I have been asked countless times whether I think Scotland should be independent and I have always refused to give my view. My role is to provide as much information as I can as a commentator with some historical background.
There is no doubt, however, that a lot of the traditional supports for the Union have disappeared in recent years. It is difficult at an economic level to argue for or against it, given the ambiguity of the statistical evidence.
The unionists and nationalists can argue until the cows come home about the figures. There is no doubt, though, in my mind about the veracity of comments by my fellow historian T C Smout, when he said Scotland would have no trouble going it alone.
Look at what has happened in the past 25 years. If you talk to any of the top economists at Princeton or Johns Hopkins universities in America, they will tell you Scotland has performed far better than the rustbelt states in the USA in relation to the crisis in heavy industry there in the 1970s and 1980s.
There is clear evidence we can do the business. If the Scots wanted to do it, they could and there would be turbulence, but still they could go it alone as an independent state.
I used to have a theory about the conditions that would lead to Scottish independence — a confluence of three factors that would have an explosive effect. First, an economic crisis; second, a 1980s-type democratic deficit; third, an insensitive intervention by a right-leaning Conservative government in London against a left-leaning, nationalist-led government in Edinburgh.
So I am mystified to some extent about the current position, with the nationalists so high in the polls. It could be a mirage — we have been here before with high support for independence, and opinion changes quickly.
Last May I wrote about the political position at that time and those ramblings show how careful one should be. One phrase from that time haunts me: “The Scottish National party remains in the doldrums.”
Three weeks later, though, things started to stir. It could be that the nationalist surge is a product of a sense of aspiration in Scotland, a reflection of the transformation in Scottish life that has occurred in the past quarter of a century.
The facts tell their own story. Between the late 1950s and 2006 we are talking about a 350% real average-income increase. The social transformation, too, has been huge. Studies on census figures from 2001 by Edinburgh University sociologists show that two-thirds of men in work have moved to a different social class from that of their parents. Indeed, nearly half of all men born between 1937 and 1966 have been upwardly mobile.
Disillusionment can come through crisis or from unfulfilled aspirations. We are now a more critical people, in the educational sense, because of more access to university.
Demography could also play its part. From the late 1980s onwards, younger people in Scottish society were more nationalist inclined than people who were middle-aged. It could well be that there are more people of that ilk in the electorate than 20 or 30 years ago.
So what of the historical perspective, how did we get to this position 300 years after union of the parliaments? A number of factors have supported the Union through the centuries, but they have virtually disappeared through erosion or dilution.
Take the factors that helped stabilise the Union after the defeat of the greatest threat it faced in its early years — the Jacobitism of the mid-18th century. Britain’s shared religion of Protestantism gave the Union an ideological cement. So, too, did the growing influence and respect for the monarchy. This was especially pronounced during the Victorian era, with the queen trying to blend Scottishness and Englishness.
Scotland saw itself in a state of economic crisis around the time of the Union. It had been lusting after the rich pastures of England’s domestic and colonial markets. After 1707, Scotland had the protection not only of tariffs but also the Royal Navy.
The concept of “the other” was also crucial. The Union was a bulwark against France, an enemy that was hegemonically powerful in Europe as well as being Catholic and a strong supporter of a Jacobite counter-revolution.
Above all, once the Scots had demonstrated their loyalty in blood to the British state during the Napoleonic wars, from about 1820 they were virtually allowed to govern themselves. By the 1840s they had developed a dual identity, of Scottishness and Britishness, which they have retained to the present day. At different times down the years there has been more emphasis on one rather than the other.
During the second world war it was emphatically towards Britishness. In the late1940s, when the Covenant movement petitioned for a Scottish parliament, it swung towards Scottishness. But the dual concept of Scottishness and Britishness has never been corrupted.
Another crucial factor was the position of the Scottish elite. When you look at the splitting-up of empires, whether it be the Austro-Hungarian empire or the British empire in terms of Ireland, frustrated elites mean trouble.
In Austria-Hungary it was the long-term refusal of the empire to allow the peripheral elites into the heart of government and commerce that tipped the balance. But in the British empire, the Scots were allowed free rein.
It was the Scottish elites that governed Scotland in the 19th century, particularly at local level through town councils, kirk sessions and by influencing Scottish bills at the Westminster parliament that governed Scotland. They also enjoyed uninhibited free entry into the imperial project during the 18th century and much of the 19th century. Although they were Presbyterians, their religion was never used against them. This is a critical distinction from Ireland, where Ulster Presbyterians had difficulties, as did, to an even greater extent, the Catholic Irish.
The power of the Scottish elite did cause some friction. The 1760s saw an outbreak of Scotophobia associated with the Earl of Bute,
the first prime minister from Scotland after the Union. It was said against him that he was encouraging armies of mendicants from the north to take up positions of authority in the south.
After that, anti-Scottishness largely disappeared. Recent research into newspaper and magazine cartoons illustrates this perfectly. In the 1760s, London cartoons against the Scots were almost as racist as those against the French. By the time you get to the 1850s it is gentle humour of the “mean Scot” variety. This is not racist — to some extent it shows respect because of the emphasis on the prudence of the Scots. The Irish were still depicted as savages.
