Scottish Independence Referendum 2014. A nation gradually moving towards independence or a nationality leading by example?

Abstract

“I believe every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist.” Unionist MP John Buchan (Cited in Stewart, 2009, pg19) . Throughout the 20th Century one party, more than any other, dominated Scottish Politics. They hammered the first nail into their own coffin in 1965, however, when they changed their name in an effort to appear more contemporary and modern. Up until that point they had been known as the Scottish Unionist party although they weren’t named after the Union of 1707 that bonded the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The Union in their name referred to the Union between Ireland and Great Britain that took place in 1801. The dominant political party in Scotland of the 20th Century was born out of opposition to Irish home rule. It is telling that so entrenched was Scotland in the Union of Great Britain that not only was it not campaigning for its own independence, its most popular party was campaigning against the independence of another of the Union’s nations. It is also telling that when they changed their name, in an effort to modernise, they took the first steps towards their complete alienation from the Scottish electorate. In 1965, realising that the Ir ish Union of 1801 didn’t hold much relevance in contemporary Scottish politics the Unionists decided to change their name so that they’d share the name of the party they were associated with in England. They became the Scottish Conservatives.