How do you spot an era-defining, agenda-setting politician? Is it that you stop work to watch one of their speeches? Or is there an “ism” attached to them that instantly conjures up a bold vision for the country? No, the truest sign of any such consequential figure is informal name recognition. Mention Boris in any pub and the punters will know exactly who you mean. Or Maggie once upon a time. And in Scotland there is only one Nicola.
It is nigh impossible to overstate the impact of Scotland’s first minister leaving the arena. She has outlasted four British prime ministers and countless would-be rivals and pretenders to her Celtic throne. Sturgeon’s farewell will be drawn out and tedious, with too many praising her resilience and not enough pointing to her abysmal record on every manner of domestic policy, not least her failed life ambition of breaking up the United Kingdom. But there is no question that she mattered.
While Scottish nationalists recover from the shock of Wednesday’s news and decide who and what comes next — there are no obvious answers to either — unionists must avoid descending into raptures at her departure. She may well have deprived secessionists of their most powerful and effective voice for independence, but that doesn’t mean that the UK is wholly free from the peril of falling apart. The SNP may well regenerate with a freshness that reinvigorates its cause.
The polling has been turning against independence for some time. Were another referendum held today, unionists would triumph with a 12-point lead. When asked about Sturgeon’s misguided plan to use the next general election as a de facto plebiscite, only 21 per cent of Scots agreed with her, and just 44 per cent of SNP voters. The reasons for her exit are not complex, they lie in the hard truth of her political standing.
But there are deeper trends that may aid the independence movement. Research conducted by Onward into Scottish attitudes suggests that Scottish and British identities are increasingly incompatible: those who most strongly identify as Scottish are the keenest for independence. The Scottish electorate is structurally more liberal and progressive than other parts of the UK, including those who are instinctively pro-Union. Brexit did not cause this but it has accentuated the differences.
As in the rest of the anglophone world, age is now the defining division in Scotland. During Sturgeon’s tenure, younger people have swung hugely towards independence — it is countercultural for anyone under the age of 45 to support No. Eighteen to 24-year-olds are six times more likely than the retired to be Yes voters.
There is, however, much to be hopeful about. Scotland is too often viewed as two simplistic tribes, the unionists versus the nationalists; dismissing any middling shades of opinion has greatly aided the nationalist cause. To win the argument for the UK, it is critical to understand that the Scottish electorate is composed of seven tribes. First are those that unionists need not worry about: “pragmatic constitutionalists”, who make up 14 per cent of Scotland, are only beaten in their enthusiasm for the UK by the 12 per cent who make up the “radical unionists” and wear Britishness as their defining characteristic.
Nor should the 9 per cent of Scots who identify as “independence activists” concern unionists — no amount of wooing will flip their minds. The “urban liberals”, who are the most pro-EU and are strongly supportive of the SNP, will be difficult to win over; the same is true of the 9 per cent of “disaffected workers” who mix a strong Scottish identity with a particular zeal for independence.
But there are two bigger groups where the future of the union will be decided. The “progressive middle”, 30 per cent of the population who are moderate, want better public services and only slightly favour independence. They were Sturgeon’s people and are the ones disillusioned by her domestic record and the foolishness she has pursued with gender recognition reform. The others are the “working-class swing”, 8 per cent of the population who represent the most pro-Brexit part of Scotland.
With those in mind, pro-Union voices must act with determined purpose. The first task is to advocate commonsense unionism: the UK is a natural economic, cultural and social unit. Scotland and the rest of Britain are symbiotic and make each other better. Whether it is business investment, delivering energy security or better public services, the case for Britishness is backed up by facts and hard reality, not the utopian fallacy of going it alone.
This argument is potent in foreign affairs. The might of a strong Britain has been seen during the war in Ukraine — support for this fight against the darkest forces is equally strong across the whole Union. Were Scotland standing alone from England, it would have struggled to muster anywhere near the global impact. In this defining fight, the UK has proved its worth. And as defence threats become more sophisticated, the combined might of all four parts of the Union are critical.
Commonsense unionism is not, however, about standing still. The challenges of over-centralisation in England are the same in Scotland. More power needs to be devolved from Westminster but not simply into the palms of nationalists. Sturgeon has used Holyrood to bend Scotland’s structures to her cause, best seen through the creation of Police Scotland and the abandonment of the traditional eight police forces. There is no Police England or Police Wales, nor should there be.
Whitehall needs to deliver devolution in Scotland with the same vigour as the rest of the land. Instead of handing more powers to the Scottish parliament, it should be devolving them at a more granular level to cities or counties. Scotland should have its own directly elected mayors — what has worked in Manchester and Birmingham can do so again in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
We are nearing the decade anniversary of the independence referendum. Unionists argued then that we were “better together”, but that message of pragmatic reason has often struggled in the face of a leader who was cited in focus groups as “our Nicola”. Now, the nationalist movement is facing its greatest change in a generation. Those of us who believe passionately and deeply in the union must seize on it too.
Sebastian Payne is director of Onward
