A Fractured Union
Prof Michael Keating’s new book State and Nation in the United Kingdom was published on 9th April. I was invited to make some remarks at a pre-publication discussion at the PSA’s annual conference in March 2021. I focussed on what Michael describes as the ‘loss of the polyvalent union’.
I understand the idea of a polyvalent union as one in which different conceptions of the union could co-exist, in tension but relatively successfully, for many years. England might imagine the union to be the extension and expression of its interests, while Scotland could be confident that the union recognised and respected its distinct nationhood. I’ll argue that the decline of this sophisticated, nuanced, knowingly asymmetric approach to the union was as British politics — a politics that was recognised across the island of Britain — came to an end. While things have come to a head in the past decade or so, the end of British politics was probably inevitable once challenges to the central union state began to be framed as national aspirations from the 1960s onwards.
Although the end British politics may have been inevitable, the particular way it happened stems from the mistaken belief of New Labour (the government of which I was part) that it was possible both to satisfy national aspirations in Scotland and Wales and to leave the governance of the union and of England unchanged.
By the end of British politics, I mean the idea that politics is primarily played out between British political parties contesting the same issues across all the mainland nations. Some parties may have been stronger in one place than another, but it was still a British politics.
2005 was the last election in which one party won in all three mainland nations. In the last three, each nation has been contested by different parties, and different parties have won. Elections to devolved assemblies have reinforced the differences. (Of course it must be acknowledged that the extent of the collapse of British politics amongst the electorate has been exaggerated by the FPTP electoral system. First past the post both gives Conservatism a dominance it does not deserve in England and underplays the support for both the Conservatives and Labour in Scotland.)
It is true that the 1980s were dominated by a Conservative government very largely elected in England. But, at the time, this didn’t seem to challenge the idea of British politics. Scotland and Wales had no democratic national institutions. Labour dominated Welsh and Scottish Westminster representation and, as the second largest party in England was clearly a Britain-wide opposition. It could aspire to win in England and form a UK government, as it duly did.
But in the 1980s many Scottish Labour politicians like Gordon Brown reframed Scottish Labour politics as one of national aspiration, rather than class and capitalism as an earlier Labour might have done. The problem was not the devolution that Labour introduced — this was almost certainly inevitable in one way or another — but the idea that an unreformed British state could be maintained to govern both the union and England. (The other flaw in the plan was that having fostered the sovereign right of the Scottish people to decide how they wished to be governed, Labour neglected to imagine that they might do so by rejecting Labour itself).
As the SNP rose, Labour collapsed and the Scottish Conservatives remained weak, British politics was over. Wales is not as starkly different in its Westminster representation, perhaps, but its post devolution politics is a much more distinct political space than it was in 1997. Support for independence is at record levels, particularly amongst young people.
Polyvalent unionism could prosper when England’s Anglo-centric view of the union afforded sufficient space to the contesting view of the union held in Wales and Scotland. The combination of devolution and the collapse of British politics has thrust England’s size and weight to the forefront. This has created — or at least made far more obvious — the asymmetry of a Conservative union government that rests on English support, carries little legitimacy in the devolved nations, and which on all domestic policy is solely focussed on the government of England. It has made Anglo-centric British unionism the unchallenged and narrow unionism we see today.
Despite the efforts of some Scottish conservatives, we see this in everything from the flag branding — the idea that British national identity can trump all others — to the willingness to put England’s interest in Brexit ahead of the interests of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales in their membership of the union. It ignores the evidence that being British is neither the dominant identity in any part of the union, nor does it carry the same meaning in each part of the union.
The recent report from Lord Dunlop has some sensible suggestions on intra-union cooperation and coordination, but the underlying thinking is still that the union would be more popular if it were explained better and there were more cheques with union jacks on the back.
The problem is exacerbated by the continuing adherence of UK Labour (in practice the name given to Labour in England) to an Anglo-centric British unionism. This leaves the party without a coherent understanding of the union and in a position where it rarely defends its own devolutionary history. In major speech on the union in December 2020 Keir Starmer did not mention Wales nor that fact that Wales had a Labour first minister. His exclusive use of the union flag to denote patriotism is not so different all those flags in Conservative ministers’ homes. The party does not engage with how England is governed and will not mention England even when talking only about England.
In Scotland, Labour wants to be the best party to represent Scotland within the union whilst seeking some form of devo-max with spending and welfare underwritten by England’s union state. That sounds rather like what it did 20 years ago but more of it. Welsh Labour has been clearest in warning that the union will only continue if it can be reformed.
If there is any merit in my analysis, what are the chances of a more subtle unionism returning?
The preconditions would seem to be a return to a form of recognisable British politics.
Perhaps the SNP will have Parti Quebecois moment — the PQ declined markedly having narrowly missed its target of independence — if it fails to deliver independence, and Labour rather than another party fills the gap. Those are two very big ‘if’s’
A more proportional electoral system for Westminster would give a more accurate picture of the support for major parties across the union and re-establish some sense of Britain wide politics. However, as none of the major parties would long survive the political fragmentation that would follow it’s not clear who has an incentive to put it forward. But why would the Conservatives change an electoral system that delivers union power to them? It looks a better bet for Labour, and many of its members support it, but it might also shatter Labour’s tense coalition into several different parties.
The establishment of a distinct machinery of government for England, perhaps with a dual mandate, would go some way to breaking the equation of the union with England, and require mechanisms to bring England’s relationship with the rest of the union into the open. England’s size and relative financial will always give it the whip hand, but a more consensual and consultative approach could meet the needs of all parts of the union better.
The ideological dominance of Anglo-centric British nationalism makes it hard for either party to contemplate delineating England’s government from that of the union. Both persist in the illusion that giving more powers to Mayor Andy Burnham in Manchester or Mayor Andy Street in Birmingham resolves the entirely different issue of England’s government by the union state.
It is easier to think of reforms that might offer revive the older unionism a new future than the political circumstances in which they come about. If any union has a future, it probably cannot be the return of the old via a revitalised British politics, but it’s refashioning as new relationship between the different parts of the union.
We are left with the uncertain power of a crisis: if the union looks all but lost; if the next election produces a UK majority for a group of parties but no English majority; if the vague rumblings of English regional discontent turn into a coherent clamour for change in England’s governance and funding.
By the time the depth of the crisis is deep enough to force change it may be too late to bring about change.
