Scotland’s greatest historian explains exactly why the union is in peril

In a bid to unravel where Scotland now stands, in terms of the history of the union, the Herald on Sunday sat down with Professor Devine. Over two hours of conversation, the world’s leading authority on Scottish history gave what amounts to a personal lecture for Herald on Sunday readers.

BIRTH PAINS

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Devine says, “in 1707. The treaty was a union of partnership - that’s very relevant to what’s happening today.”

However, for the first 40 years “there was no certainty that it would prevail in terms of a stable relationship.” Aside from Jacobitism, there were two big problems: increased taxation due to England’s wars with France, and the “violation of the treaty” by the Patronage Act of 1712 which interfered with the way the church was run. Both fomented early tension and “hostility”.

Of course the main threat was “Jacobitism, the attempt by some elements of Scottish society to reverse the revolution of 1688 [when the Catholic Stuart king, James II, was overthrown by Protestant William of Orange] and restore the Stuart dynasty.”

Although the Jacobites are remembered mostly for opposition to the Hanoverian regime, there was also, says Devine, a strong degree of “disaffection from the union”. Both matters were the cause of four “very serious risings between 1708 and the most famous of all 1745”.

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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Anti-unionism was driven mostly by economics. “One of the prime arguments made by those propagandising before the union was that it would bring bounty,” says Devine. Scotland was promised “an economic miracle”, and after famine in the 1690s and the financial disaster of the failed Darien expedition to establish a Scottish colony in Panama the idea of union with England “was a powerful argument. You may be giving up your sovereignty but you’re getting economic goodies”.

However, the economic miracle didn’t happen. Scotland simply “didn’t have the capacity to take advantage of the opportunities offered by union” because the country wasn’t yet mature enough in material terms to exploit it.

Both Jacobitism, and general dissatisfaction with the union, were partly driven by “a revolution of frustrated expectations”. Devine says “there were Jacobite banners not simply proclaiming the Stuart dynasty but saying no to the union. There were many elements in the army of Charles Edward Stuart [Bonnie Prince Charlie] at Culloden who were not only opposed to the Hanoverians but also the union.”

Northeast Scotland, parts of the Highlands and islands, and parts of the southwestern border were “unambiguously anti-union”. Anti-unionism was also “commonplace” in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Clearly, the Act of Union wasn’t agreed by the Scottish people - the event took place in a “pre-democratic society”.

Taxation, English interference in the Kirk, and the failure of the economic miracle to materialise all added to the “inevitable growing pains of a union between two ancient enemies”. There were three parties in parliament - the Jacobite Cavaliers, the Court party representing the establishment pushing for union, and the anti-union Country party which was out of power. There was broad parliamentary consent for the economic parts of the treaty, but dissent on most other elements. Riots broke out in Edinburgh as “the street” sided with anti-unionists in parliament.

WAR AND SECURITY

France - England’s great rival for world domination - saw the union “bolstering the power” of its enemy, as it closed a backdoor to England in future wars. England, meanwhile, saw union as a national security imperative, protecting its northern border. With England emboldened militarily through partnership with Scotland, the union “hastened the intensity of the long wars with France until Britain emerged victorious at the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815”.

There’s lesson to be learned in 2021 from the early days of union. Scotland wasn’t “annexed by conquest like Wales and Ireland”, says Devine. “It was a partnership agreement and that partnership agreement has now been lost, and lost very recently. David Cameron’s granting of a referendum was an example of that partnership operating - he was quick to acknowledge the right of Scots to determine their own future, unlike his successor in Downing Street today.”

Devine believes that if a second referendum happens “the core weakness for those who wish Scottish independence will be economics, the same way economics caused difficulties in the first half of the 18th century”.

Debates today about currency, trade with England and “what kind of advantages and disadvantages” would flow economically from independence “echo some of the issues swirling around in the late 17th and early 18th centuries”.

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THE RISINGS

Ironically, the Jacobite risings helped secure the union. With expectations disappointed over the promised economic miracle, the threat of a successful Jacobite rebellion, which would have heralded the return of Catholicism, “disciplined pro unionists who were fed up with the way the union was going. Those who had a tepid commitment to the union - and given the religious make-up of Scotland they’d have invariably been Protestant - were forced to group together. Those who were becoming increasingly anxious that the union wasn’t delivering could never have sided with those trying to break the union as that would have legitimised the forces of Catholicism. If Jacobitism didn’t exist, the union may have been in greater danger”.

