Scottish Home Rule: The Answer to Scotland’s Constitutional Question

From the outset, I must disclose, I’m not Scottish so ultimately, it is not for me to decide Scotland’s constitutional future. But, Ben Thomson’s book offers an insightful third option which sits between Scottish Independence and Unionism. The book details the history of Home Rule from the 1800s to devolution in 1997 to the independence referendum in 2014. The next two sections of the book help to define Home Rule as a constitutional concept and the benefits it would bring Scotland. The final reflection of the book is that ultimately we are heading towards a second referendum on Scottish Independence, and unlike 2014, the Scottish public should have the option of Home Rule.

The first section of the book details the history of the Home Rule movement. Ben Thomson is able to effortlessly explain how from the 1800s the Home Rule movement grew in both Ireland and Scotland. He explains that it was not until 1913, when a Government of Scotland Bill first was proposed. Then, Thomson explains how concurrent to the Home Rule movement, the nationalist movement formed. This culminated with the formation of the Scottish National Party (SNP). By looking at the 1979 Referendum, Thomson shows how afterwards consensus among parties and politicians was created on the idea of devolution. This grew in momentum, and led to a second referendum in 1997. Finally, he explores the independence referendum, and discusses how home rule as a policy started to be talked about again, albeit being referred to as devomax. But ultimately, David Cameron chose to not allow Home Rule to be an option on the ballot paper.

The middle section of this book better defines Home Rule. In effect, home rule means devolving most domestic policy to Scotland, and creating a ‘constitutionally mandated partnership of equals’ (Thomson, 2020:17) between the Scottish Government and the UK Government. For Thomson, this means policy surrounding international affairs, defence and external trade should be the prerogative of the UK Parliament, while pretty much all other domestic policy for Scotland should be decided in the Scottish Parliament. This is far more extensive than the current devolution settlement, because devolution is based on what the UK government is willing to give up, instead of a principled belief in decentralisation. As well as this, Thomson believes that Home Rule depends on fiscal devolution, so that the Scottish Government has not just responsibility for spending (like it currently does), but also responsibility for raising the revenue for such spending. This would create better accountability in Scottish politics, thus being more democratic. Underpinning any divergence in regulation, would be the idea of mutual recognition which you find in other federal nations and within the European Union. He also makes it clear that the block grant would be replaced with a ‘Social Cohesion Fund’ which would recognise resource and economic inequalities across the union, which the UK government would give out to tackle such inequalities.

The final section details how fiscal devolution could allow Scotland to divert from current UK policy. Due to welfare being the prejocative of the Scottish Parliament in Home Rule, they could consider new ways of simplifying benefits or pensions. They could also change how Scotland taxes by recognising the unique economy which Scotland has. Thomson makes the point that within the United States, states tax different things to build up revenue because economies are different, requiring different fiscal policies. Home Rule would enable the Scottish Government to adopt a unique fiscal policy to the benefit of the Scottish economy, which it currently cannot do. This is ultimately why Thomson believes this third option must be offered. It gives Scotland the security of being in the Union, which can give Scotland a clear voice at NATO, UN, G7 etc. But, it would also give Scotland the freedom to enact a wide range of domestic policy, for example drug decriminalisation. In this book’s view, this is the best of both worlds.

My thoughts on this book are quite clear: Home Rule seems to be the sensible option for Scotland. I have long supported the idea of federalising the United Kingdom. But, pushing aside my personal convictions, this book is effective in explaining the history of Home Rule and what Home Rule is. It does all of this in 176 pages, so clearly is not an exhaustive book in understanding the issue, but a useful starting point. It paints a clear, readable vision for Scotland, which on the whole is rid of academic jargon. This makes it the perfect manifesto for Home Rule. I agree with the conclusion of the book: Home Rule should be an option in any future referendum on Scotland’s future.

Why it can only be LGB with the T

Since the height of 2013, when the UK Parliament legalised same sex marriage, it has felt like society was going in the right direction. In 2018, the UK Government created an LGBT Action Plan which created a path for a more equal society. Yet, the ugly beast of bigotry began to fight back. This mainly came in the form of transphobia, but across the board there has been an increase in hate crimes for all LGBT people. This has led to rights being hotly debated again in the media. There has been a concerted effort throughout the past few years to split the LGBTQ+ community into LGB and the T. This must be thwarted, as ultimately the rights of any LGBTQ+ person are intertwined with others across the community. This is because of a common history, and very common moral panics.

