Building A Nation

by Kenny MacAskill

From the Foreword

The disillusionment that followed devolution was inevitable. An expectations gap existed: what was expected of devolution and what could be delivered differed markedly. Disillusionment has brought cynicism and disengagement in its wake. Those who were most committed to the cause of Scottish self-government have won the institutions they campaigned so long for while appear to have lost out in other respects. This has not only affected the SNP though that party has been most obviously affected. Others have been affected too. Scottish Labour’s progressive forces have been sidelined. The radicalism of Scottish Labour Action has been swallowed up in the pursuit of power at any price or marginalised to the backbenches where Labour’s best talent now sits in the Edinburgh Parliament. The Tories, inveterate opponents of devolution before its arrival, at times appear to have come to terms with devolution better than any of the pro-home rule parties and it is their socio-economic agenda that dominates Scottish politics today. Is this what devolution was supposed to be about?

It has been common in Northern Ireland to refer to a policy deficit as politics there focused hermetically on the constitution. To a lesser extent, that too has been true of Scotland too. During the eighteen years of Conservative rule that ended in 1997, each of the opposition parties in Scotland focused primarily on two things: Opposition to the Tories and Scotland’s constitutional status. The Conservatives alone shaped the socio-economic political agenda. The irony of devolution is that while new self-governing institutions have been won, these are used for a decidedly right-wing agenda. Circumstances conspired against progressive forces but laziness and timidity have played a part.

But if disillusionment was inevitable, that need not mean that it must always prevail. Politics is shaped by contexts beyond the power of any politician or party but not entirely. An old divide is opening up in Scotland between those who, for a variety of reasons, are secure wallowing in disillusionment or are happy with the status quo and those impatient to change and the opportunity to shape Scotland’s future. This divide does not conform neatly with either the old left-right or Unionist-Nationalist divides. Small ‘c’ conservatives are to be found across these political divides.

This book is important in three respects. First, it acknowledges and explains the current disillusionment and does so honestly and self-critically. The SNP is not spared in this analysis. Secondly, the book engages seriously with difficult issues. Some of these issues and problems are common to social democrats everywhere, others are particular to Scotland. At times over the past five years, it seemed that social democrats everywhere except Scotland were grappling with issues discussed here. Thirdly, there is an underlying and powerful message of optimism, a quiet self-confidence which challenges what Kenny MacAskill calls the ‘outward swagger but huge inner self-doubt’. The book may be primarily addressed to a Nationalist audience but should be read well beyond supporters of constitutional independence.

Many years ago, the distinguished American historian Jack Greene noted that ‘What independence meant to the members of the Revolutionary generation has received surprisingly little explicit or systematic attention from historians.’ Few historians had troubled themselves to look beyond the rhetoric of independence and consider its multi-faceted meanings. Independence had a constitutional-legal meaning but it also had other meanings which were central to those who forged the entity which, only a few years before independence, could not even be called a nation, let alone an entity supporting independence. This book is an important, possibly seminal, contribution to a debate that reflects on the meaning of independence, not just in terms of its constitutional-legal meanings but its wider meanings. It is challenging and provocative in the very best sense.

James Mitchell
September 2004