The publication of Nicola Sturgeon’s political memoir, Frankly, has given the UK a fresh chance to marvel at the fall of Scottish nationalism.
Scathing reviews and awkward interviews with the former Scottish National Party leader have added to the wonder of how a movement so hapless came so close to breaking up Britain.
Sturgeon claims her predecessor, Alex Salmond, was too busy junketing to read the White Paper on independence before the 2014 referendum. The book also reveals she repeatedly described the referendum as “once in a lifetime” during campaign speeches, rather than “once in a generation” as often misquoted. That postpones the next one until the 2090s, even with Scotland’s appalling record on public health.
Support for independence remains as high as ever and the SNP is still Scotland’s largest party by some margin, backed by almost a third of the electorate, according to the latest polls. Perversely, this emphasises the political power of a loss of morale and momentum. National allegiance is immutable for most people and strongly held by almost everyone, yet Scotland shows an apparently unstoppable national cause can still run into the ground due to mishandling by a single party.
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Salmond used to say “the dream will never die” but it has been put to sleep for the foreseeable future.
Unionists in Northern Ireland might dare to dream of a similar outcome, although Scotland offers them a distinctly mixed lesson.
In its simplest terms, Scottish unionism is so hapless it propelled the SNP into dominance for 15 years, until disappointment and hubris almost inevitably proved the party’s undoing, while still not leading to any notable unionist revival. The constitutional status quo prevails by default.
After a decade of disasters for their own cause, unionists in Northern Ireland might say “we’ll take it”. Nevertheless, this is a deeply uninspiring scenario and difficult to argue for by design.
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“Let’s step back and let Sinn Féin make an even bigger mess of the place” would be a hard sell to even the most cynical unionist voter.
Powersharing means neither side can withdraw completely from the Northern Ireland Executive. Scotland’s example should make unionists consider the benefits of Stormont reform. The DUP opposed mandatory coalition while it was the largest party but now says powersharing protections are essential – laughably obvious hypocrisy.
There is no prospect of introducing simple majoritarianism at Stormont. The most that might realistically be achieved is opt-in powersharing, where unionists and nationalists would still be entitled to ministerial seats but would not necessarily have to take them. Even this is a distant aspiration.
Something like the SNP’s dominance has begun to occur organically, however. Sinn Féin has mopped up three-quarters of the nationalist vote, while the unionist vote has splintered across three parties. Sinn Féin has embraced its new role as Stormont’s largest party, assuring supporters it is in a position to deliver practical and constitutional goals. This exposes it to disappointment and hubris as it inevitably encounters the limitations of office.
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The DUP is much diminished after its Brexit fiasco and appears to have stepped back at the Executive, albeit through loss of confidence rather than as a tactical retreat. A new generation of DUP figures emerging in councils and the assembly is noticeably more focused on local issues and practical delivery. They know the party has a long task ahead, of rebuilding from the ground up.
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin is talking about a united Ireland and a Border poll by 2030. There are echoes of the SNP’s increasingly implausible plans for a second independence referendum, which drained away its credibility among even its staunchest supporters.
Unionist parties in Northern Ireland have recently been discussing co-operation to reverse their fortunes. This could involve electoral pacts and what is termed “realignment” – rebranding of parties as more clearly liberal or conservative.
An intriguing lesson from Scotland is that all parties should consider being less overtly unionist. The SNP’s opponents tried to co-operate to strengthen the union and create a sense of unionist politics. They failed, yet it did the union no harm at all.
Foregrounding the constitutional question was left to the SNP, which had to wrestle largely alone with the belligerent tribalism to which all nationalist politics is prone – including unionism, as a form of British nationalism.
When people who grew weary of this argument turned away from the SNP, they did not have to turn towards a unionist mirror-image. They could choose from a range of parties that appeared to represent “normal” politics, from left to right.
This would be extraordinarily difficult for any unionist party in Northern Ireland to pull off, let alone all of them, and of course parallels with Scotland only go so far.
But frankly, no one surveying northern unionism’s decline should think more overt unionist politics is the answer.
