End of the honeymoon? By Iain Macwhirter

3 Sep 09
IAIN MACWHIRTER | Rarely has compassion come at such a cost. The Scottish Government’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, from prison on humanitarian grounds and allow him to return to Libya to die has been hugely unpopular in Scotland

The Scottish Government’s decision to allow the convicted Lockerbie bomber to return to Libya has angered voters

Rarely has compassion come at such a cost. The Scottish Government’s decision to release the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, from prison on humanitarian grounds and allow him to return to Libya to die has been hugely unpopular in Scotland. And it led to the Scottish Government’s humiliating defeat on the issue in Parliament on September 2.

It wasn’t so much the decision itself, but the scenes in Tripoli, where Megrahi was received by cheering crowds waving Saltires and greeted as a national hero by the Libyan leader, Col Muammar Gaddafi. A poll by ICM for the BBC suggests that 74% of Scots believe the episode has damaged Scotland’s image.

This has been the first real political crisis for the minority Scottish National Party government, which has led something of a charmed life since it was elected in 2007. First Minister Alex Salmond has retained his high popularity ratings through the financial crisis, the collapse of banks and the growth of unemployment queues. But the opposition Labour party believe that the Megrahi affair has finally ended his honeymoon with the Scottish voters.

However, they’d be wise not to count their chickens. The same ICM poll that indicated Scottish discontent with the Megrahi decision also suggested that 68% of Scottish voters believe Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s reputation has suffered as a result of the affair. This seems perverse, since the PM insists he played no part in the decision to release Megrahi. It was, Brown said, a matter for Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The Scottish Government has agreed that Westminster put them under no pressure to send Megrahi home. They say the decision was taken by MacAskill alone, on the advice of bodies such as the Parole Board and the prison governor, after it was learned that Megrahi had terminal cancer.

However, people aren’t stupid. They know the UK government initiated the process that led to Megrahi’s repatriation, after the ‘deal in the desert’ between then Prime Minister Tony Blair and Col Gadaffi in 2007. Blair signed a prisoner transfer agreement that could have allowed Megrahi to return to Libya to serve the rest of his sentence in a Libyan jail.

The Libyan government has said that Megrahi’s fate was ‘always on the table’ in negotiations with the British government about energy deals and other commercial contracts.
Letters leaked to the Sunday Times last weekend confirmed that UK government ministers had argued that it was ‘in the national interest’ for Megrahi to be included in the prisoner transfer agreement, even though an assurance had been given to the Lockerbie victims that he would serve his sentence entirely in Scotland. Foreign Secretary David Miliband has now finally admitted that the government had indeed indicated to the Libyan authorities that it did not want Megrahi to remain in jail until he died.

Shortly after the signing of the prisoner transfer agreement, BP agreed a multimillion-pound oil exploration deal with the Libyan government. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insists that there was no ‘linkage’ between the commercial negotiations and Megrahi, but no-one believes him – certainly not the Scottish voters.

But they don’t appear to trust anyone in this affair. A majority of Scots told ICM that they did not believe the Scottish Government’s assurance that it made its final decision on Megrahi’s return on compassionate grounds alone. Salmond has given his word on the matter, and it is hard to see what covert economic motive Scotland could have had for making a decision that has plunged it into a political crisis. But the word of politicians is not worth a great deal in these cynical times.

The Scottish voters seem to believe that everything to do with the Megrahi affair stinks. I suspect this will limit the damage to the SNP as an administration, since no-one has come out of this affair smelling of roses. But it will do nothing to restore respect for politics.

Iain Macwhirter is a political commentator on the Sunday Herald

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