The Scottish Labour Party and ‘Crypto-Nationalism’

Having supported Home Rule for Scotland in the 1920s, by the 1950s the Labour Party in Scotland had abandoned legislative devolution while retaining the sort of nationalist unionist rhetoric once deployed by the Scottish Unionist Party between the 1930s and 1950s. On reversing its devolution policy in the 1970s, Scottish Labour initially promoted a Scottish Assembly or Parliament on ‘modernisation’ grounds; only during the Thatcher era of the 1980s was an overtly nationalist dimension added, some of which echoed earlier Liberal claims that Scotland was ‘neglected’ by Westminster, which was held to be hostile to Scotland’s distinct institutions and more left-wing political culture. Some in the party resisted this approach but, by the independence referendum of 2014, Scottish Labour’s ‘nationalist’ wing not only voted ‘Yes’ but switched their support to the SNP at the general election of 2015.