A divided nation

The June 2017 general election will be remembered as an occasion when the political map of the UK was dramatically and unexpectedly redrawn. This was nowhere the case more than in Scotland, where the outcome indicates the birth of a three-party system. The major headline was the SNP losing its hegemonic status, going down from fifty-six MPs to 'only' thirty-five (though this is still a majority of Scotland's fifty-nine seats). This setback was compounded by the loss of nearly 500,000 votes: the total SNP vote fell from over 1.45 million to under 980,000. This is partly explained by a decline in turnout, from 71 per cent in 2015 to 66 per cent in 2017. The Tories gained over 320,000 votes and increased their number of seats from one to thirteen. On the other hand, the number of votes for the Labour Party only increased by around 10,000, to a total of 717,000, but this secured them an additional six seats.

These results substantially modify perceptions of the 2015 result as representing a generational shift; instead, they reveal the fluid nature of Scottish politics, and the possibility that the forward march of political nationalism of recent decades could now be halting.

For the first time since the 1980s, political momentum in Scotland does not lie with forces that seek to articulate a politics of greater autonomy to an agenda of social justice, through a strategy based on implementing divergent Scottish egalitarian ideals. This is a major change of direction, perhaps of even more significance than the shift in support from Labour to the SNP that occurred between the Scottish Parliamentary election of 2007 and the Westminster election of 2015. That shift entailed a deepening of the logic of devolutionary argument and a strengthening of the ideals of civic Scottish identity.

The redrawn political map of 2017 indicates that wider cross-UK forces are now having a specific impact within the distinct political landscape of Scotland.¹ There is some question as to whether it was the Corbyn effect or opposition to a second independence referendum that enabled Labour hold its own in Scotland (on which more below). However, these results, alongside Ruth Davidson's ability to channel small-'c' conservative opposition to further constitutional disruption, make it evident that perspectives that were previously regarded as hegemonic are now being challenged; and the electoral majority of the party which champions them now looks embattled. 'Indyref2'-which was being spoken of as a fact on the ground only weeks ago-has departed from the horizon.

Meaningful multi-party democracy has been a comparative rarity in the Scottish experience of Westminster elections. In the age of mass enfranchisement, Liberals, Unionists (Conservatives), Labour and then the SNP have successively tended towards dominating outcomes, if not votes-as is the way in first-past-the-post systems. Each of these parties, some more successfully than others, enunciated itself in terms of representing national political interests towards the unitary state. But the 2017 general election result reveals Scotland as a divided nation, with votes relatively evenly split between Labour, the Conservatives and the SNP for the first time since the 1970s. The distribution of these votes, however, is geographically polarised. Conservative seats are mainly concentrated in the traditional Tory heartlands of the North East, Perthshire and the south of Scotland. Having said this, the Conservative victory in the traditional Labour, coalfield, constituency of Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock reveals the plebeian as well as patrician nature of their rising support in Scotland.

The SNP now effectively faces a war on two geographical and ideological fronts: the Conservatives' Unionist assertions are now a rising threat within much of rural Scotland, including the former SNP heartland in the North East; while under Corbyn Labour are a far more potent challenge on economic and social reform now that the party has a bona fide social-democratic programme. The battle on the terrain of social justice requires a different response from the SNP, particularly across Scotland's central belt, an area the party has only recently come to dominate-thereby finally attaining a key...