Scotland Out the Union? The Rise and Rise of the Nationalist Agenda

The election of the Scottish National party as a majority government in 2011 is as challenging to the British state as it was unexpected. While explanations for SNP success focused on Labour's faulty campaign and poor leadership, the last half‐century has seen the rise and rise of the nationalist agenda in Scotland. Scotland's politics are now more different from England's than at any time since the 1950s. The Scottish parliament is the effect of that change rather than its cause, while party competition between Labour and the SNP north of the border has shifted political gravity centre‐left in contrast with England. It is not inevitable, however, that Scots would vote for Independence in a referendum. Nevertheless, Scotland is a more semi‐detached country than at any point in the history of the Union, and the future of the British state, at least in its present form, cannot be taken for granted.     

The (dis)continuation of Scottish nationalism? A discursive comparison of the Scottish National Party and National Collective

The Scottish independence referendum in 2014 was propelled by the Scottish National Party (SNP), but the referendum also saw the emergence of a plethora of pro-independence groups. One of the most prominent was National Collective (NC), a cultural movement emphasizing the empowerment of the younger electorate. NC has been described as part of a radical pro-independence movement, heralding the end of the nationalist hegemony and the arrival of a new post-nationalist politics in Scotland. This article investigates that claim from a political discourse perspective by analysing interviews conducted with NC and SNP representatives. The analysis of the interview data is framed by Gorski’s conception of nationalism as discourse and mobilization, and the ideological presentation of these two organizations are analysed by drawing on Freeden’s morphological approach. The findings suggest a great degree of discursive overlap between NC and the SNP but wide divergences in terms of imagined recipient scope.     

Federalism,regionalism, nationalism: A century of Catalan political thought and its implications for Scotland in Europe

Although on Spain's periphery, Catalonia has often held a central position in Spanish politics. In dealing with the Catalan question, politicians in Madrid and Barcelona have had to grapple with different models of state structures. Some have even attempted to consider the issue in terms of greater European solutions. At the end of the 20th century, Europe's regions are having to consider their role not just within the traditional states, but also within the new European framework. The Scottish movement has now found itself in a position to affect British politics. The long tradition of Catalan thought on statecraft, and the influence Catalonia has had on the Spanish state, can serve as useful examples for the traditionally more marginalised Scots. Both Scots and Catalans face the question of defining their own identity, the identity of the state and the identity of Europe. In two decades of British politics, the SNP has also shifted to define itself within a greater European context.     

Scotland’s Faltering Green Industrial Revolution

Renewable energy has long been central to SNP policy making and Scottish independence. During the 2014 referendum, green electricity generation was presented as a means for Scotland to achieve ‘reindustrialisation’. Despite a world‐leading transition in electricity supply, the Scottish government has struggled to develop renewables manufacturing. Scotland’s largest offshore engineering company, BiFab, entered administration in 2020. This article explains the faltering of Scotland’s green industrial revolution. First, it assesses renewables’ privileged place in SNP perspectives, underlining its deep roots in North Sea oil and criticisms of British governments’ mismanagement of offshore opportunities. Second, the failure of market‐led policy making to provide the anticipated industrial benefits from offshore wind developments is explained through the domineering role of foreign state‐owned enterprises and global supply chains in the UK’s renewables sector. The conclusion argues that older nationalist perspectives offer remedies, but these require a more active industrial policy that diverges from the current approach of the Scottish Government.     

The Political Thought of Scottish Nationalism

This article examines the key arguments and intellectual influences that have come together over recent decades to produce the case for Scottish independence. In particular, the article draws attention to three crucial, but discordant, ideological themes that have become recurrent features of Scottish nationalist discourse: an analysis of the British state indebted to the New Left; a surprising enthusiasm for the politics of the British labour movement; and a belief that we are witnessing the end of the era of absolute state sovereignty.     

Whatever Became of the British?

Much of the debate about ‘being British’ is driven by the politics of the constitutional future of the United Kingdom. This has led to assertions about the declining impact of Britishness, and how, in the interests of the Union, it might be revived. Data from British and Scottish Social Attitudes surveys show that ‘Britain’ remains an important and meaningful frame of reference, even though people in England and Scotland may not define their prime national identity as British. The relationship between national identity and constitutional preferences is complex. Being ‘strongly Scottish’ is a weak predictor of constitutional preferences because almost all Scots are at the ‘strong’ end of the Scottish scale, whereas saying you are ‘British’ (or not) is a better guide. It is not a matter of choosing to be Scottish or English over being British, but recognising the complexity and inter‐relationships of diverse territorial identities.     

Progressivism in British Politics: Some Revisionist Themes

This article argues that a return to the history of progressive political thought can help us to think afresh about what a renewed centre‐left politics might look like today. The article identifies some significant aspects of this history that attracted little attention in earlier debates over the British progressive tradition—in particular, debates about social ownership, nationalism and distributism. This revisionist history of British progressivism points the way towards some common ideological ground that could provide a starting point for a new dialogue between different ‘progressive’ political parties and interests.     