A Common History

Throughout history, LGBTQ+ people have existed, even if the terms society uses to describe them are relatively modern. The very words we use to describe LGBTQ+ people have an interesting, yet very muddled history. During the 19th and early 20th century, pseudo-scientists tried to understand LGBTQ+ people. This led to the idea of ‘sexual inversion’ – individuals breaking traditional gender expectations and norms. Sexology understood a female inversion as both being a lesbian or being a trans man, for example. This reveals how when a heteronormative society has tried to understand LGBTQ+ people, it did not start off by dividing them between sexual orientation and gender identity. From the starting line, society had fused these two rather different forms of identity.

Even though both groups broke gendered expectations differently, there was an obvious need for both the trans and LGB community to exist as one movement. This was because they were ultimately fighting the same oppressive force. This can be seen with the German Institute for Sexology in the 1920s. They supported trans patients by giving them access to hormones and sexual reassignment surgery. It also supported LGB people to find a supporting community, which was separate to the homophobic society they existed in. Sadly, this progress was lost at the point the Nazis took power. But, this does reveal how even at the start of the 20th century there was solidarity across the LGBTQ+ community, even if the needs of individuals within the community were different. This recognition of a common goal, and enemy which united the LGBTQ+ community can be seen as each of their civil rights battles. The Stonewall Inn Riots in 1969 was a pivotal turning point for LGBTQ+ rights, with society becoming more permissive but still holding very queerphobic views. As the story goes, it was trans women, like Marsha P Johnson, that were throwing the first bricks. This is a critical reminder that trans people have always been a critical part of the LGBTQ+ movement. They share responsibility in every victory in LGB rights, and it is time that the whole community fights back against transphobia. This means fighting for bodily autonomy, better healthcare and a society where trans people can just be themselves.

A Very Common Moral Panic

In reality, the treatment of LGB and Trans people is not that different. It is the same rhetoric that can be found in each moral panic at each landmark LGBT rights victory. During the moral panic in the late 1990s and early 2000s, significant institutions like the House of Lords, the mainstream press, and the Conservative Party were trying to keep Section 28 on the statute books. In the name of protecting children from perverse ideas, they defended Section 28. The tragedy of this is that Section 28 weakened schools’ ability to deal with homophobic bullying and educate teenagers around safe same sex relations. These institutions ultimately only harmed one of the most vulnerable groups in society, all because they viewed LGB people as perverts. I hope this rings some alarm bells, because it’s not all too different to the moral panic around trans rights. In the name of protecting women and children, institutions involved in the ‘trans debate’ are actively harming one of the most vulnerable groups in society – trans people. Trans children are evidently safer in an environment where they are loved and supported, not in a society where transphobia is rife. Also, there is a tendency to suggest that ‘trans activists’, as some call them, are perverts and up to something nefarious. This is the exact same behaviour from these institutions at previous moral panics relating to LGBTQ+ rights. This is why there needs to be solidarity across the LGBTQ+ community, because it’s the same bigotry which attacks LGB people, that now is attacking trans people.

Also, transphobia does not exist in a bubble. The expansion of transphobia within the political arena has also fueled biphobia and homophobia. Just because progress has been made in LGB rights does not mean that homophobia has gone. Recently, Iain Duncan Smith MP has suggested that Liz Truss MP would abandon the ban on conversion therapy if she became Prime Minister. This is an example of the relationship between transphobia and homophobia – first the ban for trans conversion therapy was dropped, and now it looks like it will be dropped for LGB individuals too. Those who attack trans rights will not just stop there, many wish to turn back the clock on other LGBTQ+ rights. By expanding trans rights, we safeguard the rights of all LGBTQ+ because we cultivate a more inclusive and compassionate society.

