Questions of Sovereignty: Redefining Politics in Scotland?
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The Political Quarterly
Questions of Sovereignty: Redefining Politics in
Scotland?
DAVID MCCRONE AND MICHAEL KEATING
Abstract
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 dis-
puted. In practice, the issue was left largely in abeyance as sovereignty was seen as an out-
dated 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-sovereign-
tists’ 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.
Keywords: sovereignty, UK, Scotland, self-determination, Brexit, nationalism
broader epistemic theories of sovereignty
The sovereignty conundrum and legitimacy, and to take conventions seri-
THE QUESTION of sovereignty has never been ously.2 Neil McCormick developed a theory
resolved in Scotland. On the one hand, there of post-sovereignty, in which sovereignty is
is the Westminster doctrine, that the Crown- shared both within Europe and within the
in-Parliament is sovereign and subject to no United Kingdom.3 The 1989 Scottish Claim
higher or lower authority. On the other is of Right, signed by all Scottish MPs bar the
the view that the United Kingdom is a union Conservatives and one Labour member,
of nations created by successive instruments, asserted that Scotland had the right to
which did not extinguish their historic rights. choose its own form of government. There is
In a famous obiter dicta of 1953, Lord Cooper also the fact that even staunch unionist
declared in the Court of Session that, as the Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John
old Scottish Parliament had never exercised Major conceded that Scotland could, if it
untrammelled sovereignty, it could not have wished, become independent.4 Whatever the
passed it onto the Parliament of Great Bri- wording of the Scotland Act, it would be
tain created by the Union of 1707. accurate to say that the devolution settle-
The Scotland Act (1998), creating the new ment left these issues in abeyance.
Scottish Parliament, affirmed the Westmin- Since the 1970s there have been numerous
ster doctrine in clear terms. The courts have surveys about Scots’ constitutional prefer-
upheld this view, including the Supreme ences. These have consistently shown major-
Court, called on to adjudicate in Miller v Sec- ity support for some form of self-government,
retary of State for Exiting the European Union with the largest number historically support-
(2017) and on the Scottish Continuity Bill ing devolution within the United Kingdom.
(2018).1 Yet the basis of this is merely an Indeed, the findings are consistent with a
assertion by Parliament of its own preroga- post-sovereign conception of shared author-
tives. Many scholars have argued that we ity. After devolution, the most favoured
must look beyond Westminster itself, to option was a stronger Scottish Parliament.
© 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC) 1
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Attitudes to the European Union in many Scottish electors voted 55 per cent to remain
ways mirrored this, with voters clustering in within the United Kingdom. In 2016, while
the middle of the europhile-eurosceptic scale. voters in England and Wales voted nar-
Taking the two scales together, a small minor- rowly (52 per cent) to leave the EU, Scot-
ity supported Scottish independence outside land voted by a larger margin (62 per cent)
the EU and an even smaller minority wanted to remain. The relation between voting yes
to abolish the Scottish Parliament and leave in 2014 and remain in 2016, however, was
the EU.5 Although since the mid-1980s, the not obvious—see Table 1 below.
Scottish National Party (SNP) favoured inde- In the following years, however, this has
pendence within the European Union, the cor- changed and the two issues have become
relation between support for independence linked. Curtice and Montagu have shown a
and support for European integration was movement after 2016 towards independence
rather loose. Scots were less eurosceptic than among europhiles and a movement against
English voters, but this was not primarily among eurosceptics.9 This was reflected in
connected to nationalism; it was true of sup- the pattern of SNP losses and Conservative
porters of all parties in Scotland, but espe- gains in Scotland in the 2017 general elec-
cially Labour. Among political commentators, tion. By the 2019 general election, the vote
attention had moved away from the classic had polarised between the SNP, supporting
and abstract idea of sovereignty, to focus on a second independence referendum and
the balance of political power in a complex remaining in the EU, and the Conservatives,
and interdependent world.6 supporting Brexit and opposed to an inde-
Two critical events have changed this pic- pendence referendum.10 Issues of sover-
ture and created a new division around the eignty appeared to have reshaped Scottish
issue of sovereignty. One was the arrival of political space.
