If at first you don’t secede, try, try again

Politics Notebook #19: It’s ten years since Scotland voted against independence but the threat to the UK’s future remains.

Image by M W from Pixabay.

Today is the ten-year anniversary of the Scottish referendum, in which voters rejected independence from the UK.

Although defeated on the proposition ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’, the Yes movement didn’t lose the referendum until some years later. In its immediate aftermath, there was a rallying around the cause, an almost weekly diet of large-scale marches, and an unprecedented surge in membership which swiftly made the Scottish National Party the third-largest UK political party by that metric. The animating spirit of this movement was cheated-not-defeated grievance-studded optimism: given another opportunity, Scots would surely vote Yes having realised how monstrously they were lied to by the No campaign, the Labour Party, the BBC and sundry other boogeymen of the Scottish nationalist imagination.

This was equal parts hope and cope but for a time it seemed as though subsequent events might go the separatists’ way. Nicola Sturgeon, who had replaced Alex Salmond in the aftermath of the referendum, led the SNP to a historic triumph in the 2015 general election, routing Labour in its Scottish heartland and turning all but three Scottish seats SNP yellow. The following year’s EU referendum, which saw Scotland and England vote in sharply different directions, appeared to seal the UK’s fate. A central component of the No campaign’s case in 2014 had been that voting Yes would not only remove Scotland from the UK but by necessity from the EU too. Sturgeon argued, not unreasonably, that the constitutional ground had shifted. Scotland deserved a fresh referendum to cast its verdict in light of this change in circumstances.

There had, however, been another change in circumstances, this time at Westminster. Labour had set up the devolved Scottish parliament in 1999 and under David Cameron the Tories showered that body with two tranches of additional powers. The reigning doctrine of the time was The Respect Agenda, which dictated that the only way to counter the SNP’s efforts to undermine the Union was by giving the SNP more powers to undermine the Union. It was a theory, for sure. The post-Cameron years saw Downing Street finally learn to say No to Nationalist-run Holyrood. No second referendum, no more powers, just collect your latest subsidy and be on your way. The British state finally locating its man jewels was important but insufficient for nationalism’s defeat. It also required Sturgeon to launch a doomed legal challenge that only confirmed that Holyrood lacked the power to hold its own referendum. It required a breakdown in relations between Sturgeon and her mentor Salmond and the subsequent criminal, civil and parliamentary proceedings. It required Sturgeon’s headlong dive down the rabbit hole of identity politics and the SNP’s chronic failings in health, education, infrastructure and drug fatalities.

Handed a century’s worth of opportunities in the space of a decade, they not only failed to realise Scottish independence but convinced some Yes voters that their defeat in 2014 had been a lucky escape. Today the SNP is once again a rump in the House of Commons, Labour looks set to regain control of Holyrood in 2026 and independence is off the table for the foreseeable. They blew it. For a certain strain of Unionist, those with modest political imagination, this is the end of the story and all that’s left is to gloat a little today. They think politics is something that’s done at ballot boxes and in parliaments and can’t conceive of a future for Scottish nationalism. You don’t fall into that category because you’re reading this and you don’t subscribe to my writing to be told only what you want to hear.

So rather than gloating, allow me to leave you with three thoughts about the UK’s current constitutional arrangements and they threats they face.

Thought number one: Britishness, a foundation stone of the UK, is largely an English phenomenon. Whereas 45 per cent of English voters describe themselves as equally English and British, only 25 per cent of Scots consider themselves equally Scottish and British. The most common response from Scots is ‘Scottish not British’ followed by ‘more Scottish than British’, with these two statements accounting for 57 per cent of those polled. By contrast, just 23 per cent of voters in England characterise themselves as ‘English not British’ or ‘more English than British’.

Britishness also appears to be a generational phenomenon: while less than a quarter of over-55s call themselves ‘Scottish not British’, almost half of under 35s do. It can be the case that people get more conservative the older they get, but is there much evidence that they get less patriotic or nationalistic? Perhaps there is no constitutional significance to these numbers; perhaps a Scotland that rejects Britishness will still opt to remain part of the British state. We can only hope because there is no evidence that Westminster is prepared for a future scenario in which Scottish national identity and electoral behaviour become more closely aligned.

Thought number two: The fiscal case for the Union is rooted in unfairness. One of the most commonly cited arguments for Scotland remaining in the UK is the Barnett formula, the mechanism by which funding for devolved administrations is calculated and which annually allots significantly more public spending per head to Scots than to residents of England. Last year, it allocated £14,456 per head in Scotland but only £12,227 in England. That is manifestly unjust. Scotland has deep pockets of poverty, but so does England. How much longer can this imbalance be sustained before it (quite legitimately) becomes an issue in English politics? And if Scotland’s funding advantage was eventually removed, what then would be the argument for the Union?

Thought number three: There is a difference between lawful powers and political authority. Westminster can lawfully continue saying No to another referendum for as long as it likes. In the UK constitution, sovereignty rests with Parliament, not the citizenry. Unionists have put a great deal of stock in polls indicating continued opposition to independence or ranking it as a low priority. But what happens if (when) that changes? If public scepticism or indifference is grounds for denying a further referendum, surely public enthusiasm or interest is grounds for granting one. It’s another concern Unionist ultras like to wave away but they fail to appreciate that their ideological enmity to Scottish nationalism is not replicated quite so fiercely at Westminster. Both Labour and the Tories are opposed to independence but neither party would relish ruling over a Scotland whose population and political class were determined to secede.

Ten years on from the referendum, the Union survives and Scottish nationalism struggles, but, in politics as in life, nothing lasts forever. This generation of Unionists can celebrate their victory but the next generation will have a much tougher fight on their hands.