It Might Be Assumed That Because an Event in the Present Can Be Said to Be of Historic

Thatcherism, Civil Society and the Road to Home Rule; Scotland 1980-1997

The Scots MPs

Danderin ae day a wuid alowe

Wi purslane-pink an hyacinthine blue

Seein the springtime gar the gowans grow

An mak the grumly face o Scotland new,

I heard wee Abi say, in her bairny wye,

‘If you’re in the country of a wolf or tod,

You musn’t dress like a rabbit’. ‘Aye.

Ye may weel say that again, by God!’

I thocht, ‘The She-wolf rages ower this land,

Gars crunch hail industries atween her teeth,

Lays waste wir touns an fields an ilka hand,

Maks devastation frae Kintyre tae Leith

An tae scare her frae our bounds, our people keep

A puckle rabbits dressed tae look like sheep.’

Stanley Fisher

It might be assumed that because an event in the present can be said to be of historic importance that the same event has long established roots in history. This would appear to be common sense. Surely an event of great importance could not suddenly transpire as if from nowhere without first having built up the necessary historical momentum to burst upon the present. The creation of Scotland’s parliament in 1998 is a case in point. According to Winnie Ewing, the ‘Mother of the House’: ‘The Scottish Parliament closed in 1707, is hereby reconvened’.[1] Implicit in this statement was the assumption that the intervening period between 1707 and 1997 was not the norm and the resumption of the Scottish parliament was a reassertion of the continuity of pre-1707 Scottish history. Yet, as Iain Hutchison reminds us, the demand for home rule was not as dominant at feature of the political history of twentieth century Scotland as has sometimes been suggested.[2] Unlike Ireland, where nationalism has been the predominant historical theme for most of the modern era, Scotland does not have a strong vein of nationalist historiography upon which to mine in order to explain why it achieved a large measure of self-government by the late twentieth century.[3] In short, contemporary Scotland’s political destination seems to be at odds with much of the prevailing direction of Scottish history since 1707. For historians who like to stress the continuity of historical change, the dramatic shift in direction towards self-government in the latter part of the twentieth century presents a number of problems. Firstly, it is always difficult to subject the recent past to the full rigor of historical inquiry. Trends and development have not yet run their full course and deprive the historian of the vantage point of distance in time which makes them more apparent. Secondly, there is the difficulty of assessing the enormity of social and economic change in the last two decades of the twentieth century. The period was one that witnessed the wholesale transformation of the economy from one that had a high proportion of heavy industry and manufacturing to one that was increasingly centred on the service sector.[4] Indeed, it could almost be said that the Scotland of 1950 had more in common with the Scotland of 1850, than the Scotland of 2000. Analysing the political consequences of such changes in the eighties and nineties is difficult to assess because much of the source material, such as census returns, was subject to reclassification that made it difficult to chart social and economic change over time with both consistency and accuracy. Thirdly, there is the difficulty of marrying up the political interpretations of the 1980s and 1990s with the evidence of social and economic change. Although the popular representation of the ‘Thatcher years’ in Scotland is one that is dominated by images of mass unemployment and poverty, the period was one in which the social and economic profile of the nation increasingly converged with that of England.[5] Finally, there is the problem of ‘myths’, which can be described as contemporary explanations that are constructed in response to the immediate circumstances. History is littered with many such myths that arise in response to the need to provide immediate explanations for complex contemporary events. The ‘Strange Death of Liberal England’ followed World War One, the myth of the Blitz was constructed during the war, the ‘Guilty Men’ of appeasement appeared after 1945 and the advent of the post-war ‘New Jerusalem’ became embedded in popular memory in the sixties. While each of these explanations of historical change or historical events holds more than a kernel of truth, subsequent investigation by historians demonstrated that the reality was much more complex and multi-faceted. Yet, such myths maintain a powerful grip on the popular imagination and historians find them difficult to dislodge.[6]