the SNP in government in Scotland from Surprisingly, there has been no direct sur-
2007 and the consequent movement vey evidence on what Scottish voters make
towards the independence referendum of of the arguments around sovereignty, as
2014. The other was the growth over much opposed to their views on devolution or
the same period of the movement to with- independence. One reason is that sover-
draw from the European Union, culminat- eignty is such a slippery concept and diffi-
ing in the Brexit referendum of 2016. cult to operationalise. We see it as the
Neither followed a change in public opin- ultimate source of legitimate authority. So, it
ion. It was, rather, the changed political is not about what powers or degree of
supply of options that stimulated demand. autonomy Scotland should have, but about
Both referendums posed the question of who should make that decision. It is not
sovereignty in stark terms after the period about competences, but what constitutional
of abeyance or neglect. In fact, during the lawyers call kompetenz-kompetenz. The con-
2014 independence referendum campaign, juncture of two referendums posing the issue
both sides sought to move to the middle gave us the option to probe attitudes in
ground. The ‘yes’ side promised what critics more detail.
called ‘indy-lite’, preserving much of the
infrastructure of union, including the cur-
rency. The ‘no’ side promised further auton- Table 1: Vote for EU and independence in
omy or ‘devolution-max’.7 Neither, Scotland 2014-16. Percentage
however, was on the ballot paper. Brexit,
similarly, was presented in 2016 as a stark Yes indepen- No indepen- Total
choice, even though the leave campaign did dence dence
not stipulate that it would entail leaving the
Remain 27 34 61
European Single Market. The two cam- EU
paigns thus polarised opinion and increased Leave 17 21 37
the numbers of people supportive of Scot- EU
tish independence and of withdrawal from Total 44 55
the EU beyond what had previously been
registered in opinion surveys. In 2014, Source: British Election Study8
2 DAVID MCCRONE AND MICHAEL KEATING
The Political Quarterly © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)included in the BES 2019 survey, we have
The survey the added advantage of access to a suite of
To explore issues of sovereignty in Scotland, variables on political attitudes and beha-
we asked two questions in the British Elec- viours, making it possible to tie views on
tion Study (BES 2019) survey, based around sovereignty back to politics and sociology.
reactions to two statements. The first, relat-
ing to the right of self-determination was:
‘People in Scotland should have the ultimate Who has sovereignty?
right to decide for themselves how they Although the question of sovereignty is com-
should be governed.’ The second placed the plex and multidimensional, the two referen-
constitutional onus on Scotland to accept the dums simplified the matter, and this is our
UK Brexit vote as a whole, as opposed to starting point. We divide opinion into two
Scotland having the right to go its own way: groups. Sovereigntists are those who think
‘Because a majority of people in the UK that ultimate authority belongs to the people
voted to leave the EU in the 2016 Referen- of Scotland. Unionists are those who believe
dum, people in Scotland should accept that that the UK as a whole is where it lies. Later,
decision.’ we introduce a third category of semi-
Following survey design best practice, one sovereigntists. Let us start with the distribu-
question is framed around the ‘sovereigntist’ tion of responses to the two questions:
position, and the second, on Brexit, around a There is undoubtedly strong support for
‘unionist’ position (that is, it assumes that the right of self-determination such that 60
the UK is sovereign). Both questions adopt per cent agree and 17 per cent disagree; a
standard five-point Likert scales of ratio of more than three to one.
responses: from ‘strongly disagree’, ‘dis- This time, opinion is split evenly, with 43
agree’, ‘neither disagree or agree’, ‘agree’ per cent for the ‘sovereigntist’ position
and ‘strongly agree’. Because they were against 41 per cent for the ‘unionist’ one.
There is also polarisation, with the strong
responses outnumbering the weaker ones.
Table 2: ‘People in Scotland should have We label the first question as sovereignty
the ultimate right to decide for themselves 1, and the second as sovereignty 2. Table 4
how they should be governed’ (% in sample) cross-tabulates these, collapsing for each of
the categories ‘strongly disagree’ and ‘dis-
Strongly disagree 7 agree’, and ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’, and
Disagree 10 excluding DK/NA in the above.