Labour and the Scottish National Party: the Triumph of Continuity in a Changing Scotland

Scotland's party system appears on the verge of major change with the Scottish National Party poised to supplant the Labour party as the dominant force. Under a charismatic leader, the SNP is using populist means to try and secure independence. However, real change appears elusive even if constitutional arrangements are altered further. The SNP distrusts democratic participation and is keen to rule through mobilised interests groups and the civil‐service, strengthening the corporatist style of government characterising Scotland for centuries. Labour might avoid long‐term marginalisation, if it was to embrace an agenda based on strong democratic citizenship and a broad nationalism which emphasises a continuing Union in which the benefits of devolution are clearly directed towards individual citizens as well as elite groups     

Questions of Sovereignty: Redefining Politics in Scotland?

The issue of sovereignty has never been resolved in Scotland. The 1998 Scotland Act, creating the Scottish Parliament affirmed that the Westminster Parliament is sovereign, but this is disputed. In practice, the issue was left largely in abeyance as sovereignty was seen as an outdated concept. The Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and the UK Brexit referendum of 2016 both brought back the question of sovereignty in stark terms. Analysis of data from the British Election Study of 2019 with regard to (a) the right of Scottish self‐determination, and (b) the right of a UK‐wide majority to take Scotland out of the EU, allows us to identify ‘sovereigntists’ and ‘unionists’. Sovereigntists, on both dimensions, now constitute a majority. A smaller group of unionists reject both positions. There remains a group of ‘semi‐sovereigntists’ who accept Scottish self‐determination, but also that the UK as a whole should decide on Brexit. Controlling for the social and political factors, Scots are increasingly polarised around issues of sovereignty, which have become central to contemporary Scottish politics.     

Exploring Sovereignty in Scotland

It is often said that sovereignty is ever less meaningful in the modern world. Yet, sovereignty claims continue to proliferate. There are two elements: the subject of self-determination (sovereignty) claims and the object. Scottish independence and Brexit are two examples, yet they differ in important ways. Brexit postulates that the British people are the subject and complete sovereignty is the object. The Scottish independence movement claims the Scottish people is the subject but now places the object (independence) in a European context of shared sovereignty. Analysis of questions placed in the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (2021) shows that, in spite of Scottish politics being polarised around the issue of independence vs. union, voters show flexibility about what each of these actually means.     

Toward a New Critical Theory with a Cosmopolitan Intent

In this article I want to outline an argument for a New Critical Theory with a cosmopolitan intent. Its main purpose is to undermine one of the most powerful beliefs of our time concerning society and politics. This belief is the notion that “modern society” and “modern politics” are to be understood as society and politics organized around the nation‐state, equating society with the national imagination of society. There are two aspects to this body of beliefs: what I call the “national perspective” (or “national gaze”) of social actors, and the “methodological nationalism” of scientific observers. The distinction between these two perspectives is important because there is no logical co‐implication between them, only an interconnected genesis and history.     

Party over Policy? Scottish Nationalism and the Politics of Independence

The Scottish National Party (SNP) won control of Scotland's devolved government in the 2007 election yet opinion polls show no majority for its objective of independence in Europe. While the party is adept at exploiting short‐term political opportunity structures in the wider British context, as well as appealing to the ‘opinion electorate’, it appears less successful at persuading a majority of Scottish voters to agree with its core ideology. Helpful parallels can be drawn between 2007 and the last time the party polled over 30 per cent of the popular vote in Scotland at the 1974 (October) British General Election—then, as now, the Scottish voter appears to be willing to distinguish between party and policy.     

Globalisation and Public Language

This article questions what the concept of ‘globalisation’ really amounts to. In doing so it highlights problems for the ascendancy of globalisation in contemporary public debate. Globalisation has become a catch‐all; the phrase is now used to try and explain all manner of phenomena from everyday life to international politics. But the article suggests that this may be little more than a combination of rhetoric and wishful thinking. It asserts that the contemporary world is being driven by older and familiar pressures, such as state power and nationalism. As a result, the idea of ‘globalisation’ needs to be treated with some scepticism.     

Scotland's Future Political System

Debates on Scottish constitutional reform go hand in hand with discussions of political reform. Its reformers use the image of ‘old Westminster’ to describe ‘control freakery’ within government and an adversarial political system. Many thought that the Scottish political system could diverge from the UK, to strengthen the parliamentary system, introduce consensus politics and further Scotland's alleged social and democratic tradition. Yet the experience of devolution suggests that Holyrood and Westminster politics share key features. Both systems are driven by government, making policy in ‘communities’ involving interest groups and governing bodies, with parliaments performing a limited role and public participation limited largely to elections. The Scottish government's style of policy‐making is distinctive, but new reforms are in their infancy and their effects have not been examined in depth. In this context, the article identifies Scotland's ability to make and implement policy in a new way, based on its current trajectory rather than the hopes of reformers.     

