Nationalists have been gifted that most precious of political prizes - a grudge.
Source - The Spectator 24/08/20
How does a believer lose the faith? It might begin with some quibble about a point of doctrine: the Virgin Birth, for instance. The believer struggles intellectually but cannot accept the dogma. What starts as a quibble then turns into an obstacle; as the doubt grows, the whole belief system starts to unravel. One day it dawns on them that they no longer believe. Reader, I am myself undergoing such a struggle to maintain my political faith in Unionism.
I have been an instinctive, largely unquestioning Unionist ever since I became politically aware. The roots of my faith are simple enough: Scotland and England can do more together than individually. That and the fact of our shared history and land mass. And for most of my lifetime – some sixty-odd years – it seemed as if this generous, commonsensical view commanded a stable majority in both countries. However, as they are entitled to do, Scottish nationalists have waged a long campaign to dismantle the British state – and Unionists must answer the question; what is the Union for?
As an Anglo-Scot myself (my paternal forebears hail from Ayrshire) I never doubted that Scotland was different. Even before I lived in the country I had absorbed a callow narrative of Scottish history which was colourful and valiant; I gloried in stories of Scottish regiments marching to tunes of glory. The reality of modern Scotland when I came to work for the BBC in Edinburgh during the early 1980s was very different. Scotland in those years was suffering a political backwash from the referendum in 1979 to reject devolution. Although the nationalists had lost, they were gifted that most precious of political prizes: a grudge. In their view, the vote had been rigged, because for devolution to happen at least 40 per cent of the entire electorate had to approve it; the Nationalists narrowly won the vote – with a turnout of only 64 per cent – on the day, but decisively failed to clear the 40 per cent hurdle.
The ensuing political mood was one of impotent frustration and demoralisation. Labour had been the unchallenged dominant political force in Scotland, but in the years of Thatcher ascendancy the party could only watch from the side-lines, bitterly criticising while change swept the country. The animus against Mrs Thatcher was sharp-edged and tinged with prejudice. For many Scots, not least among her crimes was that of being – visibly and audibly – very English. There was misogyny too: the late Scottish Labour politician Tam Dalyell once intimated to me that one of the reasons he felt Mrs Thatcher was unfit to lead was that, as a menopausal woman, her judgement was unreliable.
The embers of Scottish resentment are easily rubbed into flames; all it needs is the skilful re-kindling of ancient (often mythologised) wrongs. After the old industries of steelmaking, shipbuilding and coalmining failed and disappeared, the meta-narrative of politics in Scotland could be summed up in a single line: England has done us down. It was out of this seedbed that Labour grew its renewed conviction that devolving power to a Scottish parliament was the only way to mitigate the evils of Tory government. Labour also thought a Scottish Assembly would scotch the nationalist cause – if you want to make God laugh, tell him your predictions.
In the 1980s, the General Assembly of the Kirk became a focal point for a kind of wounded nationalism which expressed itself in pained terms about the state the country had fallen to. Many of the attacks on Thatcherism adopted a blaming, moral tone; her opponents claimed a Scottish moral superiority. This idea – flattering to Scottish amour-propre – resulted in some Scots coming to believe that they were, indeed, better human beings than the money-grubbing English. The hypocrisy might have come straight from an updated version of Confessions of a Justified Nationalist, but it worked. In the succeeding decades, nationalist rhetoric has never lost an underlying hint of moral condescension towards the rest of Britain.
But while Scottish Nationalism clothes itself in lofty rhetoric, the grubby reality is that it is tainted by the same ugly prejudices that animate nationalisms in other countries. Manny Singh, one of the founders of the ‘All Under One Banner’ organisation, which campaigns for a second referendum, recently spoke out about ‘ethnic nationalism’ in the grass-roots independence campaign. He said that activists talk of driving the English out of Scotland altogether. Banners bearing the slogan ‘England – Get out of Scotland’ are popular in SNP circles and give a taste of what lurks underneath the surface. But Scottish nationalism tends to get a pass from the British media, in stark and puzzling contrast to any emergence of ‘English nationalism’, which is almost always portrayed as threatening and racist.
Meanwhile Unionism, as a political creed, has few champions and little visible political presence on the streets; campaigning to maintain the status quo does not stir the blood. And Unionists must ask themselves about the nature of their faith – a ‘union’ after all must be a voluntary thing. As in a marriage, if one partner is determined to get out there is little the other can do. As things stand, the relationship between England and Scotland is dysfunctional, with the Treasury pumping money north of the border but getting no thanks for doing so. Public expenditure per capita is 17 per cent higher in Scotland than in the rest of the UK; if Scotland were to become independent that money could be spent in deprived areas of England.
I still hold firm to the idea that the Scots and the English are a ‘natural’ union with complementary gifts. But the faith is wearing thin; the continuous nationalist whinge – spiteful, priggish and boastful – gets on the nerves. A YouGov poll back in June showed that 55 per cent of people who voted Leave in the EU referendum would like to see England independent of Scotland – the English are getting fed-up.
Nothing in politics is inevitable; the current surge in support for Scottish independence may prove ephemeral, and Westminster has firmly ruled out a second referendum anyway. But Unionism faces an existential challenge. In the past 35 years, Scottish Nationalism – despite its peevishness, braggadocio and selfishness – has made all the running. Little Scotlanders who have found their perfect exemplar in Nicola Sturgeon are in the ascendant, the economic case for the union remains rock-solid, but the SNP’s strength rest on anti-English prejudice. I’m searching for a Unionist answer, so far without success.
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