Britain's Family Quarrel

...And now, stimulated by the nationalist fever sweeping parts of Europe, their remonstrance is especially forceful—giving rise to the sense that perhaps the time for a change has come...

...Echoing the radical Scots, they contend that it would be best to go all the way: Let Scotland govern itself completely, raise its own taxes, and sever its political ties with Westminster...

...They note that far from being treated high-handedly by the English-dominated Parliament, Scotland actually receives favored treatment...

...Nowhere in Britain was former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher more reviled than in the famous Highlands and Lowlands...

...Senior government ministers believe the forthcoming national elections could produce a total "wipeout" of the Tories in Scotland...

...Last November, when the United States Justice Department issued warrants for the arrest of two Libyans accused of carrying out the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, it was not the British attorney general who issued a similar writ...

...For years," an English Cabinet minister complained to the London Sunday Times, "the Scots have enjoyed generous provision and they are never satisfied...

...Amove to cut defense costs by trimming the historic Gordon Highlanders has provoked outrage...

...Look at their roads, their hospitals —better than anything we have got...

...Members of the Scottish National Party (SNP) have assiduously campaigned for the region's total independence...

...Still, the native Scots' feelings about England and the English are not exceptionally hostile, even ifatouchof enmity is evident...

...Though their country was made part of the United Kingdom in 1707, they have never been captivated by the Sassenachs south of the border and have long wanted to loosen the political ties that bind them to the rest of Britain...

...Among other problems, that would cost the party the services of Transport Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, an Edinburgh MP and one of Prime Minister John Major's most valued Cabinet colleagues...

...Particularly galling in this context is the British economy's longtime dependence on massive revenues from North Sea oil, four-fifths of it extracted off the Scottish coast...

...Rather, the Scots resent being treated in what they consider to be an undeserved subservient fashion by the lordly muck-amucks in London, who decide how much tax Scots pay and how those revenues are spent...

...The people in the region complain that the British Treasury fails to account for that reality when drawing up budgetary appropriations...

...In the dozen years that the Tories have reigned in Westminster, their share of Scottish MPs has steadily eroded...

...The backlashers insist that the present districts need to be redrawn so Commons will accurately reflect current demographics...

...But in any such revision Wales —whose nationalist fervor is less pronounced—would also lose Parliamentary places to the English...

...This is the subject of much debate here, but it would be wrong to conclude that the Scots have suddenly become restive simply because fanatical patriotism is in vogue...

...During the two world wars, their fearsome kilted warriors came to be known to German troops as "The Ladies from Hell...

...Whatever the case, the Scots' charge that they have inadequate say in government affairs is certainly erroneous...

...The argument between Edinburgh and London has been going on for centuries, but it remains very much a family row...

...SCOTTISH GRUMBLING Britain's Family Quarrel BY NORMAN GELB London WHILE NATIONALISM flaunts its often ugly face in many parts of the former Soviet Union and Eastern and Western Europe, the people of Scotland are exhibiting their own less militant discontent with being governed from London...

...In fact, they are overrepresented in Parliament...

...The desire was manifested most recently in a House of Commons by-election that saw the governing Conservative Party lose yet another Scottish seat to the opposition Labor Party...

...Today they hold a mere nine of the region's 72 seats— not enough, it has been pointed out, even to field a rugby team...

...Important structural and doctrinal differences exist between the Episcopalian Church of England and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland...

...Both the Labor Party and the less significant Liberal Democrats—who pushed the Tories to third place in the Scottish by-election—favor devolution...

...A feasible option, therefore, is devolution: Scotland would gain a degree of home rule and a parliament in Edinburgh, and the region would remain within the United Kingdom...

...Although they retain pride in their ancestral origins, their Anglicized speech and attitudes tend to arouse the contempt of their compatriots back home...

...For while opinion polls indicate that approximately 35 per cent of the Scots favor outright independence, most of them also say they would be content to settle for some form of local control...

...Indeed, over the years countless Scots have migrated southward and settled in England...

...More important is the fact that the Tories are commonly regarded by the northerners as London-oriented...

...As for the notion of allowing partial home rule in Scotland, Tory MP Tony Marlowe calls it "a crackpot halfwayhouse idea...

...They have never attracted sufficient popular support to lend credence to their cause, however...

...In the British Army, the Scottish regiments are among the most highly acclaimed...

...Their argument, though, is largely an expression of petulance...

...Evidence can be found throughout Britain, where Scots have a disproportionately high representation in the upper reaches of the medical, legal and business professions...

...In addition, economically depressed areas in Scotland are awarded substantially more government funds per capita than poor districts in northern England...

...It has, for example, its own judicial and educational systems...

...Its 5 million plus inhabitants compose only 8.8 per cent of the UK's population, yet the region receives 10.5 per cent of the government's annual cash handouts...

...Leaving aside the North Sea oil fields, which the English see as British rather than exclusively Scottish, some Tories suggest that were it not for the burden Scotland places on the taxpayers, England would have a sounder infrastructure and a more dynamic economy...

...Norman Gelb writes regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...Scots on the whole are far less obsessed with class distinctions than the English...

...Besides, at a time when most European nations are headed toward political and economic unity, the thought of Britain dividing is a bit perverse...

...The plan, he says, would allow Scots to look after their own land while their Parliamentarians in London could unfairly "dabble in English affairs...

...Scotland has its own soccer league, too, but its stars are usually lured by lucrative contracts to play for the richer English teams...

...On the political scene, three of the most impressive Labor Party leaders —John Smith, Gordon Brown and Robin Cook—are Scottish...

...Judging from its reputation and from personal observation, Scotland's education system is superior to England's...

...English commentators, meanwhile, accuse the Scots of unwarranted whining and dismiss their pleas—repeated in the mock Scottish accent popular among television comedians—as "Gie us mair" (Give us more...

...Since much of Labor's electoral strength in Britain depends upon the Scots and the Welsh, the party would be left virtually incapable of ever driving the Tories from power...

...The situation is not akin to that of, say, the Croats and Serbs...

...Labor's enduring popularity in Scotland is only partly attributable to the strength of the working class there...

...The region's distinct institutions extend to other areas of life as well...

...Itwas, instead, Scotland's chief law officer, Lord Fraser of Carmyllie...

...According to the latest statistics, if House of Commons seats were distributed on the basis of the size of constituency populations alone, Scotland would lose a quarter of its 72 MPs...

...The chances are good that for reasons ?f party politics Scotland will eventually achieve a measure of home rule...

...Outside the UK, it is not widely appreciated that despite Scotland's incorporation within Britain, the region remains in many ways a discrete entity...

...Yet the bottom line is that the English and Scots are bound inextricably by history, geography, economics and, in millions of cases, by personal relations...

...To be sure, there has been an English backlash against the Scots from a few Tory stalwarts...

...Scots reply that they are really saying "Gie us mair o' whit's oors...

...A number of English Tories have carried Marlowe's position to its logical conclusion...

...The Conservative Party has consistently rejected the idea, but with further electoral reverses on the horizon in Scotland, and with surveys casting doubt on their prospects for victory in the general elections, they may be inclined to shift their position...