Sir Gus O’Donnell, in a valedictory address as our most senior civil servant, says it will be an “enormous challenge” to prevent the break-up of the United Kingdom. Not surprisingly, Alex Salmond, the SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland, believes it is a challenge which will not be met. Even before his party surprisingly won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament in May, he told me that independence was now inevitable.
In part, the disengagement of Scotland from the UK reflects the inexorable consequence of the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. It is in the nature of institutions and their members to seek to extend their powers. We see this in Brussels and we see it in Edinburgh. It may still be unlikely that a referendum in Scotland would produce a majority for outright independence, but there will probably be a majority for giving much greater powers to the Scottish Parliament – what is commonly called devo-max. The Union is being sliced up salami-style until the final step to independence is small.
The rise of Scottish nationalism puzzles many in England, especially those who believe that Scotland is subsidised by England (an arguable proposition) and also those millions south of the border who claim Scottish ancestry, often proudly. In truth, it puzzles some of us in Scotland, too, for many are still happy with a dual Scottish-British identity.
Undeniably, however, the sense of Britishness has weakened over the past half-century. There are some conventional, explanations: the distance from the Second World War, when Britain resisted Nazi Germany; the end of the British Empire, in which Scots had played a disproportionate role; and, perhaps, membership of the European Union. Certainly, the SNP fastened on this as a defence against the charge that independence would leave Scotland isolated.
With this weakening of a British identity goes a resurgent Scottishness. Take the kilt, for example. When I was young, it was worn by soldiers, stage comics and singers of Scots songs, public schoolboys on Sundays, and, somewhat unconvincingly, members of the Royal family and lairds attending the Braemar Gathering and other Highland games. It was also favoured by a few cultural nationalists like Compton Mackenzie and Hugh MacDiarmid. Now it is far more popular than it used to be: standard wear for weddings and dances, and international football and rugby matches. It has become an expression of difference, of our distinct identity.
The truth is, however, that differences between Scotland and England are fewer than they used to be. The strongest institution in 19th- and early 20th-century Scotland was the Presbyterian Kirk. It set the tone of the nation. Its values – thrift, self-restraint, self-help, hard work – were thought to characterise the Scottish people. The Kirk was very different from the Church of England, its morality narrower and more demanding. Now it is a pale shadow of what it used to be. Religion plays no greater a part in Scottish than in English life. Both countries have been secularised. For years, too, the Church and Nation Committee of the Kirk produced reports on socio-economic matters that were little different from Labour Party handouts. When Margaret Thatcher was invited to address the general assembly of the Kirk, she infuriated her audience by speaking, from her Methodist background, much as ministers of the Kirk might have done a couple of generations previously.