Regarding the impetus to create the Scottish parliament a powerful ‘myth’ has emerged; that of ‘civic Scotland’. Propounded in the main by sociologists and political scientists, the notion of civic society has crossed into the mainstream of cultural and political commentators in the media.[7] In essence the idea behind civic Scotland could be propounded as follows. The advent of Thatcherism initiated a political reaction in Scotland. The emphasis on the free market, individualism and the withdrawal of the state from the leading role in social and economic development, which garnered much support in the Tory heartlands of the south east, was rejected by the Scots. Scottish national identity had continued to exist within the Union on account of the degree of autonomy accorded to civil society and its institutions. The Scottish political vision was friendlier towards state involvement, had less trust in the market and believed that the well being of society was more important than the well being of the individual. The often-quoted statement that ‘society does not exist’ found no resonance in Scotland. The repeated rejection of Thatcherism at the polls had little impact, as the Conservatives could rely on an electoral hegemony that was based on the party’s massive support in the south east which meant that no matter what way the Scots voted, the Tories were always returned. The divergence of Scottish and English political behaviour, both north and south of the border, was increasingly explained within a national frame of reference. Yet, commentators in Scotland eschewed ethnic or racial definitions of the nation’s rejection of Thatcherism. Instead, the concept of civic nationalism was posited as an explanation for Scottish society’s dismissal of free market individualism.[8] Unlike the destructive ethnic nationalism that caused such havoc and bloodshed in the nineties in the former Yugoslavia, for example, commentators were keen to stress that the conception of Scotland as a political nation was one that was inclusive and based around institutions, values and ideas that were independent of race or ethnicity. In short it was argued that anyone resident in Scotland was able to be included under the broad heading of civic nationalism. In many respects this was a useful political ploy. At a time when there was a fear that the Scottish National Party (SNP) might rise to power on the growing sense of frustration that Scottish voters felt at their obvious impotence to effect the electoral outcome of the United Kingdom as a whole, the concept of civic nationalism or society was sufficiently toned down from full-blown nationalism to be used by Labour and Liberal politicians to justify the Scottish sense of grievance, but it was hoped, mild enough not to give succour to their nationalist opponents.

Home rule emerged as a key policy to redress the constitutional imbalance of the United Kingdom electoral system in which the wishes of the anti-Conservative electorate of Scotland were swamped by the pro-Conservative electorate of the south. Devolution would preserve the constitutional integrity of the Union, but would allow the Scots considerable self-government in domestic issues, which was the arena where most of the unpopular Conservative policies manifested themselves. Evidence of the power of civic Scotland manifested itself in the formation of the Scottish Constitutional Convention and its publication of A Claim of Right for Scotland in 1988. It brought together the main opposition parties, with the exception of the SNP, the churches, local government, trade unions and various civic forums to press a united claim on behalf of the nation for home rule.[9] The Convention based its legitimacy upon the premise that, as it had the support of a majority of Scottish MPs and the backing of many of the most influential civic organisations within Scottish society, it could justly be said, within the confines of the existing political system, to represent the democratic will of the people. It was this belief that there was a mobilisation of the Scottish people in favour of home rule through the available civic institutions and forums that was the most important kernel of truth in the myth of civic Scotland. Also, the appearance of groups protesting against the Poll Tax and Trident among other things, added weight to the argument that there was a strong sense of civic identity in Scotland that was democratic, leftist and politically active. Yet, this image of a politically aware, populist, left of centre populace was not accepted by everyone. In particular, the right-wing Scotsman newspaper dismissed the claims as being the product of the blethering classes; a euphemism for the middle-class, chattering class that depended on the state for its wellbeing.[10] Tory politicians were likewise sceptical of the claims of the Convention to represent the nation and believed that the only thing that mattered was a democratic mandate from the Scottish electorate, which they cleverly polarised between a vote for independence and the SNP, on one hand, and a vote for unionist parties, which would have to stick by the majority decision of the United Kingdom electorate. The advent of a majority Labour government in 1997 that was committed to devolution (subject to a referendum) was the critical factor in securing a Scottish parliament. Yet, the activities of the Convention prior to 1997 and its endorsement by a popular vote in the referendum led weight to the idea of the creation of a Scottish parliament as a manifestation of the will of civic Scotland.

