Celtic Alliance ‘won’t lead to break-up of UK’ says Scottish Unionist commentator

Martin Shipton

A prominent Scottish Unionist commentator has rubbished the idea of a “Celtic Alliance” between Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that will lead to the break-up of the UK.

Kenny Farquharson, a former editor of the newspaper Scotland on Sunday, argues in his latest Times column that the expected appointment of Andy Burnham as Prime Minister will not make such an outcome more likely.

He writes: “Since the May elections, much has been made of the so-called Celtic alliance between Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Each of the devolved governments is now led by a nationalist first minister.

“A great deal of excitement has ensued in some quarters, with this trifecta of SNP, Plaid Cymru and Sinn Fein being hailed as a confident step towards the break-up of the United Kingdom.

“To borrow a technical term from political science, this is bollocks.

“Yes, Plaid Cymru’s victory in Wales was a historic moment. But anyone talking up the Celtic alliance was not paying attention when the Good Friday agreement was being negotiated.

“Devolution in Northern Ireland is very different to devolution in Scotland and Wales. The Stormont assembly is founded on power-sharing. Its first minister and deputy first minister have equal powers, acting in tandem. And the deputy first minister is Emma Little-Pengelly, leader of the hardline Democratic Unionist Party.

“The idea that Little-Pengelly might sanction anything that could remotely be interpreted as undermining the political integrity of the UK is, frankly, ridiculous.

“The Celtic alliance is a non-starter. So where else might Scotland look for comradeship and common cause? The answer lies in a book written by a man who within weeks is likely to become prime minister.

“Two years ago Andy Burnham published Head North: A Rallying Cry for a More Equal Britain. Co-written with Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool, the book sets out a vision for a country with a very different centre of political gravity to the one we live in today.

“The gravitational pull of London, they argue, requires a counterweight of political and economic power. This can be achieved by the accumulated heft of the north of England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and even the Republic of Ireland.

“A speech by Burnham this year to the Alliance Party conference in Belfast makes fascinating reading given the events of recent days: ‘In the UK all people and places are not equal. Power is not distributed evenly. With no written constitution, it is too easy for the powers that be to write their own rules,’ he said. ‘Some in Whitehall don’t like the idea of an increasingly assertive north.

‘Complete rewiring’

“They still try to talk down to us when we won’t take no for an answer. And perhaps this has helped us understand more how Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have felt for years. If the UK is to be a fairer and more functional country in the future than it has been in the past, nothing short of a complete rewiring of the UK’s political system is needed. And if that is to happen, it will require us to join forces.’

“Will John Swinney grasp this offered hand? It will be harder for him than one might imagine. Swinney is an instinctive Scottish nationalist, his world view circumscribed by a dotted line on the map between Solway and Tweed. A Celtic alliance of nations with a historically antagonistic attitude to England is a comfortable fit with his psychological make-up. Much less so is the idea of Scotland partnering with the industrial behemoths of Tyneside, Merseyside and the Manchester ship canal.

“In fact Swinney will be all too aware that such solidarity is an argument often deployed against Scottish nationalism. How often has he heard from Labour politicians that the dockers of Glasgow have more in common with the dockers of Liverpool than with the rural toffs of Perthshire?

“Another barrier is the Scottish sense of superiority over places it regards as mere counties, despite the numbers. Yorkshire and the Humber has a larger population than the whole of Scotland. Greater Manchester has a million more inhabitants than Northern Ireland. The population of the West Midlands mayoral authority is just a smidgen under that of Wales.

“Any discussion about what differentiates a nation from a county quickly gets into weird territory. Is Yorkshire’s history — the Viking ridings, the rise of York Minster, the Wars of the Roses — any less ancient or storied than Scotland’s? Is our nation status somehow God-given? Is it because we had kings and queens?

Sceptical view

“Professor Sir Neil MacCormick, the late SNP parliamentarian and celebrated constitutional thinker, took a sceptical view. To accept pure nationalism, he said, ‘one must accept a variety of metaphysical beliefs about the nature of nations, beliefs about which rational discussion can scarcely be conducted’. With a magnificent show of intellectual disdain, MacCormick added: ‘One takes pure nationalism, or one leaves it. For my part, I leave it.’

“Burnham in Downing Street will have a blueprint for government that requires a Swinney response. With a little more of MacCormick’s utilitarianism in SNP thinking, Scotland can participate in a new power nexus in these islands. Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle — and yes, Birmingham and the Black Country, too — can be Scotland’s allies against the old power centres of Westminster, Whitehall, HM Treasury and the City of London.

“This will require a radical change in the reductive way the SNP thinks about England and the English. This will be as much an emotional shift as an intellectual one.

“Is today’s SNP prepared to grab the opportunities for today’s Scotland offered by today’s British politics? Is Scottish nationalism capable of looking south and seeing not an adversary but an ally? Can the SNP think of the north of England with the same warmth in its heart that radiates when it thinks of continental Europe?”