That split in Scotland has echoes today. In the early 1700s, “about a third of the population was probably anti-union”. Today, Devine notes, it’s about 50-50. Fear over divisions, he says, will play a part in any future referendum, with unionists warning that “such a bitterly divided country is no basis for building a new nation” if Yes won.

The shaky early history of the union quickly changed, though, after the risings. By the mid 18th century, says Devine, “the union was entirely unproblematic”. How did such a sundered country unite so quickly?

Jacobitsim was “rooted out to such an extent by military and legislative means that it never recovered”. By the late 18th century “it’s become part of history”. Jacobitism became sentimentalised in songs and Walter Scott novels. “That sentimentalisation,” says Devine, “is the clearest example that it was beaten. If it had remained dangerous that sentimentalisation wouldn’t have occurred.”

BOOM TIME

Highland culture and power was also crushed, most famously in the Clearances. The Highland warrior was coopted into the British army, becoming a fabled part of empire after Waterloo.

More importantly, though, than this pacification of the Highlands and destruction of Jacobitism was money. Scotland’s “great lift off” began. The country started industrialising at a remarkable rate. There was also a revolution in agriculture and mass urbanisation. “The material benefits promised by union began arriving in spades,” says Devine. “Scotland began to feel at ease in the union.”

Scotland’s economic revolution “was the fastest and most decisive in Europe”. England’s industrialisation built up over time, while in Scotland there’d been “hardly any change” until the mid 18th century when the economy exploded. “There was nothing like it in Europe until forced industrialisation in the Soviet Union,” Devine said.

It was this growth of wealth and industry which helped settle Scotland firmly into union. “It draws the poison of disaffection,” Devine says. This accommodation with union was “so complete by the 1800s that some Scottish intellectuals feared total anglicisation,” Devine explains. “There was a fear that the battle for economic development had been won at the cost of Scotland’s identity.”

But ‘Scottishness’ wasn’t destroyed, Devine says. There’s no “victory of Britishness over Scottishness”, rather a “hybrid identity of Britishness and Scottishness emerges”.

EMPIRE BUILDING

Patriotism remained, but Scotland was “the most unnationalistic country in the world”. While the great empires of Europe fell apart, Scotland “was congratulating itself” on being part of the British empire. The nation fully embraced the business of empire and colonialism.

Another historical irony was that come the mid-19th century, when Scotland was so thoroughly part of empire and union, there was almost a sense of “semi-independence” in terms of how the country was governed. Clearly, Westminster was sovereign, says Devine, but there was a tradition in parliament that Scottish MPs decided the “relevant bills for the country - they’d be put before parliament and hardly ever opposed”. Scotland was also governed on a daily basis by ‘Scots in Scotland’ when it came to the law, religion, education, hospitals, poor laws, and prisons.

“England was prepared to be tolerant, to stand back. There was no friction between the two countries because of England’s restraint. England refused to occupy more than its share of the marital bed.”

Another “delicious” historical irony, says Devine, is that now “the situation is reverse … if you compare the mid-19th century to Boris Johnson’s union today there was arguably more Scottish control of its own business, apart from issues like macro economic policy, foreign policy and making war.”

“Another paradox”, says Devine, is that with Scotland today “beholden to England because of the Barnett formula it now experiences increased interference. The classic example is Brexit. It was the reverse of the kind of government that existed between England and Scotland in the 19th century because it exemplifies, more than anything else in the entire history of the union, England using its weight and power to force through a decision overwhelmingly opposed by Scotland”.

VICTORIAN VALUES

Unionism in the Victorian era was “benign”. The state wasn’t interventionist, and with no security threat from Scotland, England “didn’t really care too much about what was going on north of the border”.

Against this backdrop, Scotland and England began the business of empire building as a “joint partnership”. Devine says: “The old aphorism is true: England ruled the empire and Scotland ran it … the two countries were bound in that imperial project.” These bonds deepened in the 20th century’s two world wars which “bound the countries together in blood”.

The period throughout most of the 19th century until the collapse of the British empire after the Second World War was the high point of union, when ideas of SNP nationalism belonged to a “fringe sect”.

The end of empire signalled that “Britain was no longer great”, and was followed by a “series of economic catastrophes” like the crises of the 1970s which paved the way for Margaret Thatcher, and policies which “alienated” Scotland.

