“There has been some commentary around ideas of a new unionism” says Nicola McEwen, Professor of Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh. Photo: PA Images
Long before the SNP came to power in Scotland in 2007, Gordon Brown had consistently positioned the NHS at the centre of his pitch for British unity. In 1999, he argued that “whether in Scotland, Wales or England, people think of the British National Health Service,” and in 2006 he further described British identity as the “values expressed through our history and our institutions.” Even as the SNP surge through the 2010s led Brown to advocate for “a British constitutional revolution” to prevent secession, he still cleaves to the NHS as a democratising, almost reconciliatory force, writing in January this year that “only as NHS patients do people feel treated as equals.” Now, with a year until the Holyrood elections, could the response to coronavirus remobilise unionism?
The British and Scottish governments have so far taken a collaborative approach to the crisis. “There has been some commentary around ideas of a new unionism” says Nicola McEwen, Professor of Territorial Politics at the University of Edinburgh. “It’s almost eroding the case for independence, because we’re seeing this sort of co-operation and solidarity.” Although the wider lockdown was uniformly imposed, there was some policy divergence from the outset. Scotland announced school closures before England, and has also imposed tougher measures on non-essential construction work—which was shut down at the end of March—diverging from the advice of Public Health England. A strategy plan published yesterday by the Scottish government revealed that “innovative approaches” will be employed to “maintain and enhance physical distancing,” and that Scottish authorities would “provide clarity to the public to enable compliance, engagement and accountability”—re-emphasising Sturgeon’s continued commitment to “treating the public like adults.”
“The SNP has to strike a balance” says McEwen: “co-operative for the greater good, but asserting distinctiveness where it thinks it ought to.” The feeling is that intergovernmental tensions will soon re-emerge, especially as an EU summit approaches in June. On Monday, the SNP’s cabinet secretary for Europe Michael Russell again asked that the UK government extend the Brexit transition period, warning that the “double hit” of a no-deal outcome and the pandemic would be devastating for Scotland. There is as yet no indication that Boris Johnson will agree to do so, despite all attention in Whitehall now being diverted towards Covid-19.
Addressing reports that PPE was being diverted from Scotland to England on April 14, Sturgeon was careful to state that her desire for clarification from the British government was not “a point of a political nature,” but rather “about fairness and co-operation.” Nonetheless, she concluded that any redirection of PPE without consultation would “clearly be unconscionable and unacceptable.” Alongside other opposition parties, SNP ministers are now intensifying their public demands of the UK government after a watershed week of scrutiny over testing, PPE, and crisis management—bookended by Boris Johnson leaving hospital on April 12, and a damning Sunday Times investigation published on April 19.
Joanna Cherry, the SNP’s Shadow Home Secretary, raised concerns to Priti Patel about the lack of Covid-19 testing at the UK borders. “Many other countries across Europe and the world have some form of health checks at airports” she wrote in a letter on Monday: “The UK seems to be something of an outlier,” she notes: “Nothing has changed over the past 10 days.”
Cherry’s letter also mentioned the UK government’s reliance on advice from Public Health England and SAGE, the advisory group to which Sturgeon’s government announced an alternative body on March 25. “As the number of cases increases, it’s ever more important that we have the fullest possible understanding of exactly how the virus is spreading in Scotland,” the First Minister said, revealing that Professor Andrew Morris would lead the group to “supplement” SAGE’s findings. “The UK government needs to be consulting more with regional areas” says Dr Richard Simpson, former GP, Labour MSP, and author of a parliamentary report into flu pandemics in 2000. “At the moment, there’s minimal divergence. The supply of PPE is better up here; testing is not better—it’s very inadequate.”
If successful, alternative strategies pursued by the Scottish government could not only save lives, but also create significant political capital for the SNP. Since heavy election defeats in 2015 and 2016, the Labour party in Scotland has failed to articulate its brand of progressive social solidarity as an alternative to constitutional overhaul. Although the outpourings of appreciation for the NHS do evoke historic support for generous social policy, Scotland’s political makeup means that any institutional affection is now more likely to be co-opted by the dominant national narrative—that of the SNP protecting public services from a right-wing UK government.
Although devolution means that arguments surrounding healthcare privatisation differ across the UK, defending public health from unwanted competition is entrenched within the SNP fabric—deployed in Scottish and British elections alike. Dr Philippa Whitford, now the SNP’s Westminster health spokesperson, campaigned for Yes in 2014 (before entering politics) and wrote publicly about saving the Scottish NHS from privatisation, a line of argument which Gordon Brown pledged to “nail” as “the NHS lie.” At the time, a report by Reform Scotland stressed that because GPs are private contractors in Scotland, most people’s contact with the NHS was already privatised. Nonetheless, these debates similarly played out in Scotland before the 2019 election, echoed by the Labour party’s warnings over US encroachment in British health as part of upcoming trade negotiations.
In 2008, policy academics Daniel Béland and André Lecours argued that Scotland’s connection of the welfare state with a British national identity—established in 1948 when Labour created the Scottish NHS—was significantly weakened by the Thatcher governments, creating a “positive connection between home rule and progressive social policy.” Although Labour politicians played a significant role in 2014’s “Better Together” campaign, the party has since been unable to counter what the authors call Thatcherism’s “competing set of neoliberal national values that exist alongside, yet challenge, the idea of shared, British social citizenship.” In the resulting void, the SNP have reframed progressive nationalism as a domestic phenomenon, while consecutive Conservative governments have concentrated support in England.
There are also simpler possibilities: that the crisis will transcend these debates altogether, and in time will reflect existing perceptions of Scotland’s social infrastructure, rather than alter them. “People aren’t necessarily thinking of a British or Scottish response” says Alison Payne, Research Director of Reform Scotland, and a former Political Advisor to the Scottish Conservatives. “Sturgeon is doing a very good job; she’s seen as being a very competent and trusting leader. We want her to succeed.”
As UK government ministers come under increasing pressure over PPE and testing, crisis leadership may define the coronavirus’ political legacy more than renewed national narratives. “If they don’t get to 100,000 tests by the end of this month, then Hancock has to resign” Simpson says bluntly. As scrutiny of the UK government increases with each day, his voice may yet become a chorus across the Scottish political spectrum.
