End of the union?

In 1968 I published my first (co-authored) article in a respectable academic journal on Welsh and Scottish Nationalism. The article was derided by some colleagues, but I thought it was quite good for a third year undergraduate. I thought that the two emergent nationalisms need to be treated comparatively. I argued that Welsh nationalism had more of a cultural basis. Indeed, the four PC seats at Westminster are all adjacent to one another in traditional Welsh speaking areas. Gwn fod gan y blaid gefnogaeth mewn mannau eraill a'i bod yn ceisio adeiladu ei sylfaen drefol.

A subsequent and better received article was based on an analysis of SNP councillors in the two new towns of East Kilbride and Cumbernauld, one of the most fascinating pieces of work I have ever done and which gave me many anecdotes.

One of the potential longer term consequences of the general election is the possible break up of the United Kingdom. In the case of Northern Ireland, Nationalists now outnumber Unionists among MPs. Given that Sinn Fein saw their vote fall and the Democratic Unionists lost seats there may now be some impetus to get the power sharing arrangement working again so that urgent problems like the state of the health service can be tackled. Let no one say that a country can manage perfectly well without a functioning government.

Neither the UK nor Irish governments have any appetite for a border poll. However, in the longer run could we see a confederal arrangement on the island of Ireland, outside the UK, but with a devolved assembly at Stormont?

In this article, I am not going to deal with Wales, not because I think it is unimportant but because the future there is far less clear. There doesn't seem to be a real appetite for independence. Beth yw'r dyfodol i Gymru? Dydw I ddim yn gwybod.

Scotland

I have a sentimental attachment to Scotland. In 1793 my direct ancestor James Grant left his birthplace of Urquhart on the shores of Loch Ness and his father Donald Bain Grant to join the British Army. He fought at Waterloo and showed dangerous Europhile tendencies by marrying a French woman. In 1970 I was proud to graduate from a Scottish university. I regard myself as British rather than English, particularly given that my mother's family came from Cornwall.

Sentiment aside, disentangling the over 300 year relationship between England and Scotland would make Brexit seem a doddle. If an independent Scotland subsequently joined the EU, what would this mean for the Anglo-Scottish border?

When I was in Edinburgh last year my taxi driver described Nicola Sturgeon as 'a very dangerous woman'. I think he was right. I don't like her or what she stands for, but I respect her effectiveness in the pursuit of her beliefs.

To me it is evident that momentum is building for independence in Scotland. Young people in particular are more inclined to support it. Indy Ref2 could be very close - I would find it odd if independence was won by a handful of votes. My guess is that it might be like the second Quebec referendum, close but no cigar.

Even so, the dilemma is whether to have one at all. I do not think this is just a matter for the people of Scotland. It affects England as well. 'Engerland' on its own could well become inward looking and xenophobic. In the past Scottish leaders have played an important role in offering leadership to the UK.

I think at the very least it is reasonable to say that any referendum should not be held until after the Holyrood elections in May 2021. The UK Government can reasonably argue that its focus this year, and quite possibly for some of 2021, has to be on negotiating a trade and security agreement with the EU.

Boris Johnson is clearly minded not to allow a referendum at all. That might simply build support for the Nationalist cause. There is talk of the Scottish Government holding its own referendum. This would be challenged by the UK Government in the courts and they might well win. If such a referendum was held, unionists would be well advised to abstain to deny its legitimacy.

I think there is a better than evens chance of Scotland becoming independent and 'walking tall among the nations' a decade from now. If Scotland re-joined the EU, it would be obliged to join the euro and we would then have the inconvenience of changing money at the border even if there was a common travel zone. (As it is, although Scottish notes are legal tender south of the border, many retailers won't accept them).

I know that some English voters think that we would save money given that Scotland has a substantial fiscal deficit funded from the south. The SNP would argue that the country's oil has been stolen. This is a controversial issue and would be one of the most difficult subjects in independence negotiations.

I don't think Orkney and Shetland would be too keen on an independent Scotland. In Orkney the local flag (an adaptation of the Norwegian one) is displayed when ministers make the trek from Edinburgh.

A YouGov poll earlier this year found that Conservative activists were prepared to see the dissolution of the union as a price for obtaining Brexit. It seems a high price to pay to me.

A crisis for both parties

A very interesting blog post by Deborah Mabbett on the threats facing the existing party system, suggesting that the large two party share of the vote in 2015 was an aberrant result, rather than an indication of a reversion to two party politics: A crisis for both parties

An interesting comment is made about how both parties have an interest in maintaining a two party duopoly, although whether they can achieve that is another question. It reminds me of the first research I did in the late 1960s on the insurgent Scottish National Party in the two new towns of Cumbernauld and East Kilbride.

What was evident was that both the traditional parties felt threatened and were prepared to cooperate to defend the conventional political spectrum.

Coalition and minority government options

The last calculation of each possible coalition/minority government scenarios after the general election by Populus/Hanover gives seven options as likely (the others such as 'Labour majority' are ranked at 1.4 per cent or less):

• Labour/SNP 26.9 per cent
• Labour/Lib Dem 16 per cent
• Labour/Lib Dem/SNP/left minority 15.1 per cent
• Labour/SNP/left minority 11.6 per cent
• Conservative/Lib Dem/DUP 10.8 per cent
• Labour/Lib Dem/left minority 8.9 per cent
• Conservative/Lib Dem 5.1 per cent

A further complicating factor is that Lib Dem 'elder statesman' David Steel has claimed that the mood within the party is to accept nothing more than a 'confidence and supply' agreement with anyone.

