Scotland is on the same path as Ireland a hundred
years ago – the independence movement will be very difficult to stop
Boris Johnson’s attempt to rebrand himself as ‘Mr
Vaccine’ rather than ‘Mr Brexit’ is not convincing Scots – or anybody else
Patrick
Cockburn
@indyworld
1 hour ago
Predictions
of the break-up of the UK may be reaching a crescendo, but they are scarcely
new. In 1707, Jonathan Swift wrote a poem deriding the Act of Union between
England and Scotland, which had just been passed, for seeking to combine two
incompatible peoples in one state: “As if a man in making posies/ Should bundle
thistles up with roses”. He goes on to say that political differences would
inevitably sink the whole enterprise, as “tossing faction will o’erwhelm/ Our
crazy double-bottomed realm”.
Swift was
confident that the ramshackle project would founder, but it has taken 313 years
for his prediction to look as if it might come true – and even then the split
may not be quite as imminent as some imagine.
It is true
that the last 20 opinion polls show that most Scots now favour independence,
but the shift against the union is only a few years old, as is the dominance of
the Scottish National Party at the polls.
Compare
this short span with the Irish struggle for home rule, which was at its height
from 1885 to 1918, when those seeking self-rule through constitutional means
were replaced by Sinn Fein and unilateral secession. Many of the arguments used
against Irish separatism – the most notable being that it made no economic
sense – are now used against the Scots and are likely to be equally
ineffectual.
The
downplaying of Scottish self-determination on the grounds that it is less
important than bread-and-butter issues by Boris Johnson during his one-day
visit to Scotland on Thursday sounds absurdly hypocritical, coming as it does
from a prime minister who only has the job because he promoted British
sovereignty above all else in leaving the EU. Doubtless he and his advisers
recognise this contradiction all too well since the purpose of his trip to
Scotland in the middle of the pandemic was evidently to rebrand Johnson in
Scottish eyes as “Mr Vaccine” rather than “Mr Brexit”.
It is a
measure of just how rattled the British government must be by Scottish
separatism that it should hope that the appearance of Johnson in a white coat
claiming, contrary to the evidence, that Scots voters consider independence to
be “irrelevant”, would help turn the political tide. He claimed
self-destructively that giving priority to self-rule over economic benefits is
“like saying you don’t mind what you eat as long as it is with a spoon”.
Catchy
phrases like this must have the SNP leaders rocking with secret glee, as
Johnson’s patronising words serve only to remind Scottish voters of the two
main reason why they are more inclined towards secession today than in the
referendum of 2014: Britain’s departure from the EU and Johnson’s shambolic
response to coronavirus last year, compared to that of the competent-looking
Nicola Sturgeon.
Johnson and
his Brexiteer government are being force-fed the same political lesson that
they once taught to others, which is that once a nationalist movement has gained
momentum, become a mark of identity for people, and is a vehicle for social and
economic grievances, then it is very difficult to stop it.
Yet
self-rule comes in different shades of practical independence. Even if Scotland
and Northern Ireland shift significantly further away from direct control by
the UK government, the degree to which they can freely go their own way will be
dictated by the underlying balance of power, as the Brexiteers have been
discovering to their cost.
Competing
pressures for union and disunion are normally analysed in the context of the UK
alone, but it is more realistic and illuminating to look at them in relation to
the British Isles as a whole.
Ireland
gained a large measure of independence in 1921 and was neutral in the Second
World War, but stayed to a surprising extent in the British sphere of influence
because of the disparity in political and economic strength and the common
labour market. But the British exit from the EU, while Ireland stays inside,
made the two countries much more equal when it came to negotiations,
particularly when there is a US administration sympathetic to the Irish.
One of the
many things that Arlene Foster and her Democratic Unionist Party failed to
understand was that no British leader wants to quarrel with Brussels and
Washington in order to go along with the wishes of one million
unionist/Protestants in Northern Ireland. A sign of the times is that few in
the rest of the UK were much concerned that a chunk of their country, in the
shape of Northern Ireland, remains bizarrely inside the EU and the commercial
EU/UK frontier now runs down the Irish Sea.
Yet this
does not necessarily mean that Irish unity is around the corner, or even the
corner after that. Demography may be changing but, just as the
unionist/Protestant community could not monopolise control when they were the
majority, the same will be true of the nationalist/Catholic side as they become
more numerous. Whatever the outcome of a border poll, in the unlikely event of
it taking place in the near future, communal allegiances will stay the same.
The basic premise of the Good Friday Agreement remains correct – both
communities must have a veto over radical constitutional changes they do not
like, if peace is to be preserved.
Ireland,
north and south, is full of ominous warning for Johnson and his cabinet as they
try to block and reverse the Scottish move towards independence. There are
delicious ironies in watching them repeat, almost word for word, the old
Remainer arguments about the advantages of economic union with a larger entity,
which they once denounced. In an early period, the Conservatives had likewise
failed “to kill home rule by kindness” by social and economic reform in
Ireland.
These
measures may have mitigated historic hatreds but had little lasting impact as
the Home Rulers went on winning elections. It was frustration at the failure to
win home rule by constitutional means, despite repeated endorsement at the
polls, that handed the initiative to those advocating unconstitutional methods.
In addition to the armed uprising of 1916, the newly elected Sinn Fein MPs left
the Westminster parliament and established their own in Dublin.
Practical
secessionism like this may still be over the horizon in Scotland, but
nationalist movements everywhere in the world almost invariably respond to the
path towards self-determination being closed off by becoming more rather than
less radical.
The legitimacy
and the visibility of the Scottish demand for self-rule will be confirmed if
the SNP wins a majority in the Scottish parliament in the election in May. But
Johnson’s dash through Scotland – his precise itinerary concealed to avoid
protesters – highlights a crucial change in the political landscape of Britain
that is already under way.
“The
Scottish Question” now occupies the place once held by “the Irish Question” as
a divisive issue that will dominate the political agenda of the UK for decades to
come. After all those years, Swift may turn out to have been right.
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