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Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Scotland and the Conservatives’ Election Campaign

The campaign draws attention to some of unionism's biggest weaknesses.
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Alex Massie deplores the Conservative election campaign’s tactics for playing into Scottish nationalist hands:

Instead, however, these Tory “strategists” seem determined to ask Scots to choose between being Scots and Unionists. There should be no need for any such choice, but if one is forced upon the people it will not be answered in terms favourable to Unionism.

If Unionism is not generous, inclusive and imaginative it will be lost. This current Tory campaign is none of these things. It may know the price of identity but it has no appreciation of its value.

Massie is a Scottish unionist, so he is understandably angry about how the Tories are campaigning. The Tories’ decision to use the SNP to drive English voters into their camp may be all the things that he says. It could well prove to be stupid and reckless over the longer term as the Tories find themselves trading another few years in government for the dissolution of the union in a few years’ time. In the short term, it probably won’t be counterproductive in that it will probably help to boost the SNP in Scotland and weaken Labour in England, and that is the point of portraying Miliband as being “in the pocket” of the SNP. The SNP surge helps the Tories’ case in England, and the prospect of another Tory-led government is ideal for the SNP’s campaign, and each stands to benefit from the other party’s success in its own part of the country.

The campaign draws attention to some of unionism’s biggest weaknesses. All of the unionist parties are weaker in Scotland after the referendum than they were before it, and the one that has dominated there in general elections for decades is now imploding in no small part because of its opposition to independence. The implosion of one party might normally create an opening for the other leading major party, but the other party has been deeply unpopular in Scotland and has only become more so over the last year. The Tories have the least incentive not to alienate Scottish voters because they are never going to win their votes anyway, and yet they are supposed to be the most committed unionist party of all. Their political self-interest is in direct conflict with their unionism. The more that they emphasize the latter, the worse it seems to be for their political fortunes. Short-term party interests could be set aside during the referendum campaign last year, but it may be too much to expect of any political party to do the same thing when their control of the government is at stake.

Massie says that unionism will be “lost” unless it is “generous, inclusive and imaginative,” but when was the last time it was seriously presented to voters as any of these things? During the referendum campaign, the union was sold primarily as the better utilitarian option, and that was done mostly by portraying independence as a disaster waiting to happen. It was “saved” in large part by promising to reduce the influence of the central government as much as possible, and in the end it “won” by virtue of being the tolerable status quo that didn’t include the risks of independence. I suppose there was some generosity in the sense that unionist leaders practically promised voters the moon if they would vote ‘No’, but then that turned out to be counterproductive and reckless short-term campaigning as well. Once the voters in Scotland got the idea that they should expect many more new devolved powers, there was bound to be disappointment with whatever was offered. If the Tories’ election campaign is awful, the similarly short-sighted unionist campaign last year is partly to blame.

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