Kenyon Wright

Early life

Wright was born in Paisley in Scotland on 31 August 1932, the son of a textile technician. He attended Paisley Grammar School, followed by Glasgow and Cambridge Universities.

Ministry

From 1955, he served as a Methodist missionary in India and in 1963 was appointed Director of the Ecumenical, Social and Industrial Institute in Durgapur, India.

In 1970, he returned to the United Kingdom as Director of Urban Ministry, at Coventry Cathedral and then in 1974 was promoted to Canon Residentiary at the Cathedral and Director of its International Ministry.

In 1981, he came back to Scotland and became General Secretary of the Scottish Council of Churches. In 1990, he became Director of Kairos (Centre for a Sustainable Society). In 1994 he took up the post of Priest-in-Charge of All Saints Church in Glencarse.

Campaigning for a Scottish Parliament

Wright was a long-time campaigner for Scottish devolution. He had been a member of he Labour party but let this lapse to be able to work as part of the cross-party Scottish Constitutional Convention.

He became the executive chairman of the convention and opened the first meeting on 30 March 1989. The convention was aimed at drawing up a blueprint for Scottish devolution and included representatives of local government, the Scottish Churches, Trade Unions, Small Business Federation and the Scottish Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green parties. The Scottish Conservative Party and Scottish National Party declined to be involved. The task of finding a consensus among the participating groups remained formidable, the Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind was reported as saying "if the disparate parties reached a common conclusion he would jump off the roof of the Scottish Office". Nevertheless, on St Andrew's Day 1990, the convention delivered its first report recommending a legislature elected by proportional representation financed by assigned revenues from taxes raised in Scotland.

Of course, any agreement which was rejected by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher could not become law. Wright responded to this political reality by appealing to the idea of Scottish popular sovereignty. At the first meeting of the Convention he famously remarked: "What if that other voice we all know so well responds by saying, 'We say no, and we are the state',? Well we say yes - and we are the people."

In 1997, when the Labour party came to power in the United Kingdom, the convention formed the basis of the Scotland Act that the Secretary of State for Scotland Donald Dewar successfully steered through the Westminster Parliament. However, the Labour Party also insisted on a referendum before the Scottish Parliament came into being. During this 1997 referendum, Wright was a prominent campaigner for the "yes/yes" vote.

After the convention

At the first election to the Parliament in 1999 he stood as an independent candidate in the West of Scotland region but was not successful.

He joined the Scottish Liberal Democrats in 2000, having stayed out of party politics as chairman of the convention. In 2001 he stood as a candidate in the Banff and Buchan by-election for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, unsuccessfully contesting the Scottish Parliamentary seat vacated by the resignation of Alex Salmond. In the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary elections, he contested the Stirling constituency.

Wright also backed calls for a devolved English Parliament.

In the Scottish independence referendum, 2014 he supported a Yes vote.

Published works

Later life and death

In 2008 Wright retired from working as a priest and returned to live in the Midlands. He died at his home in Stratford-upon-Avon on 11 January 2017 at the age of 84.

Awards and honours

Wright was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to constitutional reform and devolution in Scotland.

He was a Fellow of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry.