Just how united is the United Kingdom?
As I sat watching the television on Friday 13th December 2019, I didn’t quite know what to think. Lots of people seemed to be agreeing that the Conservatives had won a majority and thus a mandate to take the country forward, unified once again. I could see that there was little stopping us from leaving the European Union but I didn’t think there would be any sort of unity about it here in Scotland. Looking at the results map on the BBC I thought that it might just be the most divided results map of my lifetime. There is no doubt that the Conservatives have won a huge number of seats in England and the party doesn’t seem to be tearing itself apart as it was this time last year, but it was the sea of yellow north of the border that was troubling me.
Brexit has changed the political situation in this country. Calling it divisive is about the most simplistic way to describe the impasse parliament has been in for the majority of the last three and a half years. It doesn’t divide along traditional party lines but what it has been doing is entrenching division between Westminster and Holyrood. Rather than unifying the United Kingdom under a blue Conservative banner as Prime Minister Boris Johnson would have you believe, the divisions amongst us only seem starker, especially when one of the first reasons people cite for supporting independence is feeling that Westminster doesn’t care and that Scotland would be better governing itself.
The issue for Scotland and thus for the Union comes when the majority of our seats are held by a party who cannot have a majority in the House. By holding such a large number of Scottish seats both in Holyrood and Westminster, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is in prime position to fight for independence and to control the narrative within Scotland surrounding a second referendum, however, some would argue that as a result of their aspirations of independence, the SNP in Westminster lose sight of their immediate role: to represent and fight for the Scottish people and be their
voice in parliament. Independence is not an immediate reality, and clamouring for it in Westminster only prevents members for Scottish constituencies from collaborating with members from all other areas of the union to fight against problems which face Scotland now as a country within the United Kingdom.
It is often argued that the Conservative Party doesn’t care about Scotland. A cynic might say that this is because they have never needed to. There are not enough Scottish constituencies to outweigh the English vote and Scottish seats have never traditionally gone to the Conservatives as they did once to Labour and now to the SNP. With the first past the post system, the
Conservatives don’t have to worry about Scotland as they don’t need us to get into government in the same way Labour does. If Scottish voters were to vote for a party which could actually win a majority in Westminster our MPs could affect national change across Scotland and the rest of the UK to create a feeling of true unity. The SNP are not strong enough in Westminster to do that
but if the other parties which can be elected elsewhere felt they were serious contenders for Scottish seats then these parties might actually have cause to fight for us to be heard in Westminster, thus eliminating one of the key arguments for independence.
Looking at that results map it occurred to me that our first past the post system could well be the end of the union. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon argues that by having won a majority of the Scottish
seats, she has a mandate for independence. Boris Johnson is in fact using the same reasoning to argue for his mandate for Brexit but by looking more closely at the figures it is actually clear that neither party leader has a mandate. The Conservatives won 365 seats and Labour won 203. With all the other parties accounted for there is effectively and 80 seat Conservative majority, however, if you look at the vote share percentage instead, the Conservatives only won 43.6% of the votes. The situation is the same in Scotland. The SNP won 48 seats out of a possible 59 but they only won 45% of the vote share so in actual fact there is no clear mandate for independence, as 55% of the vote share went to pro-union parties. In addition to this Nicola Sturgeon herself says that not everyone who voted SNP would vote ‘yes’ in an independence referendum. As such by asking for a Section 30 order, which Boris Johnson was well within his rights to turn down, they are not
representing the wishes of the majority of Scots. Most supporters of the union cannot conceivably vote for the SNP as every vote for them, regardless of the real reason, comes with the implicit caveat that you support independence. Despite what Nicola Sturgeon would have you believe, there is no mandate for a second referendum. Were the SNP actually to obey the results of the election
and start promoting the needs of Scotland in a more cooperative way, the United Kingdom might not be such a divided place.
Banner image courtesy of Menacinghat via Wikimedia, © 2019, some rights reserved.
