Nationalist Challenge in Britain

...Until three years ago, however, this fact was politically irrelevant...

...Indeed, apart from the landslide years of 1906, 1945 and 1964, non-Conservative parties have been able to form the government of the United Kingdom only because of their strength in Scotland and Wales...

...Still, the government's response to the Nationalist challenge seems surprisingly complacent...

...Nationalism offers the only respectable way of not voting Labor...

...By then the Nationalist surge may spend itself, and the situation could return to normal...

...During the last three years, the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists have transformed themselves from a picturesque lunatic fringe into a political force...

...Some of the younger Labor MPs from Scotland have advocated administrative decentralization and political devolution, but they have received more abuse than gratitude for their pains...

...Inside the government, one or two English ministers have shown some sympathy for devolution in Scotland and Wales—notably Richard Cross-man, whose position as Leader of the House of Commons gave him a ministerial interest in the question...

...Implicit in the Government's approach is the assumption that the new vigor of nationalism in Wales and Scotland can be accounted for in purely economic terms...

...Aside from this halfhearted gesture, the government is pinning its faith on the economic recovery of the United Kingdom as a whole, and on a continuation of its policy of discriminatory economic aid to the less prosperous regions—among them, of course, Wales and Scotland...

...But Grossman was replaced as Leader of the House of Commons last spring, and his successor, Fred Peart, does not share his views...

...This does not mean that the economic explanation of the rise of nationalism is invalid but it does mean that deeper factors are at work too...

...but in the most recent by-election, which took place last summer, the Nationalist candidate almost captured the traditional Labor fortress of Caerphilly, where the majority in the previous election had been over 20,000...

...But these departments are not subject to local political control, and most of the policies they administer are United Kingdom policies?developed to satisfy England needs and aspirations, which inevitably outweigh those of Scotland and Wales...

...Sooner or later Scotland?and probably Wales as well—will have to be granted a separate parliament, with powers somewhere between those of the English county councils and the state legislatures in Canada and Australia...

...in Scotland and Wales, it finds expression in nationalism...

...Fortunately for Labor, the next election is unlikely to take place before October 1970, and is not bound to be held until March 1971...

...In the old days their patriotism found an outlet in loyality to, and pride in, the British Empire—which was, after all, at least as much a Scottish empire as an English one...

...For there is a growing sense in the remoter areas of the United Kingdom that too many decisions are taken in London, without properly consulting those who are affected by them...

...In any case, it is doubtful that the most sympathetic English minister could do much about Scottish devolution in the face of the determined opposition of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the redoubtable Willie Ross...

...And its force is increased by the decline in emotional power of British nationalism, resulting from the loss of empire and economic and foreign policy failures of successive British governments...

...In the Southwest or the Northeast, discontent of this sort is expressed in a growing demand for regional decentralization and devolution...

...The Welsh and Scots can opt out—and in voting Nationalist, that is precisely what they are doing...

...This assumption is partially valid...

...Thus the recent success of the two Nationalist parties is to some extent merely a local form of the widespread disillusion of former Labor voters caused by the government's austerity measures...

...If anything on this scale occurs at the next election, the Labor party will lose nationally even if it succeeds beyond its wildest dreams in England...

...STEMMING THE SEPARATIST TIDE Nationalist Challenge in Britain By David Marquand London In almost every British general election this century, the Conservative party has won a comfortable majority of the English constituencies...

...Now that the Empire has gone, why should a good Scot feel any tug of loyalty to a London government when he could just as well have a government of his own at Edinburgh...

...Although the government in London leans over backward to steer industry to the development areas in the Southwest, it does so in a rigid and bureaucratic way, without leaving much room for local initiative...

...Conceivably, even this will not be enough, and Great Britain will have to become a federal state...

...Participation" has become such an overused word in the last few years that one hesitates to use it again, but in a discussion of resurgent nationalism one has no alternative...

...It is also true that the Nationalists owe a good deal of their popularity to the special problems of Wales and Scotland...

...today it is one of the major problems facing the Labor government...

...They have won two Parliamentary by-elections and a host of local government elections, have sharply increased their share of the vote in the by-elections they failed to win, and even in constituencies where they never before ran candidates they have come close to victory...

...In purely economic terms, both countries benefit more from the union with England now than they ever have in the past...

...The discontent, moreover, is far from unreasonable, given the appallingly overcentralized nature of British political, economic and cultural life...

...Adding to the specifically British reasons for the rise of nationalism in Scotland and Wales are the wider, more general currents running throughout the developed world...

...As the Scottish Nationalists point out ad nauseum, many sovereign states with representatives in the United Nations have fewer people and resources than their country and an infinitely smaller chance of succeeding independently...

...The English, who cannot opt out of being British, seem to be taking refuge in a curious masochism and self-pity...

...If the Nationalist tide is to be balked, a much more determined policy is needed...

...In other words, that it is a reaction to the economic stringency from which the entire country has suffered since July 1966, and in particular to the special difficulties of the Welsh and Scottish economies...

...The alternative may be the eventual breakup of the United Kingdom...

...Nationalist or separatist movements appear to be gaining ground not only in the United Kingdom, but throughout Europe and even in North America...

...For historical and sociological reasons, the Welsh and Scottish electorates are uncommonly hostile to the Conservative party, and even a disillusioned Laborite would regard a Tory vote as cultural treachery...

...The Scots are notoriously patriotic, not to say chauvinistic...

...And people responsible for these decisions, it is felt, have no acquaintance with the needs of the regions, and no appreciation of their aspirations...

...It seems unlikely that the resentment generated by this state of affairs will disappear of its own accord, whatever the success of the government's economic policies...

...For that very reason, both offered exceptionally fertile soil for Labor's propaganda in favor of economic planning and regional regeneration before 1964—and in both, Labor voters are now exceptionally disenchanted because the journey to the promised land has turned out to be longer and tougher than expected...

...Abstention would be a no less respectable way of withholding support from Labor than voting Nationalist, yet thousands of former Labor voters have taken the trouble to go to the polls and vote Nationalist rather than simply stay at home...

...In Wales, the Nationalists are weaker...

...The government's only positive step so far has been to announce that it intends to set up a constitutional, commission—of unknown powers, composition, or terms of reference—to examine the question of the relationship among the United Kingdom's constituent parts...

...But this is not the whole story...

...As a result, they pose a greater challenge to the established party system of this country than any it has faced since Labor displaced the Liberals as the main progressive party after World War I. At this moment, not a single Labor seat in Scotland can be considered safe from Nationalist assault...

...Similarly, while the Nationalists undoubtedly owe much to the resentment over economic backwardness, they have achieved their success at a time when London is far more responsive to the needs of Wales and Scotland than it has been for the last 20 years...

...In a world of Black Muslims, Quebec separatists, and Rumanian national Communists, it is not very extraordinary that the Welsh and Scots should follow the fashion...

...In Scotland, and to a lesser extent in Wales, many functions of the central government are carried out by the Scottish and Welsh offices, each backed by a Secretary of State with a seat in the Cabinet...

...Scotland, they say, would take its seat at the UN between Senegal and Saudi Arabia—a slogan with considerable emotional power...

...The two countries are unusually dependent on declining traditional industries like shipbuilding and coal mining, and suffer a vicious circle of emigration and wasting social capital...

...David Marquand, a Labor MP, contributes frequently to these pages...

...And to the degree that this is so, an overall economic recovery will bring about an ebb in the Nationalist tide...