Closing Thoughts

It has to be LGB with the T. Not only do the two groups have a common history, shared victories, shared treatment by society, but it also gains so much by working together. By supporting trans people and their rights, we create a society which is more inclusive, more supportive and more compassionate. A society which will benefit all people, especially LGBTQ+ people, irrespective of their identities. As history teaches us, we should be compassionate and actively support people even if we do not have the exact same identity. This can be seen with role of lesbians during the AIDS crisis, when they supported gay and bisexual men, destigmatizing HIV/AIDS and fighting for the medical support that was needed. The big fight for LGBTQ+ rights today is trans rights: their right to be themselves, their right to access healthcare, their right to be safe and happy. It is crucial that all people across the LGBTQ+ spectrum fight for these rights, collectively.

Finally, I wish to remind readers – trans women are women, trans men are men and nonbinary people are nonbinary.

The Prime Ministerial tradition of bloating House of Lords

The House of Lords serves as an advisory chamber within our legislature. The chamber is at its best when it’s full of experts that represent the full raft of talent across the United Kingdom. From this, they offer a critical role in amending legislation and holding the Government to account. But, with Prime Minister Johnson coming to the end of three years as head of Government, he gets his resignation honours list. It is widely suspected that he will pack the House of Lords with even more conservative peers, and Johnson allies. Therefore, the question arises, is this appropriate? Should we consider some immediate reforms? And, when should we start discussing an elected upper house?

The Tradition of Packing the Lords

It is not just Johnson which has contributed to filling the House of Lords up. David Cameron, from 2010-15, appointed 112 peers. Theresa May only appointed 43 during her three year period as Prime Minister. The argument is that the chamber is old, which leads to deaths and retirements, thus a given Prime Minister needs to bring new life into the chamber. This argument is fair to an extent, but the House of Lords is much larger than necessary to be an effective chamber.

This has been recognised by the Lord Speaker, who wrote to both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak asking them not to appoint as many members to the House of Lords. As helpful as it is for a Prime Minister to constrain themselves, like Gordon Brown and Theresa May did, I believe this poses the question of structural reform. Using the House of Lords as a form of patronage is not necessarily helpful for the chamber, because this misses its modern day purpose to critique and review legislation. If we keep the House of Lords as an appointed body, surely we need a process to significantly limit the number of appointments made and make it robust enough that it is not a tool of patronage.

The Agenda of Reform

This is not the first time that reform of the House of Lords has been suggested. There is a long history, which intensified in 1911 with the Parliament Act. This law legislated to weaken the House of Lords veto and cement the House of Commons’ supremacy over the Lords. Then, in 1999, Prime Minister Blair limited the number of hereditary peers to 92. Most recently, Nick Clegg, as Deputy Prime Minister, tried to create a new set of elected peers but this failed to get past the second reading. Therefore, there’s clearly precedent to reconsider the purpose and makeup of the House of Lords. Given the House of Lords has swelled in size over the last decade, and polling has suggested reforms to the chamber are supported by the public, we should seriously consider steps to deal with the upper chamber.

We need to reassess the size of the House of Lords immediately, then we can discuss more fundamental changers, such as an elected chamber. Boris Johnson has created 86 peers, which is likely to increase by the time he formally resigns. This means the House of Lords has bloated to around 760 sitting members. It is clearly inappropriate for an undemocratic chamber, with significantly less power than the lower chamber, to be the larger chamber within the legislature. Therefore, for as long as the chamber is appointed, we need to regulate the number of appointments the Prime Minister can create to bring down the size of the chamber. This is already supported by a 2017 report by the Lord Speaker suggesting a cap to the chamber at around 600 members. This would bring it roughly in line with the size of the House of Commons which feels more appropriate.

Closing thoughts

Ultimately, we cannot stop at merely reducing the size of the House of Lords. We should have a more fundamental conversation about creating an elected chamber, with a precise constitutionally mandated role and remit. This could be a Senate, which represents the regions and nations, that revises legislation. It would also give a greater role to the regions and nations of our Union within the legislature, which could help deal with our democratic deficit. But, history suggests that Lords Reform is a piecemeal process which ends up with compromised solutions. Therefore, we must immediately embrace capping the size of the House of Lords, limiting the number of appointments the Prime Minister can make and making the oversight of appointments robust enough to tackle cronyism. This would make the House of Lords more effective in its current state, until we can deliver on the promise of an elected upper chamber.

