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"It's Scotland's oil" was a widely publicised political slogan used by the Scottish National Party (SNP) during the 1970s in making their economic case for Scottish independence. It was argued that the discovery of North Sea oil off the coast of Scotland, and the revenue that it created would not benefit Scotland to any significant degree while Scotland remained part of the United Kingdom. The SNP campaigned widely in both the February 1974 UK General Election and subsequent October 1974 UK General Election using this slogan. At the February election the SNP gained seven seats in the House of Commons and 22% of the Scottish vote, rising to eleven seats and 30% of the vote in the October election. The idea behind the slogan has proven to be controversial in discussions surrounding the financial viability of an independent Scottish state and still resonates to this day.〔''Scotland's oil: Does oil in Scotland have a future?'' (Professor Thomas W Walde - Thomas Walde Professor of International Economic Energy and Natural Resources Law at the University of Dundee )〕 ==Background== The outcome of the February 1974 General Election saw the Labour Party, led by Harold Wilson, win the most seats. Prime Minister Edward Heath, leader of the Conservative Party, lost support from the Ulster Unionist Party and, although he entered coalition negotiations with Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, these broke down. The Labour Party then formed the new government, with a plurality of seats but without a majority. In October 1974, Wilson went back to the country to ask for a renewed mandate. During this time, in Scotland support for the Scottish National Party had been increasing after the victory of the SNP candidate Winnie Ewing at the 1967 Hamilton by-election. The political instability surrounding the general elections of 1974 represented a time of intense political campaigning in the UK, which further brought the SNP to prominence. It was during this time that the slogan "It's Scotland's Oil" came to the fore with the February election seeing 7 SNP candidates returned, rising to 11 in October. Some well known MPs such as Tam Dalyell believe this was in no small part due to the "It's Scotland's oil" slogan employed by the Scottish National Party.〔''Independent Online edition December 2005'' (Tam Dalyell, who served as Labour MP in West Lothian for 43 years, agrees.... "It could have tipped the balance it a number of seats including mine. Oil was very much a totemic issue )〕 The economic background to the claim was the discovery of oil in the North Sea in the 1960s, and its coming on line in the 1970s. The majority of the largest oil fields in the UK sector of the North Sea were found in the waters to the north and east of the Scottish mainland, with the more northerly fields found to the east of the Orkney and Shetland islands.〔''School Science from The Energy Institute'' (Map of North Sea oil fields )〕 Aberdeen became the centre of Britain's North Sea oil industry, with many oil terminals such as that of Sullom Voe on Shetland and Flotta on Orkney and at Cruden Bay and St Fergus on the north east coast of Scotland, being built to support the North Sea oil industry. In the early 1970s, there was a great deal of economic turbulence with the 1973 oil price shock caused by the Yom Kippur War, resulting in rising inflation coupled with high unemployment, recession (also known as stagflation) in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom.〔''Scotland on Sunday'', January 1, 2006 (How North Sea oil calmed the UK's crisis ridden waters )〕 Thus the economic argument that formed the basis of the slogan was that while Scotland was part of the United Kingdom, it lacked control over royalties and revenue from the majority of the oil which lay in the Scottish sector of the North Sea. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「It's Scotland's oil」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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