1/ 100 days from today a pivotal Holyrood election is due to be held. I’ve written previously about our AMS electoral system, and how it’s largely misunderstood ( https://twitter.com/mabuzzer/status/1283016885873848325). Today, here’s a brief history of how that system came to be

2/ It’s widely accepted that AMS was designed to somehow thwart Scottish independence, and keep the SNP out of power. The usual evidence given for this is a Sun article from April 1997 , with a headline based on comments from Labour’s Jack McConnell. Only 1 problem: it’s garbage!

3/ That article was published in the run up to 1997’s UK general election, with Labour’s manifesto committing them to referendums on devolution for Scotland and Wales within their first year of government

4/ The Tories had two lines of attack on this – firstly that it would lead to tax rises (Michael Forsyth coined the term “Tartan tax”) and secondly that it was a slippery slope that would eventually lead to full independence

5/ In that context, it’s easy to see this story for what it is - electioneering. It’s about reassuring Labour voters that devolution is no threat to the union. And it seems to have worked. Labour got 45% of Scottish votes, and won 56 seats (out of 72)

6/ So what’s the real story? How did Scotland end up with 129 MSPs, elected using an Additional Member System? Well, it’s the Scottish Constitutional Convention (SCC) we have to thank for that, as it’s their blueprint that was implemented

7/ A successor to the long established Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, the SCC first met in 1989, and was a coming together of multiple organisations – political parties, trades unions, business groups, churches etc – representing a broad cross section of Scottish society

8/ Although involved to begin with, the SNP soon withdrew from the SCC, due to the wider group’s refusal to consider full independence as a possible solution to Scotland’s constitutional issues. The Tories declined multiple invitations to join in, and were not involved at all

9/ From its outset the SCC adopted a wide remit, covering all aspects of a devolved assembly: what powers might be devolved, budgets and finance, how the assembly might be constituted (members, executive, committees etc) and how its elections would work

10/ Agreement was reached on some of these fairly quickly. Others took a bit longer. But one topic took longer than all others to find a solution that everyone could agree on: the electoral system

11/ And it didn’t take long for this thorny issue to become problematic. The Lib Dems insisted from the outset on a system of Proportional Representation, in line with party policy. By the end of 1989, they were threatening to pull all out entirely if PR wasn’t adopted

12/ On the other side were Labour, the biggest beneficiaries of the standard First Past The Post elections that were normal then. Remember that 1987 election result where 45% of votes won 70% of MPs – hardly representative

13/ It was the Lib Dems who got their way, and in 1990 the Convention published “Towards Scotland’s Parliament”, their first blueprint for a devolved parliament. However, despite committing to PR, the paper (4 pages!) was light on detail. It hadn’t been agreed yet

14/ In the 1992 election, Labour were committed to delivering a devolved parliament, based on the SCC paper. A surprise win for John Major scuppered any such plans, giving the Convention time to flesh out their scheme, including the electoral system

15/ One thing that WAS agreed before the 1992 election was the Convention’s election system of choice: AMS. Borrowed from Germany (and others), this system was largely a compromise solution, with FPTP and PR elements to satisfy both sides

16/ However, it took until 1995 to agree the precise details. Initial plans were for constituency seats to match the existing 72 WM seats, (the Lib Dems later proposed splitting Orkney and Shetland into separate seats, resulting in 73 seats) topped up by “additional members”

17/ The additional members were to be elected on a regional basis, with 8 regions corresponding to the (then) 8 Scottish constituencies in the European Parliament. Labour supported a proposal for 50 such members, giving a total of 112

18/ The Lib Dems, realising this would diminish the proportionality of the parliament, proposed 9 members per region. With the already noted splitting of Orkney and Shetland, this would mean 145 members in total

19/ The STUC congress went further, proposing 2 members for each constituency – one man and one woman – plus 70 list members, giving a total count of 212, which they felt was in line with other similarly sized European countries

20/ With a rapidly approaching deadline (the congress had committed to publishing its final recommendations on St Andrews Day 1995) the Labour and Lib Dem leadership agreed a compromise – 129 members – with about 6 weeks to spare

21/ This proposal consisted of 73 constituency members, with each region electing 7 members via closed party lists, giving that total of 129. After initially saying no, the STUC eventually accepted the plan, and it became the SCC’s final proposal

22/ Following the 1997 election, and a subsequent referendum, the Scottish Parliament was established with 129 members according to the plan developed over 6 years, and agreed to by the entire Scottish Constitutional Convention

23/ Which brings us back to that Sun article. It astonishes me that so many people who wouldn’t normally trust anything that came from the Sun or Jack McConnell take it at face value. Especially when PR had long been supported by the SNP, who the system benefited in 99 and 2003

24/ Should you wish to read more, this interview with Isobel Lindsay, an SNP stalwart who quit the party when they walked away from the SCC, provides more background to Holyrood's inception https://www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,isobel-lindsays-radical-road-to-devolution_9959.htm

25/ I would also recommend “The People Say Yes”, written in 1997 by the SCC’s chair Canon Kenyon Wright. If anyone would know how the Holyrood parliament came to be it would be him!

26/ Incidentally, despite being the “Godfather of Devolution”, Wright wrote in support of a YES vote in the 2014 #indyref He died, aged 84, in 2017 https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/canon-kenyon-wright-no-vote-dooms-us-all-1528579