Britain, Europe and the ʻScottish question’
David McVey finds that style distracts from substance in Dan Robinson’s history of the Union
Dan Robinson is a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and acquired both his first degree and PhD at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He also served as a policy advisor in the Cabinet Office during Theresa May’s premiership.The cover blurb doesn’t mention that Dr Robinson was also an active campaigner for Brexit and contributed to Briefings for Brexit, one of the more cerebral Leaver websites.
In addition, as he describes in the preface, Dr Robinson, during his brief time in government, was involved in a project designed to oppose Scottish independence and promote the union. Robinson’s former Cabinet Office minister, Ben Gummer, is referred to in the text as ‘Ben’ (no Labour or SNP politicians are referred to by their Christian names) and the book is dedicated to him. None of this should prevent anyone from producing an interesting work of wide historical interest, but Natural and Necessary Unions is an unusual book. The majority of it is, indeed, history, and quite closely-examined and occasionally recondite history at that. However, it also includes sometimes intemperate polemic even in the heavier historical chapters.
Much of the book studies the historical relations between Britain, Europe and Scotland, and suggests that the union has developed to meet the same kind of demands as those made by supporters of Scottish independence or EU membership. While this is frequently interesting, Robinson sometimes can’t help but chip in a political slogan unrelated to any evidence on display in the vast bibliography: ‘The British union is a union for independence’ (p.4) is one that will baffle readers of all political outlooks.
Dr Robinson maintains that Natural and Necessary Unions ‘is not a political tract and parts of it will irritate unionists and nationalists alike’ (xi), though his barbs are always directed at supporters of independence or those on the left. Perhaps most telling of all, particularly for History Scotland readers, is his assertion that ‘Today the nationalist onslaught on British history reaches into the marrow of modern Scotland’s political and cultural inheritance’ (p.94). This presumably is his interpretation of the movement that T.M. Devine described in his 2016 Independence or Union: Scotland’s Past and Scotland’s Present as ‘the vast outpouring of research and publication in Scottish history, sociology and political science over the last forty years or so’ (xi). Scottish historians of all political persuasions and none have worked hard to wrest control of their discipline from the ‘British History’ that suppresses and diminishes it. But Dr Robinson doesn’t approve.
In the same discussion, Dr Robinson laments that ‘Britain’s reputation as a beacon of liberty and progress has largely been resigned to the project of European integration, particularly amongst the young, in the academy and in significant parts of the media’ (p.94). So much careful amassing of evidence, so much close argument and then, suddenly, so much questionable and empty sloganising.
There are undoubtedly areas of Dr Robinson’s historical analysis that will prove to be of great interest to History Scotland readers, but many will be annoyed by the way the evidence is always subservient to Eurosceptic unionism. At one point he remarks that in 2016 ‘the SNP leadership now claimed [my italics] that Scots were being dragged out of the
Scottish historians of all political persuasions and none have worked hard to wrest control of their discipline from the ‘British History’ that suppresses and diminishes it. But Dr Robinson doesn’t approve
EU against their will’ (viii). I think most readers, whatever their political leanings, would agree that it was hardly just the SNP, or their leadership, or supporters of independence, or even just people in Scotland, who saw that this was exactly what was happening. It was not a ‘claim’ but referendum reality.
If Dr Robinson regards the progress of the discipline of Scottish history as a nationalist plot, he also insists on referring to Scotland’s parliament as ‘the Holyrood assembly’. He explains this affectation, or attempts to, thus: ‘If I sometimes speak generically of an “assembly” where tender hearts would prefer “parliament”, I do so to avoid the dull litany of titles and jargon and insofar as possible, to escape the ugliness and sterility of modern political language’ (xi). I have no idea what Dr Robinson means by this. Suggestions are most welcome.
Read Natural and Necessary Unions for the solid wider historical background, if you will, but be warned you are likely to find yourself having to filter out the political sloganist lurking in the historian’s clothes.
David McVey is a regular contributor to History Scotland and lectures at New College Lanarkshire.