Neither disagree nor agree 18 In our analysis below we focus on three
Agree 22
Strongly agree 38
main blocs (in bold in Table 4): sovereigntists
DK/NA 5 (bottom left cell) who represent 41 per cent
N 2791 of the sample; unionists (top right cell) who
are 15 per cent; and semi-sovereigntists (bot-
tom right cell), 16 per cent. Sovereigntists are
those who agree or strongly agree with the
Table 3: ‘Because a majority of people in proposition that ‘People in Scotland should
the UK voted to leave the EU in the 2016 have the ultimate right to decide for them-
Referendum, people in Scotland should selves how they should be governed’, and
accept that decision’ (% in sample) who also disagree or strongly disagree with
the proposition that ‘Because a majority of
Strongly disagree 25 people in the UK voted to leave the EU in
Disagree 18 the 2016 referendum, people in Scotland
Neither disagree nor agree 10
should accept that decision’. Unionists take
Agree 18
Strongly agree 23 the opposite position on both questions,
DK/NA 6 while semi-sovereigntists support Scottish
N 2791 self-government but accept that Scotland is
bound by the Brexit referendum result.
REDEFINING POLITICS IN SCOTLAND? 3
© 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Political Quarterly
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)Table 4: Cross-tabulating measures of sovereignty (% in sample)
Sovereignty 2
(Brexit)
Strongly disagree, neither Strongly agree, N
or disagree or agree
Strongly disagree, 3 1 15 482
or disagree
Sovereignty 1 neither 2 5 12 478
(Sc Gvt)
Strongly agree, or 41 5 16 1617
agree
N 1184 287 1106 2577
Analysing what happened to the Labour
Characterising sovereigntists and 2015 vote in subsequent general elections
unionists reveals the extent to which its fortunes
Let us begin with the political and social depended on its constitutional appeal, or lack
characteristics of sovereigntists and union- of it. Overall, only half of those who voted
ists. These are compared in Table 5, includ- Labour in 2015 did so again in 2019. Of those
ing, for comparison, those described as semi- who switched, about one quarter (23 per cent)
sovereigntists (pluralities are in bold). moved to the Conservatives, and fewer, 16
It is clear that sovereigntists are far more per cent, to the SNP. In 2017, Labour man-
likely to vote SNP, to vote yes in past and aged to hold on to two thirds of its 2015 vot-
future Scottish independence referendums, ers (reflected in its upsurge of vote share in
to be dissatisfied with UK democracy, West- 2017), but of the rest of its vote, 22 per cent
minster government, and the result of the voted Tory that year, and only 5 per cent
2016 Brexit referendum. Unionists, on the SNP. By 2019, on the other hand, it was
other hand, are virtually their mirror-image: retaining three quarters of its 2017 vote, much
Conservative voters and supporters, dissatis- like the SNP and Conservative vote, but the
fied with Scottish democracy and Holyrood attrition damage had been done at the earlier
government, and satisfied with the outcome period (recall that the independence vote took
of the 2016 Brexit referendum. Here we have place in 2014 and the Brexit vote in 2016:
evidence that views on Brexit are now clo- arguably Labour’s attrition relates to the after-
sely aligned with those on Scottish self-deter- math of these referendums).
mination. We find sovereigntists heavily To what extent can Labour’s attrition be
grouped on the left—as many as 96 per cent; explained by the constitutional attitudes of its
with the overwhelming proportion of union- voters, given its spread across the three
ists, 85 per cent, on the right, with semi- options? Is there evidence that Labour’s vote
sovereigntists more on the right than the left. was squeezed differentially between
This confirms our earlier suggestion that sovereigntists and unionists? We can test this
Scottish voters are increasingly divided by partitioning the vote for each party into
between a sovereigntist SNP and a unionist sovereigntists, unionists, and semi-sovereign-
Conservative Party. Yet, Labour and the Lib- tists. Recall that semi-sovereigntists are
eral Democrat voters’ attitudes to sover- defined as those who believe in the right of
eignty are more evenly spread, although people in Scotland to choose their own gov-
sovereigntists outnumber unionists in each ernment, but concede that Westminster has
case, and in the case of Labour by almost 3 the right to over-rule Scotland’s Brexit vote.
to 1. Taking those who voted in the 2019 Between 2015 and 2019, Labour retained only
general election, we can characterise each half its sovereigntist vote, the rest going to
party’s vote on measures of sovereignty as the SNP. The damage had in fact been done
shown in Table 6: between 2015 and 2017. While it retained
4 DAVID MCCRONE AND MICHAEL KEATING
The Political Quarterly © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)Table 5: Political views (% in cell total)
Political characteristics Sovereigntists Unionists Semi-sovereigntists
& attitudes (N=1065) (N=388) (N=414)
Party identification SNP 74; Lab 17; LD Cons 70; Lab 16; Cons 32, Lab 22, LD 7,
8; Cons 1. LD 8; SNP 5. SNP 39.
