The general election of July 2024 did not just call time on a decade and a half of Conservative rule. It also delivered the most pro-Union parliament since the early 2010s, when the meteoric rise in support for the Scottish National party (SNP) began. In Scotland, a 16-point swing away from the SNP allowed Labour to win the most votes and most seats; in Wales, Plaid Cymru made modest gains but won only four places in the House of Commons, compared to 27 for Sir Keir Starmer’s party.
Since then, the many missteps of Sir Keir’s government have contributed to a swift and remarkable reversal of fortunes. In May’s Senedd elections, Plaid is on course to replace Labour as the largest party in Wales for the first time since devolution. Also profiting from the government’s woes, a revived SNP has weathered its own scandals to lead comfortably in polling for the Scottish parliament. At the party’s spring conference on Saturday, its leader, John Swinney, pointed to the “absolutely seismic” possibility that come 8 May, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (which does not vote again until next year) could all have first ministers in place committed to taking their countries out of the United Kingdom.
That would be a historic first, But it would not necessarily signify an imminent push for the breakup of the union. Mr Swinney has pledged to put independence at the centre of his campaign, but linked calls for a second referendum to achieving an outright SNP majority for the first time since 2011. Setting the bar high reflects a sense of strategic caution. The party is still in recovery mode, after a chaotic term in which two leaders resigned, a coalition with the Greens collapsed, and Nicola Sturgeon’s estranged husband, Peter Murrell, was charged with embezzlement of SNP funds.
In Wales, support for independence has tended to reach a ceiling of about 30%. Plaid’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has ruled out a referendum in his first term should the party win power. As first minister, he would hope to profit from a win-win situation in which Westminster concessions to his demands enhance Plaid’s popularity, and the absence of them bolsters the case for breaking away at a later point.
The possibility that Nigel Farage could become prime minister at the next general election will only concentrate minds further beyond England’s borders. Clearly, the dynamics of UK politics are significantly shifting. But though it sees the threat, Labour is drawing the wrong conclusions. A memo to cabinet ministers, leaked last week, was high‑handed and almost Johnsonian in its advice that they should not be “overly deferential or laissez-faire” in their dealings with Welsh and Scottish counterparts.
Whatever the results in May, the government should adopt precisely the opposite approach. Its inability to convincingly embody a social democratic response to Tory rule has allowed the SNP and Plaid to outflank Labour on the left. That in turn is paving the way for a fresh tussle between overly centralised power in Westminster and the devolved nations. As the Faragian right seeks to impose an authoritarian English nationalism wrapped in the St George’s flag, the country needs more, not less, constructive collaboration between progressive forces in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff. Without it, the centrifugal forces unleashed by Westminster failure at the centre will only strengthen.
