It’s not all about nationalism by Michael Keating

It’s not all about nationalism

Published: 9 October 2024

By Michael Keating

For the best part of a decade, Scottish politics was dominated by the issue of independence. The nation appeared to be divided into two political camps, independence supporters who voted for the Scottish National Party and unionists, who voted Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat. This seemed to have eclipsed the old left-right and class cleavages in both Scottish and Westminster elections. The constitutional question was blocked between two extremes, leaving little room for middle-ground solutions, such as enhanced devolution. 

Now, commentary about the outcome of the General Election in Scotland has focused on the fact that support for the nationalist party (SNP) has fallen sharply, while support for independence remains high at nearly half the electorate. It is particularly high among young people. In some ways, this takes us back to a previous era, when a substantial proportion of the (then much smaller) pro-independence electorate voted Labour. It also shows the need to look beneath the simple categories of independence and union. As David McCrone and I have shown in recent work[1] Labour voters are rather attached to the idea of Scottish sovereignty while not necessarily wanting a separate state in the traditional sense. 

Scotland is not alone here. In Catalonia and the Basque Country (the historic nationalities of Spain) and in Quebec, the relationship between supporting independence and voting for nationalist parties is by no means straightforward. Nor is nationalism the only reason why people vote for nationalists.

In the Basque Country, there are two principal nationalist parties, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), a centrist moderate nationalist formation, and EH-Bildu, which runs on a radical left and pro-independence platform. In the 2024 Basque elections, the combined nationalist vote reached an all-time high of 67 per cent. Yet support for independence, which was once in the high thirties, had fallen to a fifth[2]. The explanation is that EH-Bildu, which includes the heirs of the violent group ETA, has not only renounced violence but has emphasised its left-wing credentials in opposition to the Socialist government in Madrid, eclipsing the Spanish radical left. Only just over half of their voters now support independence as do less than a fifth of voters for the PNV. Support has fallen most amongst the young[3]. The outcome of the election was a coalition between the PNV and the Socialists, so that nationalists and devolutionists govern together in a coalition that also straddles the division between centre-left and moderate centre-right. This formula was also used during the 1980s and 1990s, providing stability at a time when both radical nationalists and some Spanish conservatives were undermining the devolution settlement. 

Catalonia also has two main nationalist parties. Junts per Catalunya, the heirs of a long-dominant moderate nationalist party, now take a hard pro-independence line and are situated on the right. Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, is a left of centre party which has pulled back from the hard independence line and sought an accommodation with moderate unionists following the unauthorised independence referendum of 2017. Having governed together, the two nationalist parties fell out and went into the 2024 elections separately. The total nationalist vote (including a small far left party) fell to 44 per cent (from about half) but support for independence has fallen somewhat more, to around 40 per cent (from almost half). The fall has been particularly pronounced among the young[4] The outcome of the election was a centre-left coalition government led by the Catalan Socialists (affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Party) and Esquerra. This is a formula that has been tried before and led to a reform of the Statute of Autonomy, although the consensus was destroyed when the Constitutional Court struck down some of its key articles. The new government coincides with a Spanish Socialist Government which is trying to de-escalate the constitutional conflict and has broken with the hard unionist line of its predecessors.

In the referendum of 1995, Quebec came within one per cent of voting for independence under the leadership of the centre-left Parti Québécois and a smaller, centre-right nationalist party (Action démocratique du Québec, ADQ). In recent years, support for independence has fallen sharply, while nationalism has been led by a successor party to ADC, the centre-right Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), which reverted to an ethnic and cultural nationalism while eschewing independence. This year, however, support for independence (sovereignty as it is called) has edged up to around 35 per cent, including about 40 per cent among CAQ voters (and even 20 per cent among supporters of the anti-independence Liberal Party) while the Parti Québécois has seen an upturn in its fortunes. Support for independence is weakest in the youngest age groups. 

This all reminds us that nationalism is a complex phenomenon, which maps onto other political and social issues in complex ways. Sometimes it is about identity, culture or language. Often it is about constitutional change and sometimes that involves independence. Independence itself takes many forms in the modern, interdependent world. Nationalist parties may be on the political left or the right, or may try to cover the range, as ‘catch-all’ parties seeking votes everywhere.

Party politics and governing coalitions, similarly, revolve around nationality, territory, class, left-right ideology and other issues in complex ways. In Spain, both socialist and conservative parties have done deals with both Basque and Catalan nationalists in order to govern at the centre even although the conservative Popular Party when in opposition takes a hard line on the demands of the nations.  In the 1980s, following the first independence referendum, a cohort of Quebec nationalists joined the Canadian Conservatives and served in government. In the late nineteenth century, the Irish (nationalist) Party formed an alliance with the Liberals in pursuit of Home Rule.

In Scotland, both nationalists and unionists hope that the other option will just disappear, giving them final victory or that demographics will help them. Nationalists count on their advantage among the young while unionists may look to Quebec and the Spanish cases. Yet deeper analysis of the Spanish and Quebec data shows that the constitutional question has not gone away but changed its contours, less focused on independence in the short term and more on national assertion and self-government. If nationalism is not everything, it is not nothing either, but one of the enduring cleavages that parties in a democracy must manage. 

 

Michael Keating is Emeritus Professor at the University of Aberdeen and Honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh.

 

[1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13214

[2] https://efe.com/pais-vasco/2024-04-10/independencia-euskadi-baja/

[3] https://www.elindependiente.com/espana/2024/02/14/el-apoyo-a-la-independencia-cae-un-30-entre-los-votantes-de-pnv-y-bildu-en-una-decada/

[4] https://upceo.ceo.gencat.cat/wsceop/9368/Taules%20estad%C3%ADstiques_1101.pdf