Radical democratic renewal could soothe Irish and Scottish nationalism
At any other time, it would have been the story of the election. The SNP won 48 out of 59 Scottish seats, up from 35 in 2017. The nationalist party won even in Kirkcaldy where its candidate had been suspended over anti-Semitism, but too late for his name to be taken off the ballot paper. Anti-Jewish feeling was recently unthinkable in Scotland, its people steeped in psalms, its national church represented by the symbol of the Burning Bush. Yet voters in Adam Smith’s home town were prepared to overlook the scandal and back the secessionist candidate anyway.
From old mining towns in the central belt to sparse Highland moors, Scotland turned pale yellow. Nicola Sturgeon could almost be forgiven her graceless whooping and jigging when the news came through that Jo Swinson had been ousted in East Dunbartonshire. It was, to adapt Boris, a stonking victory.
Perhaps not quite a stonking mandate, though. The first-pastthe-post system is capricious. The SNP won 81 per cent of the seats, but 45 per cent of the vote – the same proportion as voted for independence in 2014.
Although Sturgeon is now calling for another independence referendum, she knows that there has been no upsurge in support for separation. Why demand one, then? Precisely because Boris, supported by a slim majority of Scottish voters, is unlikely to grant it. Calling for a vote that she knows she won’t get is a cost-free way of nursing a grievance. It allows her to paint Westminster as remote, aloof and anti-democratic without having to place her alternative before the electorate.
The UK Government should not allow itself to be played. Rather, it should seek to anticipate and address the concerns of those Scots who feel little attachment to a Conservative administration.
A parallel argument could be made about Northern Ireland where, for the first time in the Province’s century-old existence, Unionists hold a minority of Westminster seats. Every constituency contiguous to the Irish border is now held by parties that want to erase that border. Unionism has been thrown back to its north-eastern heartlands.
True, as with Scotland, the seats don’t exactly reflect the votes. In both places, most ballots were cast for pro-UK candidates. But that shouldn’t blind us to the different trajectories suggested by Thursday’s results. In England, the Conservatives won their best result in a generation; in Wales, arguably, their best ever. But in the two home nations which voted to stay in the EU, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Unionism suffered a setback.
How can a Tory government draw the sting from Scottish and Irish nationalism? By getting in front of its critics. People in the British Isles are, as a rule, pretty moderate. When offered a binary choice between the status quo and full independence, Scots are fairly evenly balanced. But when offered an intermediate option – greater autonomy, stopping short of full separation – they back it by around 70 per cent. Similarly, few Irish nationalists still think it feasible, or even desirable, for the Republic simply to annex six more counties. Most want a settlement that recognises the different loyalties of Ulster’s communities.
It is time for a constitutional convention to consider all these issues. It ought to be possible to build a new consensus in Scotland based on further devolution, especially fiscal autonomy (which might, incidentally, create space for a Right-of-centre revival north of the border).
Ireland has always been more intractable. Home Rule as favoured by Parnell and Redmond would have spared everyone a great deal of trouble, but that moment passed in 1916. Still, Leo Varadkar is arguably the closest thing to a Redmondite Taoiseach that Ireland has had, a man who in the past argued for Irish membership of Nato and the Commonwealth. An unlimited conversation about a new dispensation, one that takes in the totality of relationships within the British Isles, might yet yield imaginative solutions.
Nor should a constitutional convention be limited to the Union. There is a strong case for further devolution within England and Wales. Indeed, there is no obvious reason why English counties and cities should not have powers similar to those granted to Holyrood under the 1998 Scotland Act.
A convention should look, too, at the excessive powers of the quango state and the courts. In recent years, our judges have displayed an alarming tendency to rule on the basis of what they would like the law to say rather than what it says.
We should also consider the electoral system. At the very least, we need to put in place safeguards against fraud. But there is a case for considering whether we might benefit from a voting system that maintains the constituency link while removing the complacency created by safe seats – perhaps along the lines of the one used in Ireland.
Conservatives can deal with constitutional anomalies in two ways. They can leave them unaddressed until the other lot come in and take a cleaver to them, as Tony Blair did with the House of Lords, asymmetric devolution and the creation of the Supreme Court. Or they can reform them in a temperate, Burkeian spirit. The second approach is the wiser. Let’s not put this off.