FIRST MINISTER AND JOHN SWINNEY PAY TRIBUTE TO NEIL MACCORMICK.

FIRST MINISTER AND JOHN SWINNEY PAY TRIBUTE TO NEIL MACCORMICK. Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond and Cabinet Secretary for Finance John Swinney today paid tribute to Professor Sir Neil MacCormick at a memorial service held in Greyfriars Kirk. Speaking at the service Mr Salmond said; “It may seem a small thing – and of course it is compared to Neil’s family life and his towering academic contribution – that one of the things I thought of on hearing of Neil’s death was that I would no longer hear his elegant phrasemaking gracing an SNP conference speech. “It was not just the tone of party debates but the standard of public life in Scotland that Neil MacCormick raised - Neil represented the gold standard of political activity. “At career’s end, on Neil’s acceptance of the appointment as my European Special Adviser, I questioned in my own mind whether this was the right role for Neil. Would someone of his distinction be entirely happy serving with a group less than half his age? He accepted with alacrity, regarded it as a great honour, and raised the status and confidence of our team. Neil was proud and delighted to be part of the first ever SNP Government, and I was so proud to have him there with us. “And that is as it should be for his family, for his political faith, and for this life of service in Scotland’s cause.” Delivery a personal tribute to Professor MacCormick John Swinney said; “In 1970, Neil MacCormick introduced a volume entitled - Essays on Scottish Nationalism – with these words : “Whatever is to happen to Scotland and Britain, it should surely happen only after serious and rational argument. No doubt politics is in the end founded in large part upon prejudice and emotion, but these ought to be tempered and tested in the fire of critical discussion.” That approach sums up the essential contribution of Neil to public life in Scotland. Yes - there was a place for the emotion of politics – and nobody more than Neil spoke with greater love and inspiration about Scotland and her unfulfilled potential – but he wanted the debate to be stripped of the absurdity that has often prevailed. We can all hear him scoff at some silly scare story or other. The people Neil invited to contribute to that volume of essays tell us something else about the man. The book drew together contributions from Liberal MP David Steel, Labour MP Donald Dewar, Conservative MP Professor Esmond Wright and his own brother Iain, then an aspiring SNP Candidate and subsequent MP for Argyll. Neil believed the way to make progress for Scotland was to bring people together, not drive them apart. That approach drove one of Neil’s greatest interventions in changing the course of the Scottish National Party when he appealed for – and delivered ¬– an end to the crippling internecine battle that had raged within the SNP after the 1979 disasters. And without that intervention, neither our First Minister nor our Justice Secretary would have been brought back into the fold of the SNP. Neil’s great gifts to the national movement were threefold. First, he formulated the practical application of the constitutional principle of sovereignty resting with the people of Scotland. Second, he articulated how that concept could be applied to establish the right of the people of Scotland to be citizens of an Independent country that wanted to be part of the European Union. And third, he expressed the rationale that a devolved Scottish Parliament was not an impediment to, but indeed a powerful step toward, the establishment of an independent Scotland. These three great pillars of thinking – popular sovereignty, independence in Europe and the gradualist principle – have dominated the strategy of the Scottish National Party for the last 25 years. They were heavily shaped by Neil MacCormick and they have given us the foundations of creating a new Scotland. But for all his majestic contribution of intellectual might to the National cause, Neil also knew how to work the crowd. As he vied for a place at the top of the list of SNP candidates for the European Elections in 1999, he approached the microphone at the Party Conference to make his pitch as the eighth out of eight candidates. He stood solemnly at the microphone and said “I am the eighth of eight fine candidates. I feel very much like Elizabeth Taylor’s eighth husband on their wedding night. I know what I have to do – the challenge is to make it interesting!” He was rewarded with number two on the list and embarked on a distinguished chapter of his public life as a Member of the European Parliament – working day in and night out with Flora –promoting Scotland’s interests in Europe. Having had so many unsuccessful attempts to stand for Parliament in Edinburgh North, Edinburgh Pentlands and Argyll, he quipped to me rather modestly after he was elected to the European Parliament, that it was nice after all these attempts to get elected to something. I had the great fortune to sit with Neil on the platform of the McEwan Hall in December when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by his beloved University of Edinburgh. As we looked out on the assembled mass of graduates he turned to me and said – “When I first came here I would have been certified if I had said I would be given an honorary degree 36 years later, sitting alongside a Minister in the first SNP Government.” He was very proud of his Government – but by his contribution to Scottish politics he played an essential role in bringing it about. And his powerful guidance - of the importance of bringing people together for common cause - has been a fundamental characteristic of the first Government he ever found himself able to support. In his eulogy at the funeral of Neil’s father, John MacCormick, one of the founders of the Scottish National Party, Professor Andrew Dewar Gibb said – “John MacCormick has…gone from amongst us, but he has left his name indelibly written in the history of the country he loved so devotedly. This is not the place or the time to speculate whether his opinions will prevail or fail utterly. But of this I am sure. If in time to come a new and different Scotland comes to be erected, the work and the name of John MacCormick will be in it as the headstone in the corner.” That assessment belongs also to Neil. He has influenced the course of Scotland by his persuasive rationale and his distinguished example. Scotland – all of Scotland – has benefited from having among us such a fine intellect, advocate and champion. During Neil’s life Scotland has changed – changed utterly – and changed for the better. And history will record the enormous part that Neil MacCormick played in changing this country.”