The Limits of Divide and Rule

Little noticed because Scottish independence is a niche issue as far as SW1 is concerned, a ComRes poll for The Telegraph reported how English voters are mostly sanguine about it. Among the 57% who have an opinion, 32% are opposed to independence with 25% supportive. Only a fifth of the sample were "strongly opposed" while a third weren't fussed either way. That said, only 31% thought Scottish independence would be a success with around half expecting it to be a failure. This, like all things, hides significant age splits. 51% of 18-24s were confident Scotland would do well while only 19% of over 55s did. For those looking at any signs of grievance or vindictiveness on the part of ComRes's respondents, 35% were okay with Scotland using the pound after independence while 30% were against, and 34% were against increasing spending in Scotland to keep it within the union while 26% supported moves in this direction.

As noted the other day, one aspect of watching and analysing the Tories is scrutinising their strategies and tactics, their imaginary, and how they sell their thinking about the world to themselves and their wider support. It also means being alive to possible disruptions, cracks, and microfissures in their seemingly monolithic coalition. The possible good news is this is these findings suggest yet another.

What the Tories have to constantly work at and accomplish is providing very good reasons to punters to continue voting Tory. Having the right policies is only part of it. The constituencies naturally disposed toward them, like all actual and potential support for political parties, inhabit a structure of feeling that suffuses the social world. Because we're talking about large aggregates of people, at this level certain sections of the population who share similar material circumstances tend toward adopting common views and feelings about the world. We've talked about the class cohorts and age/property enough here to explain the stark polarisation in polling data and voting behaviour to know this is an inescapable fact of British politics. For the Tories and Boris Johnson, their success in 2019 was recognising how large numbers of older people supported Brexit in disproportionate numbers had something to do with the unease and generalised anxiety one feels as one gets older, an angst that multiplies itself many times over dependent on property holdings, investments, income streams, and so on. Leaving the European Union offered a promise of an incohate national renewal, of reasserting the certainty and authority of the nation to make their worlds a more secure, knowable, relatable, and familiar place to them. The risks of Brexit were dismissed because leaving would once and for all address the gaps, lacks, and anomie at the cores of their common social location.

With Brexit done and the Leave constituency largely (but not entirely) shielded from the economic fallout, the Tories are relentlessly searching for other rhetorical devices and performative position takings to cultivate the angst and fears among their support and keep them wedded to their project. For example, Munira Mirza - responsible for the pitiful we're not racist guv report - is employed by Number 10 to specifically articulate the Tories' war on woke rubbish, to feed the scapegoat hungry maws of the Tory press and therefore give their electoral base a supply line of hate figures and troubling cultural phenomena. The urgings of Liz Truss at government departments to withdraw from a Stonewall-sponsored scheme for LGBTQ inclusion in the workplace is typical of this, with trans women in particular cast in the unwanted role of problematic people who threaten the natural order of things.

What has this got to do with Scottish independence? As far as cohering Tory votes goes, the antipathy that can be stirred up against trans women is small electoral beer compared to the possibilities of appealing directly to English (and British) nationalism, as Brexit attests. Playing divide and rule politics, of opposing England to Scotland proved itself as an effective weapon in the Tory armoury in the 2015 general election. Here Dave successfully created a chain of meaning tying together Scottish nationalism with nuclear disarmament and the SNP holding a Labour-led coalition government hostage in exchange for support. But it's not effective at all times, as Theresa May's attempt to pull the same trick in 2017 fell flat in England, but her anti-independence posturing assisted the modest Scottish Tory revival.

As the UK reels from Covid and the Tories want to talk up the recovery there are, on paper, plenty of possibilities for playing the Scottish card. Confrontations between the SNP government in Edinburgh and Tory Westminster might suit both. Ample opportunities for Johnson to cohere his voting fodder and poison politics more with the ugly rubbish of English nationalism. Hence why the ComRes numbers matter. If only 20% really care about keeping Scotland in the union, the use of this strategy comes with some risk. It might ignite the passions in the same way leaving the EU went from a fringe issue to the dominant question in British politics for four years, but equally it could fall flat and never become more than a second order concern or press hobby horse. But what also makes a confrontation with Scottish nationalism potentially hazardous is how Johnson is prepared to throw money at Scotland to provide incentives for staying in the UK. As polling shows little appetite among English voters for sending extra funds, playing the English populism game might find some force willing to articulate the voice of the "hard-pressed taxpayer". As the Reform successor to the Brexit Party is nowhere, there will be more than a few backbench Tories happy to carry the Little England baton for press glory and advancement in the party. The last thing Johnson wants is a coherent opposition to emerge in his parliamentary party that takes the limelight away from him.

Hence, apart from a few jabs and tussles for the camera, it seems the scope for Tory agitation on Scotland in England is limited, caught between the horns of apathy and commitments to "levelling up". And this is a problem, especially if the Tories start copping the political consequences for their umpteenth delayed response to a new wave of Covid-19. None have the potential to tap into the grievance politics of English nationalism quite like Scottish independence and if efforts at corralling support against Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP fail, what have the Tories got left in the tank to distract and divide at a similar scale?

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