Yet, this version of history is one that does not take into cognisance the enormity of social and economic change as the prime motivator of historical change. The easy accessibility of tracts, the propensity of protagonists to emphasise their own importance and the long held notion that civic leaders play an important role in society, have conspired to produce a reading of the creation of the Scottish parliament in which these actors play centre stage. Another factor reinforcing this trend is that these sources can be easily packaged into a coherent account of a political movement. Often there is an almost implicit assumption that ideas and pronouncements have led public opinion and moulded it into an acceptance of home rule as viable political future for the Scottish nation.[11] It is the objective of this chapter to take issue with many of these assumptions and instead argue for the primacy of social and economic forces as the key factor in explaining the widespread acceptance of home rule as the ‘settled will of the Scottish people’. Also, it should be borne in mind that the idea of civil society was one that was hardly used by the home rule movement and was only used in the latter stages of the campaign.

The 1980s brought back many memories of the hungry thirties. Time and time again, politicians, political and economic commentators and trade union leaders harked back to the time of the ‘Devil’s decade’ to make the point that the social and economic deterioration of the Scottish nation was at its lowest point in the post-war era. According to one up and coming political commentator, the Labour MP, Gordon Brown: ‘For the first time since the war, not only are the numbers of the poor rising dramatically, but, also, government legislation is ensuring that the poor cannot enjoy the increased prosperity that may come to the nation.’[12] This had a special resonance in the fact that by 1985 over a fifth of the Scottish population was over the age of 65 and would have had first hand memories of the period. Furthermore, much of the dominant Scottish political ethos in the post-war period was based on the fact that there would never be a repetition of the poverty and unemployment that had scared Scottish society between the wars. Not surprisingly, the use of the metaphor of the thirties as a tool to quantify the extent of Scottish social and economic problems struck a resonant chord among many Scottish voters. Time and time again trade union leaders drew attention to the fact that the manufacturing capacity of the Scottish nation was being undermined:

The Ravages of the recession have torn at Scotland’s industrial guts. The core industries on which our future depends – coal, steel, railways, heavy engineering and shipbuilding – have been pared down to such an extent that the striken Scottish whisky industry, once regarded as a lucrative national sideline, is now on a par in employment terms with the once great industries of central Scotland.[13]

An important aspect in such claims was the belief that Scotland could not exist without producing goods that could be sold in the international market. The inability to ‘make things’ it was believed would lead to bankruptcy and the nation would be unable to sustain itself. Such views of what might be called popular political economy, while bearing no relation to conventional economic theory, were important in explaining the reaction of ordinary Scots to the experience of deindustrialisation. For many, there was an ingrained faith in the Scottish economy of the heavy industries which had, while perhaps not having provided prosperity, been part of the fabric of Scottish culture and its way of life that spanned the generations. According to the novelist, William McIlvanney ‘The most nourishing roots of the Scottish identity, the roots that offer potential for continuing growth, have their soil not in the historically romanticised past but in the more recent industrial history of the 19th and 20th centuries.[14] It is important to emphasize the generational dimension of Scottish employment in the period after the Second World War. Shipbuilding, heavy engineering, mining and scores of local industries had provided employment for fathers and sons. Added together with the strongly localised nature of industry in Scotland, deindustrialisation had a truly communal impact with many areas lacking the economic diversity to withstand the closure of local industry. In Bathgate following the closure of Linwood, almost 60 percent of school leavers went straight into the Youth Training Scheme as there was little in the way of employment opportunities in the area.[15] Furthermore, it was those very industries that tended to recruit its labour over the generations that were most vulnerable to closure. The closure of industrial giants such as Caterpillar at Uddingston and British Steel at Ravenscraig were typical of the closures that adversely effected communities.