He was widely expected to become the first leader of a proposed devolved Scottish Executive, but died before the Scotland Act 1978 had achieved implementation.
[1] On his return to Scotland he formed a partnership with Walter and Elizabeth Fyfe, and John and Beryl Jardine, and together they established the Gorbals Group.
[2] In 1998, Ron Ferguson wrote in The Herald newspaper:[1] At the time of Geoff Shaw's death, it looked as if Scotland was on the brink of achieving Home Rule.
They profiled various candidates, and put their money on Shaw.Support like this from the press was in some ways ironic as Shaw, like much of the Labour left, had initially been hostile to devolution; indeed, whilst a member of the Scottish party's executive committee in 1974 he voted with the majority in rejecting the Wilson Government's various White Paper proposals for the establishment of a Scottish Assembly.
[3][4] But, as Ferguson argues, Shaw was a party loyalist to his bones, and once support for Home Rule was accepted as Labour policy he became reconciled to the idea, reasoning that a devolved government in Edinburgh would not necessarily pose a threat to the existence of regional councils as he had originally feared.
Overwork and smoking eventually led to a heart attack, and although he recovered initially, he suffered a relapse and died on 28 April 1978 at the age of 51.