Conclusion: Evaluating Disjunctive Prime Ministerial Leadership

Scotland and England’s colliding nationalisms: neoliberalism and the fracturing of the United Kingdom

“…As the central argument of this paper contends, in some senses recourse to nationalist impulses can be viewed as a familiar development, particularly in anxious and atomised societies where vehicles for communal action and collective affiliation are thin on the ground, as nationalism operates as a default source of cultural defence, community and solidarity, binding together often amorphous coalitions disaffected by the status quo but, arguably, from often quite contradictory perspectives (Cox 2021 ). Support for Brexit, for example, has been associated with those who feel politically, culturally and economically disenfranchised, the so-called ‘left behind’ of post-industrial England (and Wales), presumed to regard the EU as an ‘alien’ political establishment that failed to reflect their values and interests or address their insecurities (Eatwell and Goodwin 2018 ; Byrne et al 2020 ; Goodwin and Heath 2016 ; Gusterson 2017 ). Brexit, as we know, was also substantially supported by older middle and more comfortable working-class social conservatives with concerns around immigration and sovereignty (Goodwin and Heath 2016 ).…”

“…Rather, nationalism in Scotland appeared less strident, with the impetus behind the ‘Yes’ campaign being widely assumed to be a poll undertaken as a regrettable but pragmatic step, aimed at releasing Scotland from the yoke of a succession of Westminster governments seen to have embedded Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal legacy. This included its ‘Blairite’ incarnation in a Labour Party whose acceptance of the key tenets of neoliberalism was at odds with the values of a broad swathe of the Scottish public (Davidson 2014 ; Byrne et al 2020 ). As Davidson asserted, the divide between the Scots and English in the current era is ‘surely one of policy rather than identity; of the content of the ‘anti-reforms’ imposed by Thatcher, not the accent with which they were announced’ (Davidson et al 2010 p. v).…”