EDITORIAL: Scottish voters hold key to British elections

OPINION:

Voters in Britain go to the polls again next week, and our correspondents say the race is too close to call. Scotland, which rejected independence in a bitterly fought referendum only six months ago, may hold the key to whether the Labor Party replaces the Conservatives to govern the United Kingdom.

Most of the English-speaking world, that vast stretch of nations circling the globe (whom our second cousins once removed in France call “the Anglo-Saxons”) cheered when the Scots decided in a landslide — 55 percent to 45 percent — to remain united, more or less, with the English, the Welsh and the Scots and Irish in Ulster. But the referendum left behind a virulent, determined independence/nationalist movement that promises not to take the result of the referendum for a final answer to the question that has vexed the isles for centuries. Public opinion soundings indicate that not only is Scottish nationalism still alive and well, but turning upside down the patterns of voting.

If Labor loses, and Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative coalition with the Liberal Democrats retain power, it’s likely to be because the Scottish nationalists gave up their long-standing support for Labor. The Scottish National Party (SNP) holds only six seats in the House of Commons now. Conservatives hold 302, Labor 256, and the Liberal Democrats, who form the coalition with the Conservatives, hold 56 seats. The Scots Tories, Scotland’s Conservative and Unionist twin of Mr. Cameron’s Tories, hold only one seat.

Scottish ire was raised by the smirks of Labor leaders on the night the referendum votes were counted. Labor leaders reacted to the news that Scotland was staying with boasting and gloating, when the Conservatives showed merely gratitude and relief. The Scots, suffering the familiar fresh pain of defeat, noted the difference. The May 7 parliamentary election may be payback time. The demise of Labor in Scotland has been a long time coming.

In the view from this side of the Atlantic, Scottish nationalism has always been a bit of a puzzle. The Guardian, the faithful newspaper of the British left, insists that Scottish nationalism is really hatred of the Conservatives, and “independence” was only a way to eliminate cold Conservative governance from London.

The Scottish Nationalist Party, or “Partaidh Naiseanta na h-Alba” in Gaelic, which few Scots speak, is thus the instrument of retribution. Nicola Sturgeon is the leader of both the Scottish regional government and the Scottish Nationalist Party, and is not “standing” for a seat in the House of Commons in the May 7 elections. But she pulls the strings of her party’s delegation to London. She and Ed Milbank, the leader of the Labor Party, have squabbled bitterly, and both say they wouldn’t consider the other as a coalition partner. However, she says she and her party would support a fragile minority Labor government on issue by issue.

Mrs. Sturgeon’s program has been one mostly of handing out entitlements, particularly on child welfare and health issues. She has said on several occasions that the results of the referendum on Scottish independence stand, that there will not be another vote for independence.

This will be a relief for Americans, who generally don’t understand how a parliamentary system works, or the internal division of British parties, but treasure the special relationship and the familiar history of the race of kings. We watched with morbid horror the prospect of Britain breaking up, like children listening to feuding parents speak of divorce. We couldn’t imagine life without the bagpipers stirring the blood with the squall of “Scotland the Brave” or the soul-consoling strains of “Amazing Grace.” Fight on, chaps, but stand fast together against the brigands who disturb the earthly peace.