Andrew Marr: Scotland is slipping away from the Union
From magazine issue: 29 August 2020
Staying in Britain for the summer has been, in many ways, entirely glorious. We have zigzagged from Shropshire through Derbyshire to the Northumberland coast,
from Fife and Perthshire to Herefordshire and Devon. On the way, beautiful little towns and sweeping coastlines, not empty but not crammed either; excellent local
food and plenty to keep us interested, from echoing cathedrals to buzzing bookshops. But it has also allowed me to see first hand just how desolate so many high
streets are: not only the shops closed because of plague, but those shuttered, clearly from a long time back. Boarded up doors, bleached posters… If it wasn’t so wet,
the tumbleweed would be blowing. Meanwhile, too many places of worship, museums and galleries seem to have taken Covid-19 as a catch-all excuse to stay shut,
increasing the sense of weird emptiness. I am a mask-wearer and a social-distancer, but I’m getting increasingly irate at the prissy, prim, self-congratulatory way so
many organisations are priding themselves on doing sod all for the paying (or simply ambling past) public. Provincial Britain seems to me a country fighting for its life.
We were up in Scotland following the loss of my father, a lifelong and keen reader of these pages. There, the difference in atmosphere over Covid is almost tangible
compared with London. People are much more likely to be masked and much more cautious. They listen attentively to the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and pride
themselves on Scotland’s lower death rates. The opinion polls confirm what general conversation suggests: that Scotland is likely to leave the United Kingdom before
the end of this parliament. The SNP may be having feuds but they are self-confident, vigorous and optimistic. Unionism seems muffled and tired by comparison.
But if independence happens, the end of GB is going to be a more traumatic moment for England than today’s ministers seem able to grasp.
It’s going to feel much more significant than Brexit. The future of basic aspects of identity, like the Union Flag, the name of the country, its defence system,
and the scope of its territory will be in question. Perhaps the PM grasps this. But his premiership may be defined by this and Unionists will need a far cleverer and
more passionate politics than anything we have seen so far from Boris Johnson — or indeed, Keir Starmer. Nothing in politics, as in life, is inevitable.
But at the moment, the Scotland my father knew is slipping away.
‘Rule, Britannia’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ are both vainglorious, out of date and, to be honest, somewhat embarrassing.
But to ban them suggests you think some people take them literally — which is more embarrassing still.
Written byAndrew Marr