Scotland’s iconic industries collapsed - coal, steel, shipbuilding. For Scotland, trade with the empire was replaced by trade with England. Devine says he’s more skeptical than most historians about linking the end of empire to the growth of nationalism - symbolised by Winnie Ewing’s 1967 Hamilton by-election win - but the events of the latter half of the 20th century certainly created a sense “of introspection in Scotland”, the sense that a more “Scottish centred future” was needed, fuelled in part by concerns over the increasing importance, and dominance, of the economic relationship with England.

SNP ASCENDANT

However, the rise of the SNP still “wasn’t inevitable”. Things changed when Tony Blair’s Labour administration created the Scottish parliament. The idea that rather than “killing off nationalism, Labour actually built its own gallows” in Scotland through devolution is “very pertinent”, says Devine.

At the same time, identity politics was on the rise and many were growing disenchanted with globalisation. “That’s a very important factor stoking nationalism,” says Devine. People were becoming uneasy with the power of the large state. “They wanted more control,” he says. This also played into growing criticism of the EU culminating in England quitting Europe.

More importantly, though, was “the apparent inability of successive British governments to cure Scotland’s economic problems”. Another irony, however, is that while economic discontent ran alongside the growth in nationalism, once the painful transformation of the 70s and 80s was over, Scotland’s economy today has emerged in better shape than it’s been for a long time, says Devine.

Once the SNP won its 2011 majority, the path was laid for a referendum. Devine says the fact that support for Yes hasn’t disintegrated is crucial. “If there was another referendum the chances of Yes winning are now much greater.”

TORY DISRESPECT

However, the other crucial factor is that the Tory Party today is “unlike any British government since the early 18th century”. After breaking Labour’s Red Wall, it’s almost “hegemonic”.

There’s been a “shattering effect” on many Scots who “didn’t want to leave their friends behind in Tory dominated England if they went down the independence road”, says Devine. With the Tories seemingly unassailable “that’s now changed”.

The most important historic change of all, though, is the attitude of the Tories in government. “Since the early 18th century there’s been no instance of such a brazen refusal to accept Scottish opinion as Brexit. Judged in the long history of the union, this is an extraordinary volte face. The word ‘disrespect’ isn’t strong enough.”

Devine added: “What’s preserved the union has been good management by England - as the dominant party. It was a policy of respect and restraint by the big elephant in the bed. Scotland is now in danger of getting pushed out of bed. The future is not my period, but if independence does come then the killer of union will be more England not Scotland, because of the abandonment of that system of restraint, partnership and respect.”

He added: “The governing party in England is a different Tory party to even the Thatcher years. It’s much more right-wing. Something has happened which never existed until after 2014: the rapid growth of English nationalism.” He points to polls showing a majority of Tories happy to see the union crumble to save Brexit.

“The Conservative party, which was the classic defender of union throughout its existence, can no longer be trusted to preserve the union because of the growth of this Little Englandism. Many of its supporters see Scotland as an ungrateful liability as they assume they’re giving privileges out of their taxes to the Scottish people.

“The union is undeniably in more jeopardy than it has ever been since the end of the 18th century. The vice the union is caught up in threatens to crush it - on the one hand there’s the old enemy of Scottish nationalism, on the other there’s the new enemy of English nationalism.”

THE FUTURE

Regardless of Tory mistreatment, the independence case is far from won. Devine says the SNP’s “Achilles Heel” is its failure to make a convincing economic argument. “The majority of sensible Scots are waiting to see if the SNP has real economic plans. They need to be totally honest with the electorate.” Without the economic case being made it’s impossible to say whether “the hammer of blow of Brexit and other aspects of UK government policy” would lead to a Yes win.

“People accept the first few years of a post-union Scotland could be tough, but they may be willing to give the benefit of the doubt and vote for independence if they’re told clearly and honestly what the challenges may be. If the SNP was willing to do that they’d gain respect,” Devine says.

Devine believes any violence linked to the constitution is currently “most unlikely”. The SNP is law-abiding. “Scotland isn’t Catalonia”. However, it’s “more difficult to predict what might happen … from any extreme [unionist] elements” if Yes won. Even then it would be “small scale … hooliganism” not a real “political threat”.

Given the changed political landscape in England, Devine worries that any future negotiations - over the shape of a second referendum or the terms of separation - “wouldn’t be benign. London would undoubtedly play hardball. Any negotiations would be pretty brutal”.

He adds: “If Yes had won in 2014 negotiations would have been relatively friendly as it was in the interests of both nations. I don’t think the English people at the moment are in the mood for that - and the Tory supporting majority certainly aren’t.”