Brexit,Fisheries and Scottish Devolution: An Intergovernmental Disruption

With the UK set to leave the EU, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) will no longer apply and an alternative legislative framework will need to be put in place, simultaneously navigating the devolved settlement. However, aspects of fisheries management fall under the area of international negotiation which is reserved to the UK government. Disagreements between the UK and Scottish governments over where the line between devolved and reserved lies in this matter has led to difficulties in formulating a post‐Brexit fisheries framework. This dispute has exposed weaknesses in relations between the two governments.     

Harassment and Intimidation of Parliamentary Candidates in the United Kingdom

The use of political violence to attain political goals has long been a source of concern. Once thought to be exclusive to countries with high levels of general violence, recent evidence suggests that harassment and intimidation of political elites in the UK is more widespread than previously thought. Using data from the 2017 general election candidate survey, we find that four in every ten candidates experienced at least one type of harassment. Evidence suggests that women and young candidates are more likely to suffer from harassment and intimidation. We conclude by formulating an agenda for future research, focussing, in particular, on the perception of harassment and the effect of harassment on political careers.     

The servant of two masters: Electoral incentives in the Scottish Parliament

Scholars have pointed out the potential impact of different electoral systems on the incentives for representatives to cultivate personal versus party reputations. The mixed-member proportional system (MMP) allows us to examine the effects of electoral systems on legislators’ incentives. Scholars have argued that MMP may be the ‘best of both worlds’; however, MMP may lead to competing demands on list representatives if they are also allowed to run as constituency candidates, as happens in the Scottish Parliament. I show that this leads to different levels of committee activity—which I use as a surrogate for party activity—from constituency Members of Scottish Parliament (MSPs), pure-list MSPs (who are elected via the party list and do not run in constituencies), and dual-candidate list MSPs (list MSPs who also run in constituencies), and that the proximity of elections also affects committee activity for those who run in constituencies.     

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.     

Religion and the Scottish Independence Referendum

The Scottish independence referendum debate, like the Act of Union of 1707, has significant religious dimensions. The Act gave special recognition through the monarch to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The Church, a national church, has not yet declared a position on independence, but is seeking to protect its existing privileges whatever the result. The Roman Catholic Church, recognised by the Scottish Parliament, unlike its formal rejection by the UK Parliament and monarchy, symbolically associates itself with the case for independence. Paradoxically, Catholics supporting independence subject themselves, in their religious lives, to an authoritarian foreign power. The SNP Scottish Government attempts to draw Roman Catholic support for independence from its traditional support base in the Labour Party by cultivating a sense of religious grievance that is not justified by the evidence. Old religious divisions are still relevant but non‐religion is growing fast and resulting in new perspectives on the independence debate.     

Introduction: The Future of British Political History

Politics and history are closely intertwined and historians play a vital role in British public life. Yet, British political history, which has a critical contribution to make for understanding British politics today, faces two urgent challenges. First, academic history has retreated from subjects that remain hugely popular in media and trade publishing and of interest to social scientists, such as the histories of political institutions and formal power structures. Second, political history is disconnected from innovative trends in the wider historiography of modern Britain. Combined, these issues leave political historians in an ambiguous position in relation to the wider field, to other academic disciplines and to contemporary political debates. After discussing these challenges, this introduction surveys this special issue, which reflects on what (if anything) is distinctive about political history as practised today, and what its contribution to historiography, social science and public life should be. It ends by posing key questions for historians of all methodological stripes who investigate Britain's political past.     

Territorial Finance and the Future of Barnett

This article traces the changing funding relationships between Scotland and the UK government. Beginning from the Barnett Formula, it examines how the changing support within Scotland for greater political autonomy from Westminster has influenced the mechanisms that have determined Scotland's fiscal structure. Increasing support for the SNP, and then for the Yes campaign in the September 2014 independence referendum, has led to a mixture of new powers being granted to the Scottish Parliament. The Scotland Act 2012 extends the Scottish government's control over income tax and some other small taxes. Although independence was rejected by the Scottish people in September 2014, the ‘Vow’ made by the Westminster parties immediately before the vote is leading to far‐reaching changes in the UK's fiscal structure. This will cause a very substantial change in intergovernmental relations within the UK, which the Barnett Formula may not survive.     

