What this book brings out in an exceptionally lucid fashion, is that the Anglo-Scottish union derives much of its strength from its inherent flexibility. Keating encourages us to think about the extent to which its latest ‘crisis’ can be accommodated by this suppleness or whether constant flexing will result in a stress fracture
"The creation of the Scottish parliament in 1999 has stimulated a considerable scholarly literature which has sought to place it in historical context, to analyse its constitution and proceedings and to attempt to speculate about future developments. This slimv olume discusses these matters in a manner which is never less than intelligent andt hought-provoking.
Keating has been a prolific and important contributor to the debate for over 30 years and one of the most important aspects of his work has been to try to set the Scottish events and processes in a comparative context, whether it be with Quebec, Catalonia or the Basque country. Throughout his latest volume he draws fruitfully on his earlier writings to produce an extended essay on the past, present and future of Scottish politics.
The starting point for the book is the aftermath of the 2007 election for the Scottish parliament in which the Scottish National Party (SNP) achieved a plurality of its129 seats and subsequently formed a minority ‘government’ under the self-confident leadership of Alex Salmond. Keating probes the meaning and implications of this event. This might easily have descended into the worst kind of presentist and shallow discussion, but what saves Keating from these pitfalls is the fact that the profound questions which he poses are relevant, but strangely confined to the shadows, regardless of the outcome of this election or the next one, which was held in May 2010.
Put bluntly, he wonders why the prospect of Scottish secession has not provoked a wider discussion and he seeks to fill that gap. He begins this process by surveying the literature on the place of Scotland in the British state and the interaction of different forms of identity within the United Kingdom. This material will be familiar to most people working in the field but he provides a very useful summary of the literature. He moves forward to discuss the operation of the Anglo-Scottish union over its 300-year history.
The remaining five chapters form the meat of the study. An important chapter suggests that the unionist (as opposed to Unionist) consensus which has endured for most of that period seems to be under threat. He argues that what makes this situation especially interesting is the fact that although the ‘ideology of the union is in crisis’ (p. 77) a new consensus has not emerged to replace it. The SNP suggests that the future is independence for Scotland (something which a vast bulk of evidence suggests is supported by only a minority of Scots) and the other parties imply that some form of redefinition is required. The Union has been in crisis before, it should be noted, not least in the years immediately following its passage when it was assailed by difficult economic circumstances, protests over taxation and the dynastic challenge of jacobitism. In the late 19th century the challenges came from Irish nationalism and the adoption by the Liberal Party of home rule as a response. The surge of support for the SNP in the 1970s (over 30% of the Scottish vote in October 1974) seemed to indicate another crisis but it petered out in the gloomy winter of 1978–9 and the damp squib of the referendum of March 1979.
What makes this crisis different? The existence of a Scottish parliament and a SNP transformed from a vehicle of protest and a repository of eccentricity to a party with a solid record of government in Scotland? Perhaps. We will see. Unionist Scotland may be far from dead although it does seem to be shedding its skin.
The next stage of the book considers the questions of the mechanics of secession, a discussion which considers the matters of referendums, the European dimensions and the security considerations likely to influence an independent Scotland. Without reducing the debate to a crude formula, Keating also considers the political economy of independence. In this judicious and informative chapter he puts his finger on the difficulty of assessing the evidence which emerges from a political discussion in which all parties are interested and the statistics are difficult to interpret: Both nationalists and unionists are on a cleft stick here. Unionists want to argue that Scotland is thriving under the Union but point to its supposedly low growth rate to claim that it could not afford independence. Nationalists want to show that it is doing badly under the Union but that it already has a viable economy. (p. 103) Keating considers the possibilities for enhanced and advanced devolution in which the Scottish parliament acquires more powers, especially in the area of taxation – the much discussed question of ‘fiscal autonomy’ – and suggests that this might be the likeliest way forward in the near future, although like much else in this debate ,it is far from clear how this might be realized.
... What this body of work shows, and which this book brings out in an exceptionally lucid fashion, is that the Anglo-Scottish union derives much of its strength from its inherent flexibility. Keating encourages us to think about the extent to which its latest ‘crisis’ can be accommodated by this suppleness or whether constant flexing will result in a stress fracture."
EWEN A. CAMERON