General election vote SNP 79; Lab 14; LD Cons 69; Lab 13; Cons 32, Lab 24, LD 10,
2019 6; Cons 1. LD 13; SNP 4. SNP 34.
ScIndyRefVote 2014 Yes 71; No 29. No 89; Yes 11. No 51, Yes 49.
ScIndyRef2 voting Yes 92; No 8. No 96; Yes 4. No 55,
intention Yes 45.
Satisfaction with UK dissatisfied 91; dissatisfied 36; dissatisfied 59,
democracy satisfied 9. satisfied 64. satisfied 41.
Satisfaction with Scot- dissatisfied 37; dissatisfied 74; dissatisfied 50
tish democracy satisfied 63. satisfied 26. satisfied 50.
Trust Westminster gov- hardly ever 73; hardly ever 24; hardly ever 46; some of
ernment to do right some of the time 26. some of time 41; time 41: most/all time 13.
most/all of time 35.
Trust Holyrood gov- hardly ever 4; hardly ever 69; hardly ever 21;
ernment to do right some of time 31; some of time 27; some of time 58; most/all
most/all of time 65. most/all of time 4. of time 21.
Sc election constituency SNP 80; Lab 7; Green Cons 71; Lab 11; Cons 28; Lab 16; LD 8;
future vote intention 7; LD 5; ConsThe Conservatives retained their 2015 vote lower end (under £15,000 annually) but
share among semi-sovereigntists between fewer in intermediate income groups. Educa-
2015 and 2109 at around or above 75 per tion is a major discriminator, with as many
cent. The SNP, on the other hand, managed as 53 per cent of sovereigntists having a uni-
to retain around two thirds of its 2015 vote versity degree, especially at postgraduate
share among semi-sovereigntists; between level, compared with less than half (39 per
2015 and 2017, 20 per cent went to Labour, cent) of unionists who have a higher propor-
and 12 per cent to the Tories, while between tion with minimal educational qualifications
2015 and 2019, 15 per cent went to the Tories (35 per cent compared with 22 per cent).
and 10 per cent to Labour. It is this middle The broad picture which emerges, then, is
constitutional ground which is most con- one in which sovereigntists are better edu-
tested in current Scottish politics. cated, likely to belong to higher social
Note too that semi-sovereigntists are closer classes, yet likely to consider themselves as
to the unionist profile (see Table 4): Conserva- belonging to no social class, and to be
tive voting (though the SNP has some success younger. Household income is less clear-cut
among semi-sovereigntists, especially at Scot- such that sovereigntists are to be found
tish Parliament elections), dissatisfied with among the lowest income group, but compa-
both UK and Scottish democracy, and willing rable at the upper levels.
to trust both Westminster and Holyrood only What does stand out is the significance of
‘some of the time’. Their views on Brexit are ‘national identity’, in many ways not surpris-
much closer to those of unionists, with a high ing, but noteworthy all the same. Thus, 85
proportion of supporters of leave, and per cent of sovereigntists say they are only
expressing satisfaction with the 2016 Brexit or mainly Scottish (compared with only 21
referendum result. Broadly, their political per cent of unionists), while unionists appeal
views are on the right, not on the left. to people who consider their British identity
As regards socioeconomic characteristics, the most salient (30 per cent compared with
sovereigntists are more likely to be younger 3 per cent of sovereigntists). On the other
(under 45), less likely to be older (over 65), hand, half of unionists (49 per cent) consider
with ‘middle-aged’ groups (45–65) virtually themselves to be equally Scottish and British.
identical. Gender differences are minimal, How do semi-sovereigntists fit into this
with sovereigntists splitting 52 per cent male picture? They are older than sovereigntists
and 47 per cent female, and unionists 55 per (46 per cent are over 56 years of age), fewer
cent and 45 per cent respectively. The figures are ‘professional’ workers, but a higher pro-
for semi-sovereigntists are 52 per cent and portion than either sovereigntists or union-
48 per cent respectively. ists are manual workers, both in
Social class differences are more nuanced: occupational measurement, and self-identifi-
sovereigntists are more likely to come from cation. They are less well educated than
professional and managerial classes than sovereigntists with fewer having a university
unionists (48 per cent, compared with 36 per degree, and roughly on a par with unionists.
