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Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 a Nation Gradually Moving Towards Independence Or a Nationality Leading by Example?

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Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 a Nation Gradually Moving Towards Independence Or a Nationality Leading by Example? Scottish Independence Referendum 2014 A nation gradually moving towards independence or a nationality leading by example? PATRICK DEVANEY 15-Sep-15 Master Program 2014 – 2015 Citizenship and Human Rights: Ethics and Politics Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2 2. Who are the Scots and what do they stand for? ................................................................................ 8 2.2 History ............................................................................................................................................... 9 2.3 Attitudes.......................................................................................................................................... 10 2.4 Religion and Education ................................................................................................................... 11 3. Neo-Liberalism in the UK .................................................................................................................. 14 3.1 Becoming British ............................................................................................................................. 14 3.2 The Break-up of British Society and Scottish Re-Awakening .......................................................... 15 3.2.1 Privatisation ................................................................................................................................. 16 3.2.3 Deregulation ................................................................................................................................ 17 3.2.4 Community Charge or ‘Poll Tax’ ................................................................................................... 17 3.3 Neo-Liberalism vs Social Democracy .............................................................................................. 18 4. How Labour Lost Scotland ................................................................................................................ 19 4.1 Delivering Devolution ..................................................................................................................... 19 4.1 Lack of Vision .................................................................................................................................. 19 4.3 Lack of Understanding .................................................................................................................... 20 4.3.1 Continued Neo-Liberalism ........................................................................................................... 21 4.3.2 More Privatisation and Deregulation .......................................................................................... 22 4.3.3 No Room to Manoeuvre in Scotland ............................................................................................ 22 5. The SNP and the mandate for the Independence referendum ........................................................ 25 5.1 History as an Umbrella Organisation for Nationalists of all Political Creeds .................................. 25 5.2 Development into a Party that Assesses Economic and Social Needs of Scotland ........................ 26 5.3 Fundamental Nationalism vs Gradual Nationalism ........................................................................ 27 5.4 Party of Government ...................................................................................................................... 28 6. Independence White Paper: “Scotland’s Future” and the Referendum .......................................... 30 6.1 How Independent is Independent? ................................................................................................ 30 6.2 The Right Referendum? .................................................................................................................. 31 6.3 Post Referendum Blues ................................................................................................................... 34 7. Conclusion: A Federal Future for the UK with England as Regions ................................................... 36 7.1 Same Problems on Both Sides of the Border .................................................................................. 36 7.2 Lack of Local Mandate .................................................................................................................... 37 7.2.1 Unrepresentative Electoral System ............................................................................................. 38 7.3 A Federal UK with England as Regions ............................................................................................ 40 8.1 Figures ............................................................................................................................................. 42 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 51 1 Introduction “I believe every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist.”1 Unionist MP John Buchan (Cited in Stewart, 2009, pg19) 1.1 Throughout the 20th Century one party, more than any other, dominated Scottish Politics. They hammered the first nail into their own coffin in 1965, however, when they changed their name in an effort to appear more contemporary and modern. Up until that point they had been known as the Scottish Unionist party although they weren’t named after the Union of 1707 that bonded the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The Union in their name referred to the Union between Ireland and Great Britain that took place in 1801. The dominant political party in Scotland of the 20th Century was born out of opposition to Irish home rule. It is telling that so entrenched was Scotland in the Union of Great Britain that not only was it not campaigning for its own independence, its most popular party was campaigning against the independence of another of the Union’s nations. It is also telling that when they changed their name, in an effort to modernise, they took the first steps towards their complete alienation from the Scottish electorate. In 1965, realising that the Ir ish Union of 1801 didn’t hold much relevance in contemporary Scottish politics the Unionists decided to change their name so that they’d share the name of the party they were associated with in England. They became the Scottish Conservatives. 1.2 Although they were associated with the conservatives, they weren’t simply an arm of the English Conservative party which goes some way to explaining why they were so successful. Unionist MPs may have taken the Conservative Whip at Westminster and prominent Unionist leaders like Andrew Bonar Law and Sir Alec Douglas-Home may have served as Conservative Prime Ministers of Great Britain but in Scotland the Unionists were seen as progressives because of the policies they supported whilst in local government including providing subsidies to build 200,000 houses in the 1920s and 1930s and the promotion of social housing. The key to their success was their independence from the English conservatives which allowed them to promote their own solutions to Scotland’s problems. The name change in 1 Stewart, David. (2009) The Path to Devolution and Change: A Political History of Scotland Under Margaret Thatcher. London, Tauris Academic Studies. 2 1965 didn’t change this but after it they became identified with the English Conservatives who had never been popular in Scotland. They lost their Scottish identity, so brilliantly exemplified by the Unionist MP John Buchan. Their decline followed and the rise of Labour in Scotland began. 1.3 The story of the Unionist Party in Scotland highlights the key truths at the heart of the Scottish Independence issue today. They enjoyed great success as an independent unionist party within the UK. They were able to employ progressive social democratic policies based on the egalitarian principles that were held by the Scottish nation. They were even given the keys to the welfare state when they were elected in 1951 because they were trusted to ensure its success whilst not being committed to the centralisation, in London, of the new enlarged state like the Labour Party was. In 1951 Winston Churchill (Cited in Devine, 2008) had brilliantly capitalised on Labour’s centralising policies by saying, “I would never adopt the view that Scotland should be forced into the serfdom of socialism by a vote in the House of Commons.”2 When Scots were voting for the Unionists they knew they were voting for a party that had based its policies on the problems that were effecting Scotland. Their demise began when they lost their distinctly Scottish identity and became associated the English Conservatives. 1.4 English Conservative politics had never fit well with Scotland’s egalitarian ethic. Although the Labour Party would dominate Scottish Politics for the rest of the 20th Century it would never gain the hold that the Unionists enjoyed due to its lack of a vision for Scotland and it’s over emphasis on the centralisation of the institutions of state in the South East of England leaving Scotland feeling like a marginalised province. As the Conservatives of the late 70’s and 80’s took England more to the right and began the systematic dismantling of the state Scotland stayed where it was politically, often bemoaning the fact that
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