{"id":343058,"date":"2025-08-14T05:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T05:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343058\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T05:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T05:31:15","slug":"scotland-shows-how-an-apparently-unstoppable-national-cause-can-stall-when-mishandled-by-one-party-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/343058\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland shows how an apparently unstoppable national cause can stall when mishandled by one party \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The publication of Nicola Sturgeon\u2019s<\/a> political<\/a> memoir, Frankly, has given the UK<\/a> a fresh chance to marvel at the fall of Scottish<\/a> nationalism.<\/p>\n

Scathing reviews and awkward interviews with the former Scottish National Party<\/a> leader have added to the wonder of how a movement so hapless came so close to breaking up Britain.<\/p>\n

Sturgeon claims her predecessor, Alex Salmond, was too busy junketing to read the White Paper on independence before the 2014 referendum<\/a>. The book also reveals she repeatedly described the referendum as \u201conce in a lifetime\u201d during campaign speeches, rather than \u201conce in a generation\u201d as often misquoted. That postpones the next one until the 2090s, even with Scotland\u2019s appalling record on public health.<\/p>\n

Support for independence remains as high as ever and the SNP is still Scotland\u2019s largest party by some margin, backed by almost a third of the electorate, according to the latest polls. Perversely, this emphasises the political power of a loss of morale and momentum. National allegiance is immutable for most people and strongly held by almost everyone, yet Scotland shows an apparently unstoppable national cause can still run into the ground due to mishandling by a single party.<\/p>\n

Salmond used to say \u201cthe dream will never die\u201d but it has been put to sleep for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

Unionists in Northern Ireland might dare to dream of a similar outcome, although Scotland offers them a distinctly mixed lesson.<\/p>\n

In its simplest terms, Scottish unionism is so hapless it propelled the SNP into dominance for 15 years, until disappointment and hubris almost inevitably proved the party\u2019s undoing, while still not leading to any notable unionist revival. The constitutional status quo prevails by default.<\/p>\n

After a decade of disasters for their own cause, unionists in Northern Ireland might say \u201cwe\u2019ll take it\u201d. Nevertheless, this is a deeply uninspiring scenario and difficult to argue for by design.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Unionists must ask themselves: \u2018is this as good as it gets?\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s step back and let Sinn F\u00e9in make an even bigger mess of the place\u201d would be a hard sell to even the most cynical unionist voter.<\/p>\n

Powersharing means neither side can withdraw completely from the Northern Ireland Executive. Scotland\u2019s example should make unionists consider the benefits of Stormont reform. The DUP opposed mandatory coalition while it was the largest party but now says powersharing protections are essential \u2013 laughably obvious hypocrisy.<\/p>\n

There is no prospect of introducing simple majoritarianism at Stormont. The most that might realistically be achieved is opt-in powersharing, where unionists and nationalists would still be entitled to ministerial seats but would not necessarily have to take them. Even this is a distant aspiration.<\/p>\n

Something like the SNP\u2019s dominance has begun to occur organically, however. Sinn F\u00e9in has mopped up three-quarters of the nationalist vote, while the unionist vote has splintered across three parties. Sinn F\u00e9in has embraced its new role as Stormont\u2019s largest party, assuring supporters it is in a position to deliver practical and constitutional goals. This exposes it to disappointment and hubris as it inevitably encounters the limitations of office.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why is Sinn F\u00e9in so reluctant to amend climate legislation to improve the A5?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The DUP is much diminished after its Brexit fiasco<\/a> and appears to have stepped back at the Executive, albeit through loss of confidence rather than as a tactical retreat. A new generation of DUP figures emerging in councils and the assembly is noticeably more focused on local issues and practical delivery. They know the party has a long task ahead, of rebuilding from the ground up.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Sinn F\u00e9in is talking about a united Ireland and a Border poll by 2030. There are echoes of the SNP\u2019s increasingly implausible plans for a second independence referendum, which drained away its credibility among even its staunchest supporters.<\/p>\n

Unionist parties in Northern Ireland have recently been discussing co-operation to reverse their fortunes. This could involve electoral pacts and what is termed \u201crealignment\u201d \u2013 rebranding of parties as more clearly liberal or conservative.<\/p>\n

An intriguing lesson from Scotland is that all parties should consider being less overtly unionist. The SNP\u2019s opponents tried to co-operate to strengthen the union and create a sense of unionist politics. They failed, yet it did the union no harm at all.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Unionism must offer a positive future, not hark back to a past that was often dark and dividedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Foregrounding the constitutional question was left to the SNP, which had to wrestle largely alone with the belligerent tribalism to which all nationalist politics is prone \u2013 including unionism, as a form of British nationalism.<\/p>\n

When people who grew weary of this argument turned away from the SNP, they did not have to turn towards a unionist mirror-image. They could choose from a range of parties that appeared to represent \u201cnormal\u201d politics, from left to right.<\/p>\n

This would be extraordinarily difficult for any unionist party in Northern Ireland to pull off, let alone all of them, and of course parallels with Scotland only go so far.<\/p>\n

But frankly, no one surveying northern unionism\u2019s decline should think more overt unionist politics is the answer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The publication of Nicola Sturgeon\u2019s political memoir, Frankly, has given the UK a fresh chance to marvel at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5009],"tags":[748,4884,712,121973,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-343058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scotland","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-scotland","11":"tag-scottish-independence","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115025483043485618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}