cent), and concomitant lower proportions are Around 60 per cent give priority to being
found among intermediate and lower supervi- Scottish, but one in five give priority to
sory and technical staff (25 per cent compared being British, and in that respect they resem-
with 39 per cent), with some difference among ble unionists rather than sovereigntists.
the manual working class (respectively, 19 per We can see from the data that there is
cent and 27 per cent). On measures of subjec- much overlap and consistency in attitudes.
tive social class (which class, if any, people feel Thus, sovereigntists are more likely to have
they belong to) there are proportionally fewer voted SNP in the 2019 general election,
claiming to be working class (19 per cent of intend to do so at a forthcoming Scottish
sovereigntists compared with 27 per cent election, voted yes in the Scottish indepen-
among unionists), but marginally more say dence referendum in 2014, and remain in the
that they do not belong to any class (respec- EU referendum in 2016. Furthermore, they
tively, 43 per cent and 39 per cent). place themselves on the left of the ideologi-
The effects of household income are also cal spectrum. What we cannot tell from these
nuanced, with proportionally more at the descriptive figures is which, if any, matter
6 DAVID MCCRONE AND MICHAEL KEATING
The Political Quarterly © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)more than others. It may be, for example, ways such that sovereigntists are strongly
that what appears as a relationship is spuri- Scottish, on the left, are SNP supporters, dis-
ously related to something else; that, for satisfied with UK democracy, and voted yes
example, age or education, lies behind vote in the Scottish independence referendum in
and national identity. Modelling these data, 2014; unionists are more likely to say they
using binary logistic regression, identifies are British, vote Tory, be satisfied with UK
which of the suite of factors predisposing democracy, and to have voted leave in 2016
people to vote in a particular way are the and no in the 2014 independence referen-
most significant ones, for it is possible that dum; and semi-sovereigntists are defined lar-
some are simply proxies for others. gely by their views on Brexit, are satisfied
Taking sovereigntists first, the most pre- with how British democracy operates, and
dictive variables are, in terms of statistical are disproportionately British.
significance (*sig at .05, ** at .01, and *** at There is a good case, however, for con-
.001 levels) and Wald scores (to measure cluding that these findings are unexpected.
strength of relationship, in square brackets); The creation of a Scottish Parliament over
twenty years ago was meant to create a con-
• being on the left: .0.12* [6.320]; stitutional halfway house, and on that basis
• being dissatisfied with British democracy: we might have expected far fewer sovereign-
tists. The devolution of powers was meant
.015* [5.888];
to reflect the ‘settled will’ of the Scottish
• voting SNP at the British general election
people and to marginalise both the SNP and
2019: .020* [5.450];
• thinking of oneself as strongly Scottish: hitherto anti-devolution Conservatives. It
has not worked out that way, as these data
.039* [4.269].
show. Issues of sovereignty and legitimacy
What of unionists? The key variables are: now dominate the political agenda, reflected
in the fact that the key battles are now
• voting leave in the 2016 EU referendum: between sovereigntists and unionists, crys-
tallised and catalysed by the SNP and Tor-
.002* [9.583],
• intending to vote Tory at the next Scottish ies, both of whom have come in from the
cold. Why do Labour and Lib Dem positions
election: .011* [6.492],
• and having voted Tory at the 2019 British seem to play so little part in the analysis
here? Labour in particular has been reduced
general election: .034* [4.479].
to minority status because both Scottish and
European issues present serious difficulties
Finally, what of semi-sovereigntists? They
for them, and Liberal Democrats have been
are defined by
unable to capitalise on their longstanding
support for the European Union. Why the
• satisfaction with UK democracy: .002**
change?
