Politics in a Cold Climate: The Conservative Decline in Scotland

Abstract

An important feature over the last 30 years has been the increasing shortfall in the Conservative vote in Scotland compared with England. The Conservative Party, despite social structural disadvantages in terms of housing tenure and social class, did unusually well until the mid-I950s, particularly among Unionists and Protestants. After considering the historical and religious factors explaining earlier Conservative political strength, it is argued that two factors help to explain the changing politics of the state in Scotland: the establishment of Scotland as a separate unit of economic management in popular perception and the greater dependence on direct state involvement. The Scottish economic dimension has made Scotland an ideological category largely incompatible with Conservative English/British national rhetoric as employed by Mrs Thatcher.The general election of 1987 brought to public attention the growing divergence in the political behaviour of Scotland and England. While the Labour Party could manage only 29.5 per cent of the vote in England, it took 42.4 per cent in Scotland. The Conservatives achieved 46.2 per cent in England, and a mere 24 per cent in Scotland.' This outcome meant that while Labour had 50 MPs north of the border, the Tories could muster only 10. The collapse of the Tory vote in Scotland has appeared to some so natural, has appeared to reflect such obvious truths about Scotland's economic situation and political leanings, that an attempt to account for the Conservative decline appears superfluous. This article argues that there is nothing natural about the Tory collapse. Understanding the divergence in the Conservatives' electoral fortunes north and south of the border requires a careful disentangling of the political, economic and social factors involved. Electoral TrendsFirst of all, let us examine the trends in voting for the two main British parties in Scotland and England at general elections since the war.Two main points can be drawn from the data presented in Tables 1 and 2. First, the most systematic element of electoral divergence between Scotland and England has been the relative decline of the Conservative vote in Scotland. Secondly, the main beneficiary in Scotland of this long-term trend has oscillated between Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP).

Political distinctiveness: An identity optimising approach

“…While each of the political parties may derive some support through regional identification (Abrams and Emler, 1992) the present data suggest that minonty parties in particular contribute to their supporters' identities. Both Scottish Nahonalists and Liberal Democrats advocate transfomng the electoral system in order to promote their own interests (cf Kendrick and McCrone, 1989). It is perhaps ironic that once the parties become too large they may begin to lose one of the social psychologxal bases of their supporttheir capacity to provide optmal distmctiveness for their supporters.…”

The strange death of Tory Liverpool: Conservative electoral decline in Liverpool, 1945–1996

“…By contributing an account of why the Conservative Party declined in what was once an inner-city stronghold, this examination provides part of the historical context to current debates within the study of British politics surrounding how the Conservatives can 'win back' urban and northern voters in England (Clark, 2014). A case study such as Liverpool also shows the need for greater nuance when discussing Conservative decline in the North of England more broadly (Randall, 2009), whilst also providing new material for comparison to other areas of Conservative decline, the most obvious being Scotland (Kendrick and McCrone, 1989;Seawright and Curtice, 1995;Finlay, 2012).…”

The northern Ireland peace process and Scottish constitutional reform: Managing the Unions of 1800 and 1707

“…In Scotland, the Conservative Party has been in serious electoral decline for a number of years. This decline is a result of many factors (Money, 1982;Kendrick and McCrone, 1989;Stevens, 1992;Curtice and Seawright, 1995), but the decline itself has had implications for the Union which the government has failed to address to the satisfaction of Scottish voters. Though the Scottish Conservatives experienced a slight electoral improvement in 1992, through gaining 25.7 per cent (+1.7 per cent) of the votes, any hopes that this would spark a sustained recovery were dashed by the regional elections of May 1994 in which the Scottish Tories gained only 13.7 per cent of the vote and 31 seats out of a possible 453; the European elections in June 1994 when the party failed to win any seats and only gained 14.5 per cent of the vote; and the elections to the new unitary local authorities in April 1995, when they gained 11.5 per cent, only 82 councillors out of a total of 1161 elected, and failed to win control of any of the new councils.…”