Scottish Nationalists Deal Blow To Labour

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31676, 11 May 1968, Page 22

Scottish Nationalists Deal Blow To Labour

(N.Z.r.A.-!t*uHT— Copyright.)

LONDON, May 9.

Scottish Nationalists have inflicted on the British Labour Party a humiliating defeat by winning nearly 100 seats in city council elections in Scotland, the “New York Times” News Service reports.

Scottish Nationalist candidates polled more than 350,000 votes in the Scottish cities, seized the balance of political power in Glasgow and Aberdeen, and defeated a number of Labour Party mayors—or provosts, as they are called in Scotland. Some Labour council members who bad held their ■eats for more than SO years found themselves out of office today.

A party which only six years ago had a membership of 2000, the Scottish Nationalist Party has won widespread appeal in the wake of disillusionment with the Labour Government The Scots feel they have been short-changed by the Government in London; they want more say in running their own affairs; and they feel that neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party has been doing enough to solve Scotland’s economic difficulties. Ultimately, leaders of the Scottish Nationalist Party said again today, they want their own Parliament, thus ending the 1707 union with England. “The Nationalist Party cannot now be stopped,” said

Mrs W. Ewing, the 38-year-old lawyer who last year became the first Scottish Nationalist member of Parliament for more than 20 years.

“The wind of nationalism, is blowing on the London parties, and they will have to make concessions to it, or face political suicide,” she added. The Labour Party, in deep enough political trouble throughout Britain, stands to lose most in general ejections by the surge of Scottish Nationalist support The Labour Party now faces the prospect of another major setback, in the municipal elections in 372 boroughs in England and Wales. One of the party’s biggest reverses is expected in London, where the Conservatives are tipped to capture control of all but the very safest Labour-held boroughs.

Some members of Parliament are predicting that the Government will soon change its regional policies to take account of the rising

tide of nationalism in both Scotland and Wales.