IT is difficult, if not impossible for the younger generation, to recall what a mess Scotland was in as a country in the 1980s. Thatcher’s voodoo economics had devastated the mines, shipyards and heavy industry in general, and while the Labour Party and trade unions did their best to oppose her – they really did, honest – they were simply powerless in the face of a constitution that denied Scots a proper say in their own affairs.
Kenyon Wright saw that all too clearly. As General Secretary of the Scottish Council of Churches, he had joined the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly founded in the wake of Thatcher’s victory in the 1979 General Election. He had a long history of supporting radical causes – he had been a leading figure opposing nuclear weapons, conducting peace services in CND’s early days.
He was very opposed to Polaris being foisted upon Scotland, and that may well have been the moment that made him see that British politics and the UK constitution had to be changed.
As the Campaign slowly gathered pace, he worked behind the scenes to get organisations, religious and otherwise, to come together in a development that was to shape Scotland – the Scottish Constitutional Convention, an expression of Scotland’s civil society that was largely driven by the realisation by Kenyon Wright and others that only a major change to the Constitution of the UK could give Scotland any semblance of justice.
In 1988, he was one of the people who drew up the Claim of Right – Scotland’s third – that was signed by thousands upon thousands the next year, by which time Kenyon Wright was chairman of the Convention. For some, did not go far enough, yet it was a genuine political movement.
The Claim stated: “We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”
Some 25 years later, Kenyon Wright recalled: “I am proud that my signature is on that Claim, alongside those of John Smith and Donald Dewar.”
Smith sadly did not live to see the Holyrood Parliament. Dewar was to become known as the Father of the Nation, but Kenyon Wright was definitely the Godfather of Devolution, a title given to him by the press and in which he rejoiced.
The Convention’s publication of Scotland’s Parliament, Scotland’s Right on St Andrew’s Day 1995, gave the nation a blueprint for a devolved Scottish Parliament, and it formed the basis of the Scotland Act passed by the Blair Government after the 1997 referendum in which Kenyon Wright was a tireless campaigner for a double Yes.
He was still seeing things clearly until very recently. In a prescient article before the 2014 referendum he wrote: “There are real fears if Scotland chooses the old road…[we’ll get] a Westminster likely to drag Scotland against our will out of the European Union.”
For his vision and commitment to Scotland, Canon Kenyon Wright will be much missed.
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