[9.390],
First of all, intransigent unionists like Tam
• voting leave in the 2016 EU referendum:
Dalyell and Michael Forsyth long predicted
.004* [8076],
that devolution would be the thin end of the
• and being British: .012* [6.281].
sovereigntist wedge. That, however, is to
read history backwards. Devolutionists were
So why are they not more like unionists? happy to ignore issues of sovereignty—most
Because they do not share the same levels of Labour MPs, for example, apart from Dalyell
commitment to the Union, are less likely to signed up to the Claim of Right, as if the
vote Tory, and above all, believe in the Scot- ‘settled will’ conferred sovereignty on the
tish right of self-determination when it proposed parliament, or that it did not mat-
comes to government. ter anyway, being deemed to be ideological
flummery unsuited to conditions of the late
twentieth century. They were to be dis-
Discussion abused formally of this notion when the UK
What are we to make of such findings? It Supreme Court stated unequivocally that the
may seem ‘obvious’ that the data partition in Scottish Parliament was the creation, and
REDEFINING POLITICS IN SCOTLAND? 7
© 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Political Quarterly
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)hence the creature, of the British state at The 2014 independence referendum gener-
Westminster. ated the cliche that the winners lost, and the
They could, however, be forgiven this con- losers won; that it marked the beginnings of
stitutional error because, from the beginning a new constitutional battle with sovereignty
of the Scottish Parliament, people in Scotland at its heart. The Brexit referendum also gen-
conferred primacy on the new institution. erated a fresh conundrum: that Scotland
Thus, Scottish government (called an ‘execu- voted to remain in the EU by a significant
tive’, in the parlance of the day until 2007) margin, but at a UK level, lost the battle,
was credited with improvements in eco- because England, ten times its population
nomic and social conditions, while the UK size, held sway. So, issues of sovereignty
government was blamed for any deficien- and legitimacy were crystallised by those
cies.11 Scottish government and Parliament two referendums, which realigned politics as
had far greater trust placed in them than a struggle between the SNP and Conserva-
their Westminster equivalents, even where tives, the latter seeing their opportunity to
devolved powers over the likes of the econ- come in from the margins and try to harness
omy and social welfare were almost non-ex- the twin horses of unionism and Brexit, even
istent. While these findings related to the though most of their Scottish supporters had
early years of the Parliament (1999–2003), voted remain (55 per cent).
and might be dismissed as rosy expectations Issues of trust and blame—features of pre-
not grounded in hard reality, they were SNP government when the ostensibly union-
replicated in 2015.12 We labelled this the ist parties were in power at Holyrood—be-
devolution conundrum, that while in legal- came the ideological basis for a different
constitutional terms the Scottish Parliament kind of political question: ‘who are you [at
was jurisdictionally subordinate to Westmin- Westminster] to tell us what to do?’. This
ster, people in Scotland conferred upon it focussed on the refusal to countenance a sec-
prime legitimacy; plainly, they had not read ond independence referendum and the insis-
the Scotland Act of 1998 carefully enough. tence that because the UK as a whole
Bear in mind, too, that the early years (mainly England) had voted for Brexit, that
were dominated by Labour and Liberal provided a sufficient mandate. This helped
Democrat control of Parliament and govern- to highlight the underlying feature of post-
ment; the SNP only emerged as a (minority) war politics in Scotland, that most of the
government in 2007, and the Conservatives time it got a Westminster government it had
only became the second biggest party, and not elected. Between 1945 and 2019, Scotland
hence the main challenger, in 2016, when had been governed by a political party it
they won thirty-one seats to Labour’s had not elected at ten of the twenty elec-
twenty-four, having an almost identical vote tions, which represented more than three
share (22 per cent and 22.6 per cent respec- quarters of the period. Between 1945 and
tively) in the constituency vote, but did bet- 2019, England had been governed by a polit-
ter on the list/region vote (22.9 per cent to ical party it had not supported for only two
19.1 per cent). brief periods: between 1964 and 1966, and
The politics of the 2010s drew the erst- between February and October 1974. The
while marginalised parties, nationalists, and election of a Conservative government at
Tories, into the mainstream. The devolution Westminster in December 2019 confirmed
conundrum, we can see with hindsight, was that pattern. Although the Conservative vote
based on popular understandings of sover- in Scotland had recovered, it was still only
eignty and legitimacy which Labour and Lib 25 per cent, little more than half the Conser-
Dems were happy to surf, but not properly vative vote south of the border, which deliv-
comprehend. These understandings were ered a sizeable majority for Boris Johnson.
given expression and validation by two key Is a struggle between sovereigntists and
events in the second decade of the century: unionists the inevitable new politics? Not
the Scottish independence referendum of necessarily. Just as the presumed ‘settled
2014, and the EU referendum of 2016. will’ had helped to create and shape a Scot-
Referendums can take on a life of their tish Parliament and government in 1999, the
own and outgrow their original purpose. new ‘will’ is not necessarily settled either.
