An "irreversible shift" has taken place "in public policy towards the issue
of land ownership in Scotland," Brian Wilson MP told the London Committee of
the Scottish Landowners' Federation in June 2000. "Land reform has now
become a litmus test by which the Parliament and Executive would be judged."
It gave me considerable satisfaction to quote these words, not only in Soil
and Soul, my recent book about Scottish land reform and globalisation, but
also, in this month's Le Monde Diplomatique - Europe's most influential
political newspaper, which prints 1.2 million copies worldwide. In these
writings I've also quoted Alasdair Morrison MSP. Speaking around the same
time as Wilson's magnificent speech, he said: "Notice has now been served on
rapacious landowners who have abused wealth and privilege. An unstoppable
reforming process has begun."
Brave words, but as Wilson and Morrison know, the challenge facing
Parliament over the next few weeks is to pass the litmus test without being
forced to drink vinegar. That's why some of us are doing our damnedest to
make sure that the eyes of the world are on Scotland. History's witnesses
are waiting. If our elected representatives fail us, disappointment and
anger will be felt far beyond the Scottish Highlands.
What's happening with land reform in Scotland is being seen as a pattern and
example for elsewhere. That is why Gigha was even on French television last
week. And why the 1997 campaign on Eigg succeeded due not only to one big
donation of a million pounds, but also to 10,000 smaller contributions,
totalling £600,000. I remember seeing one letter in the interim Trust office
- Maggie Fyffe's kitchen on Eigg. It was from 'unemployed' of London and
contained a £2 donation. The covering note simply said, "It gives me hope,"
and countless other letters expressed similar feeling.
Today, only a powerful, concentrated, well connected and richly resourced
lobby stands between the residual legacy of feudalism and that hope. Their
own language betrays them. Consider, for example, this splendid statement,
quoted in The Herald of 17th September 2001, from David Cotton of the
so-called Crofting Counties Fishing Rights Group: "We are a totally
independent body, representing grassroots salmon and sea trout river
workers, including ghillies, bailiffs, fishery scientists, managers and
hatchery operators. We also represent their wives who may work in the
fishing lodges or the wee local shops and their families." Analyse the role
of women in that one, and you see the name of the game - all the way through
to "the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate."
As Calum MacDonald MP told a conference organised by Land Reform Scotland
earlier this year, the crofting right to buy, with sporting rights, is the
forthcoming Land Reform (Scotland) Bill's most vital reform. However, it is
the basis by which land will be valued that will determine whether the Bill
makes much difference. The draft Bill envisages land transfers taking place
at market valuation. Apart from the ethics of having to buy back what was
once, in effect, stolen property, or what can already be bought back
individually for a mere fifteen times annual crofting rental, this could be
positively dangerous. What makes it regressive could be called, "the
Pavarotti Effect."
In the last days before the fake Professor Maruma, successor to Keith
Schellenberg, was forced to sell the Isle of Eigg, a mysterious outfit
materialised - the Pavarotti Foundation. This threatened to buy the island
like a giant floating Mod - turning it into an "opera college" for three
thousand aspiring crooners! The Foundation's smarmy and ever-smiling
be-suited consultants went to meet with Highland Council to discuss the
plan, allegedly patronised by the Italian tenor, Luciano Pavarotti. But the
mirage evaporated when Pavarotti disclaimed sponsorship. The Foundation's
manager was exposed as being one and the same as Maruma's principal creditor
- Hans-Dieter Kals - desperate to recoup the money put in by himself, a
retired scientist called Willy Hermann, and a Stuttgart hotelier by the name
of Zimmerman. It was, seemingly, all just a ruse to up the ante in the
bidding stakes. It was an effort to frighten the newly-formed Isle of Eigg
Heritage Trust into paying over the odds.
Eigg wasn't fooled, but how do we know that Gigha hasn't been taken in?
We're given to understand that Derek Holt, the erstwhile laird,
altruistically accepted £4 million in the face of higher bids of £5 million,
or was it £7 million - the figure fluctuates. How do we know that these were
genuine? After all, would any millionaire in their right mind want to buy a
reclusive retreat where the residents have just voted for revolution?
If the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill goes through on the basis of "market
valuation," and if there's no qualification of what that means, what is
there to stop landowners from manipulating market values? The existence of
secretive companies like Vibel SA, owners of Durness show that corporate
power can operate from behind a curtain of perfect anonymity. Set in this
light, it becomes apparent that legislation permitting community buy-outs at
market valuation could actually work against land reform. This is because
prominent buy-outs like Eigg and Assynt happened not at market valuation,
but because of market spoiling.
There was nothing new about this idea. Those of us instrumental in
establishing the original Isle of Eigg Trust got it not from our own brains,
but rather, from James Hunter's book, The Making of the Crofting Community!
Hunter tells how the perpetrators of the 1887 Pairc Deer Raid were not just
trying to satisfy their hunger. They also hoped that "the sporting value of
Park forest would be so drastically reduced that its tenant would give it
up, thus forcing Lady Matheson to [hand it] over to the crofters." In modern
parlance, the name of the game had to be to wipe out what Keith Schellenberg
called the "collector's item" premium in Scottish land values.
Land reform legislation stipulating market valuation, without any
qualification of what that means, could actually damage the future use of
this tactic. It could set a price higher than the market might bear given
the "perfect market information" that, quite frankly, a new laird would be
an unwelcome neighbour! Simple market valuation could play into the hands of
landed power by setting the "market value" at whatever some trumped-up
Pavarotti might sing for. That is why our MSPs need to consider specifying a
realistic market value - market value based on economic value. That way,
communities would be taking on loans no greater than what the well-managed
economic output of their place could sustain. Land reform legislation would
protect them from the siren-call of the Pavarotti Effect.
Alastair McIntosh is author of Soul and Soil: People versus Corporate Power
(Aurum Press, 2001)
For further material on land reform and discussion papers on other related
topics visit www.AlastairMcIntosh.com