A Party Built on Bigotry Alone? The Scottish Board of Dissenters and Edinburgh Liberalism, 1834–56

By assessing the Central Board of Dissenters, arguably the most influential liberal-voluntary group of the mid-nineteenth century and the political wing of Scottish dissent, this article questions whether the Liberal party in Edinburgh was indeed built on ‘bigotry alone’, and asks whether the groups that would later form the backbone of Scottish Liberalism until the Great War were, as John Brown claimed, the enemies of all oppressions and monopolies, or simply the products of sectarian strife. The Central Board of Dissenters acted as the conduit for ecclesiastical and political organisation for Edinburgh's radical voluntaries during the bitter conflict of the pre-Disruption period, and utilised this organisational strength after 1843 to create a pan-dissenting alliance based on the anti-Maynooth campaign. Despite their foundations in the intra-Presbyterian strife of Victorian Scotland, the electoral successes of this period created a base both in Edinburgh and across Scotland for a Liberal party, once it threw off the ideological shackles of these denominational struggles, which would dominate Scottish politics until the Great War.

Scotland

The fourth chapter looks at the case of Scotland. The surge of secessionism within Scottish nationalism is puzzling considering that demands for Scottish territorial autonomy were met in the late 1990s with devolution. Yet, a mere 15 years later, 45 per cent of Scots supported independence in a referendum. Scottish autonomy was conceived as mostly static during key periods of political development. Devolution in the United Kingdom was a settlement, a new political and constitutional order, not originally meant to be adapted or enhanced. Yet, devolution created a series of changes to Scottish politics that immediately put pressure on the new status quo. Although the Commission on Scottish Devolution was established in late 2007, it did not include the SNP, which was then forming the Scottish government, and, with British general elections on the horizon, its impact on Scottish autonomy was uncertain. By the time the Commission’s recommendations would start being implemented in 2012, the SNP had already formed a majority government committed to holding an independence referendum. When this government was considering a multi-option referendum question comprising an option for more powers to Scotland as well as independence, the British government refused: devolution was, at that time, a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. In other words, short of independence, Scottish autonomy would remain as it was; the British government was then offering static autonomy.

Internal political struggle in Scotland on the issue of the region status in 2007–2011

For the first time in the national historiography, various aspects of the internal political struggle in Scotland regarding its political status in 2007–2011 are considered. The key actors in this struggle are identified, the forms and tools used by various political forces to realise their goals are highlighted, and the issue of the Scottish National Party as a government party is explored. The activity of two organisations – «National Conversation» and the Calman Commission, created at the initiative of two opposing camps of Scottish politics, is analysed. It is noted that as a result of their work, the discussion about the political future of the region was brought to a qualitatively new level, and all the main political forces in the region recognised the need to expand the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

Politics and Devolution in Scotland and Wales, 1999–2007

This chapter analyses Scotland and Wales, addressing developments in Scottish politics, the move to further reform of the devolution settlement in Wales in 2006 and the significance of the 2007 elections in both countries. It reconsiders the nature of the territorial strains in Scotland and Wales, the power politics of seeking to gain power and guide devolution in each country. It addresses the approaches of the devolved governments and the UK Labour government in each case to ensure they achieved what they wanted. The chapter explores the extent to which the neo-Bulpittian propositions hold in the practice of devolution. In Wales, there was an opportunity to ensure the constitutional process behind the 2006 Act was more successful in achieving support across the political class than had been the case with the Government of Wales Act 1998. In the second set of elections in 2007, the Scottish National Party (SNP) emerged to form a minority government in Scotland; in Wales, Labour's hold slipped and Plaid Cymru became a coalition partner. The chapter readdresses the sources of the 2007 emergence to power of those who Bulpitt would have called the genuine peripheral dissidents more in terms of an analysis of the effectiveness or not of political management after 1999. It also reassesses the significance of the 2007 election results in practice to local elite assimilation.

Scotland in the 1930s

Scotland suffered acutely from the economic and political crises of the interwar period, with industrial decline, mass unemployment and cultural uncertainty in evidence by the early 1920s. This chapter explores the consequences of this economic and social dislocation for Scottish politics in the lead up the late 1930s. Particular emphasis is given to left-wing politics and anti-unemployment activism, suggesting that the roots of a distinctively Scottish response to the Spanish Civil War lay in older radical political cultures that had survived and evolved into the interwar era.

Scots and the Spanish Civil War

Few causes before or since have inspired such passion, determination and sacrifice than the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). This book explores the many ways in which Scots responded to the war in Spain, covering the activists and humanitarians who raised funds and awareness at home, as well as the hundreds of Scots who journeyed to Spain to fight as part of the International Brigades that fought for the Republican cause. Their stories reflect much larger narratives of the rise of European fascism, the networks and cultures of international communism and the wider modern phenomenon of transnational foreign war volunteering. Scots and the Spanish Civil War is a groundbreaking study of Scottish involvement in one of the 20th century’s most famous and divisive conflicts, drawing on newly-declassified government documents and international archives in Spain and beyond. As well as shedding new light on Scottish politics in the 1930s, it is argued that this case study – part of the largest wave of foreign war volunteers in the 20th century – can help us understand other such mobilisations, past and present.

Standing up for Scotland

David Torrance reassesses the relationship between ‘nationalism’ and ‘unionism’ in Scottish politics, challenging a binary reading of the two ideologies with the concept of ‘nationalist unionism’. Scottish nationalism did not begin with the SNP in 1934, nor was it confined to political parties that desired independent statehood. Rather, it was more dispersed, with the Liberal, Conservative and Labour parties all attempting to harness Scottish national identity and nationalism between 1884 and 2014, often with the paradoxical goal of strengthening rather than ending the Union. This book combines nationalist theory with empirical historical and archival research to argue that these conceptions of Scottish nationhood had much more in common with each other than is commonly accepted.

Prelude

This prelude gives an account of a gathering of the Convention of Royal Burghs of Scotland in January 1884, which it argues marked the birth of a ‘nationalist unionist’ approach to Scottish politics. Conservative and Liberal politicians shared a platform to call for a ‘Scottish minister’ in the UK Cabinet, someone to take charge of government affairs in Scotland and recognise Scotland’s status as an historic nation in partnership with England. Most speakers used nationalist arguments to make their case – Scotland’s distinctiveness and ‘neglect’ by Westminster – yet their goal was a reformed and thus strengthened United Kingdom.

Scotland at Westminster

Since the Treaty and Acts of Union in 1707, Scotland has returned MPs to Westminster. Whilst dwarfed, at least demographically by its partner in that Union, England, Scotland has, on a number of occasions, punched above its weight at the Centre—most notably at either end of the twentieth century when Liberalism and then Labour dominated Scottish politics. This chapter examines the relationship of Scotland with the UK Parliament. It begins by placing this relationship in its historical context, before then turning to an audit of contemporary Scottish influence and representation at Westminster, post-devolution. This chapter does this by breaking down two of the main and interconnected dimensions of Scottish representation at Westminster: (1) Scottish parliamentarians and the Westminster party system; and (2) institutional representation within Parliament. This latter category includes both Scottish-specific institutional mechanisms, such as the Scottish Affairs Committee and the Scottish Grand Committee, and the broader Westminster apparatus that can be leveraged for influence, such as parliamentary question times.