8 DAVID MCCRONE AND MICHAEL KEATING
The Political Quarterly © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC)We should resist the assumption that current (Northern Ireland)—in the Matter of an Appli-
political and constitutional outcomes are cation by Raymond McCord for Judicial
inevitable. Much depends on how deftly, or Review, UKSC 5, 2017. UK Supreme Court,
not, political parties play their hands. Judgment. The European Union (Legal Conti-
nuity) Scotland Bill, UKSC 64, 2018.
‘Shared sovereignty’ is not off the table,
2 For a review, see M. Keating, State and Nation
whether in the UK or in the EU; an accom- in the United Kingdom: The Fractured Union,
modation which recognises the right of self- Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2021.
government or managing EU relations post- 3 N. MacCormick, Questioning Sovereignty. Law,
Brexit (as in Northern Ireland). The omens State and Nation in the European Commonwealth,
are not especially good. Like it or not, devo- Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
lution did raise the issue as to which institu- 4 M. Thatcher, The Downing Street Years, London,
tion, Westminster or Holyrood, has the most Harper Collins, 1993; J. Major, ‘Foreword by
influence over how Scotland is governed, the Prime Minister’, in Secretary of State for
and, importantly, who people thought ought Scotland, Scotland in the Union: A Partnership
for Good. Edinburgh, HMSO, 1993.
to have the most influence. By 2015, 42 per
5 M. Keating, The Independence of Scotland. Self-
cent of people in Scotland thought that the Government and the Shifting Politics of Union,
Scottish Parliament had most influence over Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009.
how Scotland is governed, but three quarters 6 V. Bogdanor, Devolution in the United Kingdom,
thought that it ought to have most influence. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.
We can see with hindsight that debates and 7 M. Keating and N. McEwen, ‘The Scottish
arguments about where sovereignty and independence debate’, in M. Keating, ed.,
legitimacy were embedded in the bedrock of Debating Scotland: Issues of Independence and
devolution, but they have become more sali- Union in the 2014 Referendum, Oxford, Oxford
ent as politics has been played out in the University Press, 2017.
8 C. Prosser and E. Fieldhouse, A Tale of Two Ref-
past decade. In 2019, one of us observed:
erendums—the 2017 Election in Scotland, British
‘Simply asserting that in legal terms the Scot- Election Study, August 2017; http://www.b
tish Parliament is a creature of Westminster ritishelectionstudy.com/bes-findings/a-tale-of-
ignores the politics. Almost everything these two-referendums-the-2017-election-in-scotland/
days passes through the filter of self-govern- #.WeoCaDb9O7M (accessed 18 December
ment’.13 That filter is unlikely to disappear 2020).
anytime soon. 9 J. Curtice and I. Montagu, ‘How Brexit has cre-
ated a new divide in the nationalist move-
David McCrone is Emeritus Professor of Soci- ment’, British Social Attitudes, 35. Scotland,
ology at the University of Edinburgh. National Centre for Social Research, 2018.
10 Keating, State and Nation in the United Kingdom.
Michael Keating is Emeritus Professor of Poli-
11 D. McCrone and A. Park ‘The devolution
tics at Aberdeen University. conundrum?’, in C. Bromley, J. Curtice, D.
McCrone and A. Park, eds., Has Devolution
Delivered?, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University
Notes Press, 2006.
1 UK Supreme Court, Judgment (on the applica- 12 D. McCrone, ‘Peeble them wi’ stanes: twenty
tion of Miller and another) (Respondents) vs. years of the Scottish Parliament’, Scottish
Secretary of State for Exiting the European Affairs, vol. 28, no. 2, 2019, pp. 125–51;
Union (Appellant). Reference by the Attorney https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.
General for Northern Ireland in the Matter of 3366/scot.2019.0274 (accessed 18 December
an Application by Agnew and Others for Judi- 2020).
cial Review. Reference by the Court of Appeal 13 Ibid., p. 149.
REDEFINING POLITICS IN SCOTLAND? 9
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