A Very Peculiar Revolution: Britain's Politics and Constitution, 1970–2011

Britain's constitution has changed dramatically over the past forty years in which the author has been involved in national politics: devolution, the supremacy of EU law, the greater willingness of the judiciary to intervene in political issues and new human rights legislation. However these changes have been essentially random, argues David Lipsey, lacking any binding theme. These changes continue under the new coalition government. However the even greater changes to British politics have essentially a single source: the dramatic change in social class in Britain and its impact on electoral politics—for example the rise of the media and the decline of ideology     

The Future of Freedom of Information in the United Kingdom

This article investigates the future of Britain's Freedom of Information Act [FOIA]. It argues that the UK FOI regime faces a set of unique opportunities and challenges that may decisively impact upon the shape of FOI policy in Britain.
On the one hand, the increasingly assertive FOIA appeal bodies, constant pressure from requesters, alongside the more open habits practised within the Civil Service, may serve together to 'open up' government information access. This in turn may widen and strengthen the British FOI regime.
On the other hand, a series of potential obstacles may inhibit or undermine the new FOI regime. Delay and inconsistency, potential record management problems and 'gaps' within the scope of the Act, all present possible barriers to further openness. Most of all, following the two recent attempts to limit the scope of the legislation, the intentions and actions of the government will be crucial in shaping the future of FOI policy.     

Imagining the Economic Nation: The Scottish Case

The impending Scottish referendum on independence raises the question: what is a nation? This article addresses this question in terms of ‘economic nationhood’. Tracing the development of the Scottish economy over the last century and a half, it shows how the extraordinarily ‘globalised’ economy of pre‐1913 Scotland slowly evolved into a much more self‐reliant entity. Today, Scotland has a de‐industrialised and substantially de‐globalised economy, with a very large public sector about which key decisions are made in Edinburgh. Scotland has become much more of an economic ‘community of fate’ than ever before in its modern history.     

Linking coalition attitudes and split-ticket voting: The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007

The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007 were the third to be held under the country’s mixed-member proportional system. As voters continue to adapt to the new system, we explore two aspects of its use: i) preferences for coalitions as opposed to single-party government, and ii) ticket-splitting. The two are considered together for two reasons. First, both can be seen as manifestations of a preference for multiple parties, and as a result they share a number of likely predictors in common. In empirical practice, however, we find that rather different factors predict the two variables: ticket-splitting looks to be based on strategic partisan or ideological calculation, whereas coalition attitudes are less about partisan interests and more about an overall view of the kind of policies and politics delivered by coalitions. Second, there is potential for a causal connection between our two dependent variables, and indeed we do find clear evidence of such an attitude–behaviour link: some voters appear to split their ticket precisely because they would prefer a coalition.     

Beveridge at Eighty: Learning the Right Lessons

The eightieth anniversary of the Beveridge inquiry is a timely moment to consider how the landmark report is used within contemporary UK politics. Calls for a ‘new Beveridge’ reflect a desire for a rupture with the past and the creation of a radical new welfare consensus. But this reflects a misunderstanding: Beveridge's approach was organic in nature, building on decades of experimentation, politically contested rather than consensual, and intellectually pluralist rather than moored to a single ideological worldview. The real insight Beveridge offers us today flows not from his substantive agenda—which was rooted in a particular set of historic circumstances—but as an approach to securing social reform. Successful welfare advances over the last generation have drawn on these ‘Beveridgean instincts’. Rather than calling for a new twenty-first century blueprint to be handed down from above, reformers should build on experimentation and successful incremental change, from within the UK and abroad.     

The unfortunate natural experiment in ballot design: The Scottish Parliamentary elections of 2007

The 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections were notable for the extensive variation across constituencies in rejected ballots (ranging from 1.90% to 12.09%). This paper uses an unfortunate natural experiment to identify the influence of ballot design on the occurrence of rejected ballots, or ‘residual votes’. In two electoral regions, visual prompts were removed and instructions were abbreviated on the (already poorly designed) ballot papers. Using zero-truncated negative binomial regression to model total residual votes as well as constituency and regional undervotes and overvotes, we find clear evidence that these changes made a major contribution to the extent of residual votes in constituencies within those regions. The findings emphasise that ballot design is not a trivial subject that can be neglected by electoral administrators.     

