English nationalism will be the death of the union
Neil Mackay
6 – 8 minutes
It feels like 2025 needs a specific name, a label. Perhaps, the Year of Samson. For in 2025, political pillars which have stood for generations are being torn down, just as Samson tore down the pillars of the temple in the bible story.
The post-war guarantee of American security for Europe was collapsed by Donald Trump. China now stands face-to-face with the US as a global super-power. In Germany, the fire-wall between the far-right and the electorate has been breeched. Free trade is obliterated.
Now, the Labour and Tory duopoly on British power has shuddered and given way as Reform emerges as the main opposition to Keir Starmer in the wake of the English elections.
Indeed, the UK has gone from a two-party state to a multi-party state, with the Greens and LibDems harrying Tories and Labour from left and right. Politically, everything is in flux.
The rise of Reform’s virulent form of English nationalism, however, endangers one political pillar more than all others: the union.
It has always been a challenge for traditional Scottish unionists to understand a key truth about the union: what happens in England has more bearing on its safety and security than what happens in Scotland.
When Westminster goes haywire, support for independence booms. When Westminster remains relatively calm and functioning, support for independence abates.
Ironically, the decisions of English voters have more chance of achieving Scottish independence than campaigning by the Yes movement.
Read more from Neil Mackay:
The rise of Reform means Scotland needs a legal route to indyref2, here’s how we do it
The union is on borrowed time, the Yes camp must prepare for indy
Why the rise of Reform is the making of the Yes movement
Brexit is the great exemplar. It put Yes ahead of No for the first time in nearly a year. The behaviour of Boris Johnson’s government during Covid saw Yes in front for more than six months. Liz Truss gave Yes a lead for months. The graph is plain to be seen, and the equation simple.
Whilst Tory mayhem drove the Yes vote in the past, now it’s despair at Labour. Since last autumn Yes has mostly been ahead of No thanks to Starmer’s failed promises to bring change.
As Starmer moves more to the right to try to head off the appeal of Reform to English voters, he pushes away Scottish left-of-centre voters. It seems to be a bargain he’s content to make.
Now, I ask you: what could fuel Scottish independence more than a Reform government in London?
That doesn’t necessarily mean a single-party government, it could be a coalition with the broken and deluded Tories who are running to the extremes of the right even faster than Starmer.
As it stands today, there is no prospect of the SNP losing at Holyrood in 2026. According to calculations by the Lord of Polling, Professor John Curtice (who interestingly gets more mischievous during his TV appearances the more crazy British politics becomes), there will be a stonking pro-indy majority in Holyrood.
Projected results would see the SNP on 57 seats, Greens on 15, Alba on 7, versus Conservatives on 15, Labour on 14, LibDems on 13 and Reform on 8.
That’s a 29-seat pro-Yes majority of 79 indy-supporting MSPs, to just 50 MSPs for the four unionist parties.
Now, picture what happens if – when? – Nigel Farage either holds power or the balance of power in London. Farage said this week that the NHS shouldn’t be publicly-funded.
Reform emerged as the main opposition to Keir Starmer’s Labour in the wake of the English local elections (Image: Jacob King) Without a hint of irony, given his political positions, he extolled the virtues of the French system. Referring to the NHS, he said: “I do not want it funded through general taxation.”
There’s a lot of nonsense talked by those who claim there’s no such thing as ‘Scottish values’. There patently is, and we need only look at the public’s voting record to see that. Greens beat Reform here for a start.
Scottish voters are not motivated by anti-immigration sentiment to the same extent as English voters. That feeling exists, but it’s much more curtailed than down south.
So a Farage government which also has the NHS in its sights would be poison in Scotland. He’s hated here.
Fear of Reform is already causing Labour and the Tories to make policy shifts which are beginning to repel their traditional voters in Scotland. The drift will continue – both by the parties towards Reform and by voters in Scotland away from those parties.
The rise of Reform and the behaviour of Labour and the Tories in England is simply to the benefit of the SNP. It solidifies and increases SNP support.
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If – when? – Farage is ever in power, expect support for independence to rocket into the high 50s or even low 60s. Soft No voters will move to independence, just as many soft No voters moved to independence after Brexit.
English nationalism will be the death of the union. It is the Yes movement’s most able recruiting sergeant.
It was English nationalism which destroyed our links with Europe. It was English nationalism which destroyed the Tories, and now English nationalism is destroying the Labour Party.
For those who say independence will never happen, I ask you: whoever imagined that Brexit would happen, that Donald Trump would get elected (twice), that a far-right party would breathe down the neck of power in Germany, that America would cosy up to Russia… or that Farage would ever find himself staring at the prospect of becoming British Prime Minister.
Those are all Samson-style events in their destructive power, but there could be no greater Samson-style event than English nationalism collapsing the pillars of the union and becoming the catalyst for Scottish independence.
Neil Mackay is The Herald’s Writer-at-Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs, cultural commentary, and foreign and domestic politics.