If you look at the current political situation, almost every one of those supports for the Union is gone.
Protectionism is gone, and with it the advantage of having a market in which Scottish industry and agriculture could develop.
That has disappeared because of globalisation and the European Union. Tariff barriers no longer exist and the might of the Royal Navy to safeguard Scottish trade is an irrelevance.
The concept of “the other” is no more — France became an ally, Nazi Germany disappeared, the Soviet threat disintegrated.
I once thought terrorism might be the new “other” in the equation, but the nonsense on the subject spouted by John Reid, the home secretary, has shown the impotence of that argument.
The religious reasons for backing the Union have disappeared in three senses. The first is simple secularisation. The second is that people from an Irish Catholic background are now more likely to be in favour of devolution or independence than the norm in Scotland, the opposite of what used to be the case. The third is the decline of that bastion of unionism, the Protestant working class, which consistently voted Tory up to the 1960s and even into the late 1970s. That’s all gone. The power of the monarchy is similarly diminished.
The attitude of Scotland’s elite also fails to provide comfort for supporters of the Union. Scotland has always overproduced an educated elite.
In the mid- to late-18th century, Scottish universities produced 60% of all British university-trained medics, of which only 10% stayed to work in Scotland. It has been a constant and is still a constant — we are overproducing people of high skill, aspiration and education. Not all of them can be satisfied within the parameters of this small land and the British Empire once provided them with opportunity.
After the second world war, the Scots elites became truly global, albeit with a particular concentration on London, especially in politics and finance. The reality today is that these Scots do not need the Union, or its former empire, to guarantee their opportunities. There is a deep respect, exaggerated perhaps, for Scottish education. The world honestly thinks we have a superior system of learning.
Without these pillars, where does that leave the United Kingdom of 2007? Though its historical supports have gone, I think it is highly unlikely the Union will dissolve in the short term. It is a tough old nut.
Resisting any move towards independence is the force of what one could call emotional and traditional inertia. It is habit; it is a common culture; it is the BBC; it is language; it is family relationships; it is concern with risk at a time when we are actually doing quite well.
I often wonder if the best approach by so-called unionist politicians would be to encourage people to “Let It Be”.
Both sides in the debate seem to be missing opportunities to put their case with the maximum effectiveness. The nationalist mistake so far is to concentrate too much on the economic ground.
I realise its importance, of course, but if the current dynamic is aspirational, people should be talking about culture, Scotland’s role in the world and the potential for liberating people to play a significant part in the 21st century.
As far as the unionists are concerned, their biggest mistake has been to take the negative approach and use scare tactics. If we accept we are dealing with a more educated populace in Scotland, this could have counterproductive effects. It could even be Labour’s equivalent of the patronising attitudes towards the Scottish people that existed in the 1980s.
Ultimately, the X factor in all this may well come from outwith.
The Union in 1707 did not come about because Scotland wanted it. There were four occasions between 1660 and 1702 when Scots tried to open negotiations on a limited Union with a view to trade. It happened when it did because of English motivation for reasons of national security.
The awkward neighbour might to some extent decide the outcome this time round as well. These days the English are relaxed about Scottish independence and might even be in favour of it.
There is the substantial perception that the Scots are gaining disadvantageously from the Union settlement. This feeling is misplaced, because serious analysis of the finances does not support it. But if this discontent produces an abrasive attitude to Scotland, it could then have a multiplier effect on Scottish electoral opinion.
The English, who desired the Union, may yet desire its destruction. Who knows, one day they may even get their way.
As told to Kenny Farquharson
Tom Devine is the Sir William Fraser chair of Scottish history and palaeography at the University of Edinburgh. Union and Empire: Good for Scotland?, his lecture, is on Tuesday February 13, 2007, at 6pm in the university’s McEwan Hall. Tickets are free but can be booked at www.ed.ac.uk/news/eventbookings/
A new edition of Professor Devine’s bestseller, The Scottish Nation, has been updated to cover 1700-2007
The act of union and end of an epoch
On Thursday January 16, 1707, the Scottish parliament voted by 110 votes to 67 to ratify the Treaty of Union with England. All present under Parliament Hall’s magnificent hammer-beamed ceiling knew they were participating in an event that was epoch making — and epoch ending.
The first article of the treaty proclaimed: “That the two kingdoms of Scotland and England shall, upon the first day of May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be united into one kingdom by the name of Great Britain, and that the ensigns armorial of the said United Kingdom be such as Her Majesty shall appoint.”
The treaty was split into 25 articles, most of which were concerned about standardisation of taxes and duties across Great Britain, and ensuring rights of travel and free trade within the new country’s borders.
Two copies of the treaty, one for each nation, were signed by the men who had negotiated it.
That history making Thursday was loaded with an extra sense of moment. The treaty was touched with the Scottish sceptre.
It was not to be the last meeting of the Scottish parliament — that would come on March 25, 1707, when it was “adjourned sine die”, ie with no date set for its next meeting.
On May 12, 1999, Winnie Ewing, the nationalist MP and MSP, announced that the Scottish parliament was “hereby reconvened”. The act of union and the end of an epoch
