Union of hearts and minds is more important than of crowns

THIS week witnesses the 400th anniversary of the Union of the Crowns between Scotland and England which saw James VI of Scotland become James I of England.

Myth, folklore and inaccuracy cloud this event, yet it still has the potency to cause controversy. Labour’s plans to celebrate it are raising fears and anxieties in the Nationalists that this will be used to carry a pro-unionist message into the Scottish Parliament elections. However, does the Union of the Crowns really matter that much - when what binds Scotland into the UK is surely the Treaty of Union, and more importantly, the consent of the Scottish people which can be withdrawn at anytime?

Times have changed about how people define and think of themselves as British. The old definitions of Britishness based on the monarchy, empire and armed forces and along with it Protestantism have declined, to be replaced by a much more fluid sense of Britishness. While Britishness is expressed politically through the Treaty of Union, it finds much more articulation through shared institutions such as the welfare state, and shared economic, social and cultural identities.

Politically a sense of Britishness in Scotland is in decline - not aided by the long Thatcherite experiment, while even though most Scots still see themselves as British and embrace a "dual identity" of Scottishness and Britishness - it is something which is seldom spoken about in public and polite company. However, whatever happens to Scotland’s constitutional status, a shared sense of history and a cultural sense of Britishness - from film, novels, music - will continue.

The Union has not been aided by its friends. First, we had the Thatcherite defence of an intransigent, inflexible Union, which went against the wishes of a majority of Scots. This discredited the term "unionism" to a generation of Scots. Second, we have seen Labour in power in Westminster and Holyrood continue some of this, emphasising that the Union saves Scotland from the horrors of governing itself, because we lack the confidence, talent and finance to make a good fist of things ourselves.

The tenor of the debate has also not been aided by critics of the Union. An appropriate understanding of the Union has not been aided by the fundamentalist Nationalist case that the source of Scotland’s problems lies in the Union with England, and it is this which keeps us subservient and lacking freedom.

We need to have a debate which starts by acknowledging the shades of grey that Scotland lives in, rather than the black and white absolutes. A new union debate is needed which recognises the complexities and subtleties of contemporary Scotland and poses a union, if you like, of hearts and minds, rather than princes, princesses and politicians.

Here are my suggestions for the ground rules of that debate. First, that we all accept that Scotland has the capacity, capabilities and self-confidence to govern itself and do it successfully. Any suggestion that Scotland would become a "Caledonian Albania" or Ireland immediately after independence - a kind of poor, sullen, destitute nation - are just way off the mark and not helpful. Small nations across the world with less going for them than the Scots make a good job of governing themselves. Indeed, Europe, post-1989, has seen a springtime of new nations, lots of which - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, the Czech republic - have been successes, seem to have found their niche and even seem to be able to give us a good run for our money at football.

Second, we should not allow the lie to pass that Scotland is held down by a Unionist conspiracy and establishment centred on the "Uncle Toms" of the Labour Party and BBC to gain a moment’s credence. This world view is a particularly nasty, narrow-minded one which sees a large part of civic Scotland as nothing short of collaborators, and other parts as the equivalent of an occupying army. A more subtle expression of this blames the Union and Scotland’s asymmetrical relationship with England for most of our problems, ignoring the basic fact that Scots have the power to change things if they do not like it.

Third, we have to start recognising the validity of other peoples’ perspectives and traditions, and not denigrate or trash them just because they are not where we come from or do not understand them. And the worst example here is the Labour-SNP "dialogue of the deaf". And strangely, given the dominance of the Labour Party in Scotland, it has always been Labour who have been more dismissive of the SNP tradition than vice-versa. Watching the recent truncated Scottish Labour conference in Dundee, speaker after speaker tore into the SNP. We should be able to agree now that Labour social democracy and Scottish nationalism are legitimate strands of the Scottish political tradition which enrich, rather than threaten our country, and have a mature debate, instead of denigrating opponents’ entire philosophy.

Finally, we need to recognise that whatever Scotland’s constitutional status, the UK and Britain will play a role - whether it is political or cultural. And this has to involve acknowledging the difficult truth that for all the rhetoric of "devolution" and "constitutional change", the UK remains at its centre - in Westminster and Whitehall - one of the most centralised democracies in the Western world. Separate parliaments and assemblies may have been set up in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the mindset of the unitary state trundles on in the heart of the British system. Any Scottish debate has to address how best that can be changed: how realistic is the belief that the British political system with its attachment to parliamentary sovereignty can change?

A Scotland in which we could agree this would be very different from the narrow political cul-de-sac of the forthcoming election debate. We should by now in a world of interdependence and an expanding European Union, be able to recognise that the debate of devolution v independence is about shades of grey, rather than of absolutes. Instead of insulting each other, politicians would be better placed talking about the kind of society we want to live in, and addressing some of the seemingly intractable problems which face contemporary Scotland.

GERRY HASSAN’S LATEST BOOK IS ANATOMY OF THE NEW SCOTLAND, PUBLISHED BY MAINSTREAM