Nationalists Gain Ground

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31323, 20 March 1967, Page 13

Nationalists Gain Ground

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter-r-Copyright) LONDON, March 19. A nationalist revival sweeping Scotland and Wales threatens to upset the entire British political scene. Within the last 12 months, tiny parties regarded for the last 40 years as little more than eccentric minority groups, have got into politics in a big way. If they keep up the momentum in the next three or four years they could easily cause startling results in the General Election due by 1971. On the pattern of voting

so far they are more likely to hurt the governing Labour Party and minority Liberals than the Conservative opposition. Already the Welsh nationalists, founded in 1925, have ousted Labour from one seat and slashed the party’s majority from 17,000 to a slender 2000 votes in another. Scottish nationalists have yet to get House of Commons representation in this Parliament. But they cut into Labour’s voting strength in a Glasgow electorate. The nationalist revival is going so strongly that they are to contest all 36 Welsh seats and all 71 Scottish seats

in the next General Election. Nationalist successes during the last year are seen partly as a protest vote from disillusioned Labour supporters. However, there also seems to be a hard core of genuine resentment at remote control from London and lower living standards in Scotland and Wales than the rich south-east Of England, Both the Scots and Welsh nationalists claim they are entitled to self-government because Scotland, with more than five million people, and Wales—with a population of 2.5 million —are themselves bigger than some United Nations states.

Already three parts of Britain are self-governing—Ulster (population 1.5 million), the Channel Islands (110,000), and the Isle of Man, with less than 50,000 people. The Welsh nationalists now claim to be adding an extra 1000 members a month to their current strength of 21,000, while the Scottish nationalists, with a similar membership, have grown in 16 years to be Britain’s fourth biggest political party. They polled only 10,630 votes in the 1950 General Election, but totalled an impressive 128,474 in 1966 twice the Communist Party’s vote for the whole of Britain.