My own take on the situation can be found here: Minority government

Bad weather leads to minister's resignation

Stewart Stevenson as depicted by The Sun

Is Scotland's transport minister, Stewart Stevenson, the first cabinet member to be forced out of office by bad weather? Wily Scottish first minister Alex Salmond seemed to think so and quoted from Burns to make his point.

But he knew that the minister could not survive a no confidence vote in the Scottish Parliament this week. He had been targeted in a tabloid campaign which included unflattering photographs and cartoon versions of his less than prepossessing appearance.

The minister wasn't critcised because the weather was bad, but because information was not released quickly enough about how bad conditions were leading lorry drivers and motorists to be trapped overnight in their cars. It is fortunate that no one died as a result. The minister then compounded his errors by going on television and declaring that there had been a 'first class response'.

There is a Scottish Parliament election next May and the gloves are starting to come off. The transport minister had to be sacrificed for his party. It all reminds us of Harold Macmillan's warning of the importance in politics of 'Events, dear boy, events.'

The Scottish dimension

One of the most remarkable aspects of this election has been the fact that no seats changed hands in Scotland. The West Lothian question - almost as intractable as the Schleswig-Holstein question - is also back on the political agenda. But have we done enough to learn from Scottish and Welsh experience of coalitions/minority governments?

Here are some interesting comments from leading Scottish politics expert Dr Paul Cairney of Aberdeen University:

The UK general election result has, for the first time in over three decades, produced a hung or balanced parliament. Since the UK has limited post-war experience of this outcome it is natural that commentators have begun to look elsewhere for lessons on the practicalities of minority and coalition government. Yet, there has been a notable absence of lesson-drawing from the Scottish Parliament (and the Welsh Assembly). This seems odd given that the Liberal Democrats have eight years’ experience of coalition government and the Conservatives have three year’s experience of supporting a minority government (suggesting that the parties involved might look to learn from their Scottish counterparts).

It is understandable that lessons should be sought from the most relevant political systems but no-one has established a definitive list that excludes Scotland (the Constitution Unit and Institute for Government’s Making Minority Government Work includes Canada, New Zealand and Scotland). I outline two points of comparison based on the two most prized qualities of government highlighted by David Cameron and Gordon Brown: strength and stability. From 1999-2007 the Scottish Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition government provided both. Its command of parliamentary seats (57% of the 129 seats in 1999 and 52% in 2003) was reflected not only in plenary but also in its majority of all committees (see Cairney .

This provided particular strength for the government which, to all intents and purposes, acted as a majoritarian government in the UK mould, passing an extensive programme of legislation (including annual budget bills) with virtually no effective opposition. Its impressive party whip and the high degree of voting cooperation within the coalition also ensured stability (if anything, Labour party dissent and in-fighting was more worrying than disagreements between the parties). Overall, the experience was heartening for a Scottish Labour party that prized above all else a ‘settled programme’ and feared the prospect of political embarrassment from political ambushes led by the SNP that they loathed so much.

This was followed from 2007 by an SNP minority government (36% of seats) which, although less stable, has still been able to last well beyond the international average (14 months compared to 18 for coalitions and 30 for single party majorities) and should complete a full 4-year term. Its minority status has also made it relatively ‘weak’ although there have been surprisingly few instances of real problems. It loses many non-binding motions, has had to forego some legislation that it does not have parliamentary support for (including the referendum on independence bill and a bill to introduce local income tax), came under sustained pressure on the Lockerbie issue and had an annual budget bill voted down (a new, but virtually the same, bill was passed soon after), but no event has affected its status.

Overall, the approach taken by the other parties is that the SNP may often be doing the wrong thing but it has the right to try. Of course there are qualifications to each tale which make direct comparisons difficult – e.g. the Scottish Parliament already uses PR and there is an assumption that coalition or minority will always occur, the Liberal Democrats are closer ideologically to Labour, The Scottish Liberal Democrats appeared less constrained by their membership (and the ‘triple lock’ in particular), the SNP is popular and no-one wants another election, the rules on dissolving governments are different – but such reservations apply to all comparisons of two things that are not identical.

The Scottish case is also important because there is a tendency to assume that its politicians still operate in the ‘Westminster mould’ despite their access to new institutions and the symbolism of their non-adversarial chamber. As such, perhaps the most telling lesson comes from the unwillingness of politicians or parties in Scotland to ‘rock the boat’ for fear of being blamed for an extra election during a time of economic crisis. Ironically, economic instability may provide the platform for a significant period of political stability".

It's all over for now

The media is going to have to find a new topic to focus on now that Gordon Brown has seen off the leadership challenge - such as it was, because as one commentator remarked, the Labour Party could not conspire its way out of a paper bag. The prime minister simply had to face down the usual suspects like Charles Clarke and promise to mend his ways. However, the media has promised to revive the story in the autumn.

The results in the European elections for Labour were atrocious, even worse than expected. They now face by-elections in the speaker's old seat where the Scottish Nationalists could mount a strong challenge after their good result in the European elections and in Norwich North. There is considerable local resentment at the way the rebel MP Ian Gibson was forced out of other expenses. The Greens are strong in Norfolk and could mount a creditable challenge.

Despite Dave Cameron boasting 'We are now No.1 in Wales' (albeit on 21 per cent of the vote), these results are not quite as good as the Conservatives might have hoped given the unpopularity of the Government. There is still a lack of real enthusiasm for them and some residual doubts about what they might do in office. A year from now we shall be finding out.