves for Brussels.
But the SNP will reply that Labour said the same in Glasgow Govan in 1988 when Mr Bruce Millan left for Brussels to become a European commissioner and the SNP's Jim Sillars stormed to victory after Labour was accused of taking voters for granted.
Labour activists were reluctant to speculate yesterday about potential candidates to succeed Mr Robertson. But three names being mentioned in party circles are Mr Pat McFadden, who works in the No 10 policy unit, Mr Brian Fitzpatrick, who heads the policy unit in the Scottish Parliament, and Mr Bill Tynan, a trade union official.
Mr McFadden was a protégé of Mr John Smith and has been identified more recently with the Blair camp. He appears the more favoured if only because Mr Fitzpatrick is seen as having just launched himself on a career in the Scottish Parliament.
Mr McFadden was also talked about for the 1997 Paisley South by-election when he was persuaded to make way for Mr Douglas Alexander, a close confidant of Chancellor Gordon Brown. Some Labour insiders believe his time might now have come.
Mr Tynan, an AEU official, was defeated by one vote by Mr Jack McConnell in a fiercely contested Holyrood nomination battle for Motherwell and Wishaw and might be viewed by the party as deserving another chance.
The SNP was also reticent yesterday although one name being discussed by insiders was Ms Ann Winning, group leader on South Lanarkshire Council. A mother-of-three and an administrator with the public service union, Unison, she fought Clydesdale in the Holyrood elections, where she achieved a 10% swing to the SNP. - Aug 3
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