Scottish identity and a desire for independence among many Scots is also ever changing, with Oxford University professor Danny Dorling, an expert in human geography, claiming recently that a form of independence is already in progress, due to an ever increasing political and cultural divide between England and Scotland.
However, new research by University of Glasgow professor Dauvit Broun surprised many people. He explores the idea of Britishness in relation to Scottish independence and identity in the Medieval period, offering a different insight into contemporary debates surrounding national identity.
Broun examines the ideas of Scottish academics and historians in the 1380s and 1520s of Britain as an extension of the Scottish Kingdom. Broun makes use of a recently discovered early 16th century homemade compendium booklet of king-list, chronicles and origin-legend material.
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He also analyses John Mair, who is often believed to be the first Unionist thinker and his belief in a Scottish kingdom which could grow to include England while being ruled by a Scottish monarch, highlighting that the idea of Britishness was based on the shared island rather than a shared Unionism.
Additionally, he questions whether instead of a shared Britishness there has been unique Scottish, English and Welsh versions of Britishness for centuries.
Broun argues that these new discoveries emphasise the possibility for both Scottish independence and Britishness to exist at the same time in today’s national identity.
He says Scottish identification with Britain exists far before the political Union of 1707, highlighting Britain is just as much a geographical concept as a political one. Broun states: “Rather than ‘banal unionism’, there was ‘banal Britishness’ based ultimately on sharing the same island.”
This new research suggests the possibility of retaining a British identity in an independent Scotland, as was foreseen in the late medieval period. This concept is not dissimilar to Scandinavia, Norway is no less Scandinavian now than it was pre independence from Sweden in 1905. It brings to mind Alex Salmond‘s call, during the 2014 referendum, for a social union with the rest of the UK.
But could Scots, in any future independent state, still retain their sense of Britishness? The imposition of the Union of 1707 received an overwhelmingly hostile response from the Scottish public with anti-Union demonstrations being commonplace alongside riots in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
This reaction begs the question how could Britain be Scottish when the majority of Scots were against this political Union and felt no identification with the label of British.
P.H Scott in The Union of 1707 argues: “England had obtained their centuries-long objective of asserting control over Scotland, not by conquest, but by intimidation and ingenious and diverse means of bribery.”
The high point of the British Union and a shared British identity was in the mid 20th century with the Second World War bringing a sense of shared sacrifice and the nationalisation of key industries like the railways, coal and steel under labour.
However, no one can deny these links have been taken apart one by one, ironically by the Conservative and Unionist party under Margaret Thatcher who, in selling off the UK’s assets, diluted a sense of shared purpose. What shared identity is Britain left with to tie us together aside from a BBC that no one watches?
There no longer remains the shared political unity of post-war support for Labour, instead Scotland and England have not voted the same way since the 1980s, with increasingly different party support and political preferences.
Ultimately, we must recognise that identity changes and as Scotland and England continue to grow increasingly apart, both politically and culturally, we must consider our future.
As Scotland’s foremost historian Sir Tom Devine said: “Only through sovereignty can we truly develop a truly amicable and equal relationship with our great Southern neighbour.”
Isobel Scott is studying Modern History at the University of St Andrews