A Second Scottish Independence Referendum: Should the Diaspora get a Vote?

The 2014 Scottish independence referendum settled little in terms of Scotland's constitutional future. The after-effects of what was the largest exercise in democracy in Scottish history certainly increased Scotland's devolved authority but, following withdrawal from the EU and with continuing differences and disagreements between the Westminster and Scottish governments, there have been increasing demands for a second referendum. One aspect of these conversations has been about the voting rights of Scots living outside Scotland, whose relationship with the nation would certainly be impacted by any successful vote for Scottish independence. And yet, they have had no voice in that decision and despite calls for their inclusion in any future vote, such inclusion remains unlikely. This article examines the reasons why such inclusion would be challenging and then considers what the Scottish diaspora think about Scottish independence and voting rights, by considering qualitative responses to a survey of members of the Scottish diaspora.     

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     

The Lion and the Eunuch: National Identity and the British Genius

The Lion and the Eunuch challenges the failures of British politicians to adequately understand the complexities, and the subtleties, of British national identity, and goes on to define it for them. It also explains reasons for our current confusions over who we are in the world. In 1940 Orwell wrote The Lion and the Unicorn as a rallying cry for a richly identifying country that was still able to imagine itself, and re‐imagine itself, as the need arose. This essay suggests that without a radical change of government policy and thought, that power will continue to decline with far reaching consequences for the peoples of these islands.     

The Future of British Political History: Concluding Remarks

These concluding remarks reflect, in the light of the preceding articles, on two themes that recur throughout the collection. First, how can historians maintain an effective presence in public debate about politics in Britain? Second, how should political historians position themselves within the discipline, at a time when—it is suggested—political history is losing ground among British academic historians? It is argued here that, in each case, they should reflect on what they can most distinctively contribute, either as historians or as political historians; and that they should frame their interventions accordingly.     

Tuvalu and You: The Monarch,the United Kingdom and the Realms

The government plans to amend the royal succession rules by making primogeniture gender blind and ending marriage to a Roman Catholic spouse as a disqualification for succession. Achieving these goals means that the UK is dependent on the agreement of the fifteen Commonwealth countries—the ‘realms’—that also have the Queen as head of state. The article questions whether these proposals go far enough when leaving intact other religious discriminatory rules hostile to Catholics and all others who cannot be in communion with the Church of England. It is maintained that a political disinclination to address and, as necessary, challenge the real as opposed to the formal position of the Church of England vitiates the government's approach. Moreover, it is asked whether the policy process itself should not become more open and democratic both within the UK and between the realms.     

Covid-19 and the Blunders of our Governments: Long-run System Failings Aggravated by Political Choices

More urgently than ever we need an answer to the question posed by the late Mick Moran in The Political Quarterly nearly two decades ago: ‘if government now invests huge resources in trying to be smart why does it often act so dumb?’. We reflect on this question in the context of governmental responses to Covid-19 in four steps. First, we argue that blunders occur because of systemic weaknesses that stimulate poor policy choices. Second, we review and assess the performance of governments on Covid-19 across a range of advanced democracies. Third, in the light of these comparisons we argue that the UK system of governance has proved itself vulnerable to failure at the time when its citizens most needed it. Finally, we outline an agenda of reform that seeks to rectify structural weaknesses of that governance capacity.     

The EU,UKIP and the Politics of Immigration in Britain

Immigration politics in Britain have been transformed by high levels of immigration, the effects of EU free movement, strong anti‐immigration sentiment and UKIP's rise. All are compounded by a more general discontent with politics and politicians. In face of claims that something must be done, politicians seek tougher controls on immigration and free movement, but these may be difficult to attain because of entanglement with EU rules, while failure to achieve stated objectives can further compound the disconnect that fuels support for UKIP.