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The writer is author of ‘Untied Kingdom: A Global History of the End of Britain’
In November 1967, a historic by-election in the South Lanarkshire seat of Hamilton catapulted the cause of independence for Scotland to national prominence, when the Scottish National party’s Winnie Ewing scored a spectacular victory in a staunchly Labour seat. Last week, those roles were reversed with Labour’s trouncing of the SNP in the neighbouring constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, securing a massive swing of 20 per cent.
Labour’s win has been billed as a full-scale revival of the party’s fortunes in Scotland. But will it also put independence to the sword?
By any measure, this has been a dire year for Scottish nationalists. The sudden departure of Nicola Sturgeon as leader and first minister exposed a lack of depth at the top to add to falling membership and widespread frustration in the party ranks.
It is unfamiliar territory for a movement once envied for internal discipline and seemingly inexorable momentum. But despite years of favourable conditions, the requisite poll surge, tipping popular support comfortably above the 50 per cent needed to win a referendum, never arrived.
Nor, however, have polling numbers collapsed to the levels that might warm unionist hearts. Even as voters make the switch from the SNP to Labour, support for independence holds remarkably firm, continuing to hover in the mid-to-high forties.
Such a protracted stalemate carries distinct echoes from other parts of the world where the British hold has been a long time loosening. Long before Ewing’s electoral breakthrough, referendums on retaining the link with Britain had been held in half a dozen former colonies, from Newfoundland to South Africa, Gibraltar, and even white Rhodesia — often with inconclusive or contested outcomes.
Finding workable replacements for the instruments of British sovereignty was part and parcel of forging new identities for a post-imperial age. But it was easier to agree on not being British than finding consensus on what to replace it with.
Canada’s adoption of the maple leaf in 1965 was attended by bitter infighting and deep pockets of resistance to removing the Union Jack from the flag. Fifty years later, New Zealand embarked on an equally tortuous exercise, only for the Union Jack to emerge victorious at a 2016 referendum.
Similar problems bedevilled the push for an Australian republic, culminating in defeat at the 1999 referendum. A monarchist campaign was able to exploit the internal divisions of a republican movement more intent on waging war with itself. To this day, opinion remains evenly divided on whether to embark on a second attempt.
Since the 1980s, nearly a dozen referendums around the world have tested popular affinities for the UK connection. But in each instance, the desire to dispense with British symbols or constitutional arrangements has failed to win the day.
When Barbados made the switch to a republican constitution in 2021 (deliberately avoiding the political complications of a popular vote), it was the first former British colony to loosen constitutional ties to the UK in more than 40 years. Jamaica’s determination to follow suit is already mired in political paralysis and dissent.
At no time, then, has Scotland been a lone rider in grappling with the tangled legacies of being British. Viewed over the longer term, there can be no doubt that the UK has edged closer to dissolving into its constituent parts. But confusion over the desired alternatives persist, tying Scotland’s fate to a much wider phenomenon.
Those looking to last week’s by-election result as the moment of salvation for an embattled union are likely to be disappointed. Labour may halt the political momentum of the SNP — for a time. But the prolonged deadlock over Scotland’s future seems set to endure.