The Evolution of the Centre-right and the State of Scottish Conservatism

This article considers the decline of Scottish Conservatism, 1951–97. The statistical data indicate that 91 percent of the variance in Tory support is accounted for by an underlying negative trend against time, that similar patterns appear when the data is disaggregated by region, and that short-term fluctuations have been more in conformity with English results than is conventionally understood. The process of generational change is seen as a waning of the cultural conditions which produced the centre-right coalition that dominated Scottish politics, 1931–64, and its fragmentation into Conservatism, Liberalism, and Scottish Nationalism. The changed circumstances are not seen as peculiarly Scottish, but the consequences for Scottish Conservatism of an evolution affecting the centre-right across the United Kingdom.     

Looming Issues for Scotland and the Union

The minor electoral gains for the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2007, which made it the largest party but a minority Scottish Executive administration, have provoked a fundamental review of Scottish devolution. Political imperatives rather than reasoned argument seem to dominate the actions of those pushing for independence and/or greater powers for the Scottish Parliament. The renaming of the Scottish Executive by the SNP as the Scottish Government is creating confusion. The Scottish Executive's plans to move to independence are inadequate for the significance of the intended outcome. The unionist opposition parties could not agree to form a majority coalition but have launched a major review of devolution which includes the possibility of increased tax powers for the Scottish Parliament even when existing tax powers are not used. Federalism has been proposed by the Liberal Democrats and others but evidence from other states suggests that this is by no means a stable or certain solution.     

In Defence of British Politics Against the British Political Tradition

This article explores some of the current themes round the perceived crisis in British politics in supposed an age of ‘anti‐politics’. Drawing on Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics, it offers a critique of what is referred to as a dominant British political tradition and in so doing seeks to challenge ‘demand‐side’ accounts that ostensibly defend the traditional arena politics of the Westminster system. Instead, it argues that developments around issues such as big data, social media and freedom of information have led to a more open society in recent years. It concludes by suggesting that if traditional political institutions wish to restore a greater degree of legitimacy, they need to ‘do’ or, more particularly, ‘supply’ politics differently, adapting to these changes by seeking out new modes of openness, engagement and accountability.     

Does the UK Have Influence in the EU Legislative Process?

The UK has influenced some major EU policies, such as the creation of the single market and enlargement. But how influential are the UK government and British MEPs in the day‐to‐day EU legislative process? To answer this question, this article analyses recent data from the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. The evidence is mixed. In the Council, in recent years the UK government has been outvoted more often than any other EU government, yet UK officials remain well connected ‘behind the scenes’. In the European Parliament, British MEPs are now more likely to be on the losing side than are the MEPs of any other member state, yet British MEPs still win key committee chairs and rapporteurships. The evidence suggests that if the UK votes to remain in the EU, Britain's political elites will need to re‐engage with Brussels politics if the UK is to avoid becoming further marginalised from mainstream EU politics.     

The 2016 Scottish Parliament election: a nationalist minority,a Conservative comeback and a Labour collapse

This article examines the political context, campaign, election results and outcomes of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. The Scottish National Party (SNP) secured its third electoral victory, yet failed to achieve a widely predicted majority. With just two MSPs short of a majority, the SNP has ruled out any formal coalition with the opposition and will instead govern as a minority administration. The composition of the parliament’s opposition also changed significantly. The Scottish Conservatives increased their share of the constituency and regional votes, and became, for the first time, the largest opposition party in the chamber. Scottish Labour suffered a severe electoral drubbing, losing 13 of its seats. The election was also important for the Scottish Liberal Democrats and Scottish Green Party. The latter increased its vote share and number of seats, leapfrogging the Lib Dems to become the fourth largest party in the chamber.     

‘Party competition and dual accountability in multi-level systems’ the independence echo: the rise of the constitutional question in Scottish election manifestos and voter behaviour

ABSTRACT

Since the formation of the Scottish Parliament, the idea of Scottish independence increased in salience and popularity among Scottish voters to such an extent that it now constitutes the country’s defining political cleavage. Given that Scottish politics is increasingly organized around this constitutional question, support for either side of the debate among voters and elites drives political engagement, election turnout and public attitudes to other major issues. Although much popular and academic work has sought to explain the rise of support for independence, few scholars have explored changes in elite behaviour or its consequences for public opinion. From an elite-driven perspective, the increased salience of independence may be but an echo of elite and partisan attention. Developing hypotheses from this approach, we predict that voters identifying with parties developed stronger views on independence following increased attention in parties’ campaigns. We examine these hypotheses by performing computer assisted, unsupervised content analysis of Scottish Parties’ election manifestos. We then use estimates from a structural topic model to predict change in voter support for independence from the British Election Study. The theory and results suggest that increasing salience on alternative dimensions of politics likely closely relates to elite-driven choices in their election campaigns.