History rhymes: lessons to learn for the Union

It is Mark Twain who said ‘history never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.’ This has never been more important than when we discuss the fate of the United Kingdom. A little over a century ago, the fierce battle was going on in the Houses of Parliament over Irish Home Rule. This was the existential crisis which led to Ireland becoming an independent country. Now, it is Scotland having this fundamental conversation over its place in the Union. I believe quite fundamentally that history is rhyming again, and it is time that Westminster learnt its lesson.

Kill Home Rule with Kindness

Throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian period, the Irish Parliamentary Party called for an Irish Parliament in Dublin, akin to modern day devolution in the UK. The answer to these calls, by Conservatives and Liberal Unionists, was to kill home rule with kindness. This in practice was a set of policies which gave peasants lands, and other economic changes. These legislative changes might have made it easier for peasants to buy their land, it missed the fundamental point. During this period, there was a growing and distinct sense of Irishness in Ireland which wanted a formal political institution. This agenda could never placate the cultural and political desire for autonomy.

I believe we face the same problem in the Union today. In the lead up to the Edinburgh agreement in 2012, there was a growing debate over Devo-Max. This involved devolving full tax raising ability to the Scottish Parliament. It was the decision of Prime Minister David Cameron to not allow this on the ballot in the 2014 referendum. Polling suggests that upwards of half Scottish and Welsh people want some form of devo-max. Combined with this, northern towns in England voted to ‘take back control’ in 2016. This partly involved the desire for a new political settlement within England. This is supported by 2015 polling from ComRes suggesting that 82% of northern adults want some form of devolution. This all supports the argument that there is a growing desire for constitutional change, outside of Westminster. Successive governments have attempted to placate this, with an ill-defined ‘levelling up’ or ‘northern powerhouse’ agenda. Just as with the Irish Land Acts, levelling up money is required to tackle regional inequality. But, it will not deal with the fundamental desire for politics to work differently. Despite this desire being stronger in Scotland, that does not mean we should ignore the growing grumblings of an unfair political settlement within England. The lesson to learn from killing home rule with kindness does not work, and the best answer is to embrace a new political settlement.

Too little, too late

The Liberal Government in 1912 presented the third Government of Ireland Bill. Westminster then spent two years discussing how Home Rule should be implemented, how much power should be devolved and how to deal with Ulster Unionism. This was clearly not easy to solve, but then the Great War happened. This sealed the fate for the Union in Ireland. The 1916 Easter Rising created martyrs, and by 1918, Sinn Féin won a landslide in Ireland. 1919 saw Ireland declare its independence. By circling back to 1912, it seems like a distracted Westminster offered Ireland too little, too late. The demands for autonomy within the Union were not met, so they hardened for independence.

Again, the United Kingdom faces a similar crisis today. Our main unionist parties, the Conservatives and Labour, are clear that they will not grant a Scottish Independence referendum for another generation. Some unionists will even go as far as making a positive argument for the Union. But, this misses the point. In 2014, a vow was created between these parties and the Scottish people. They agreed if Scotland voted to remain in the Union, far greater devolution would be granted. For many this meant fiscal devolution, but for the Conservatives, it ultimately meant more half-baked devolution. This broken promise creates resentment, rejecting a referendum with no criteria for a future referendum created even more resentment. This is the same problem which we faced in Ireland over a century ago, where the unionists parties debated and negotiated between themselves, while the Irish people moved onto the fundamental question of Independence. The lesson is clear: we should be offering the nations and regions of the UK a better deal, if we are to save our Union. This means a radical, new political settlement. If we fail to do this, just as happened in 1919, the Union will crumble a little more.

Conclusion

The United Kingdom is facing a familiar crossroads. Last time, Westminster chose to do too little and to squabble between themselves, instead of finding the solution. This led to bloodshed, and Ireland ultimately becoming an independent country. We are facing a similar crossroads. A second Scottish independence referendum will happen, that is inevitable. Scottish Independence is not necessarily a given, but neither is the Union staying intact. If Westminster and more widely unionists, want to save the Union, they must learn the lessons from last time. They must recognise that economic changes and investment is helpful, but does not fundamentally deal with desires for autonomy. Complacency will lead to resentment, and ultimately tear apart the Union.

Obviously, Westminster has already made significant mistakes towards our Union. The feeling of betrayal is strong in Scotland, because the unionist parties created The Vow, yet never delivered substantial and radical devolution to the Scottish people. So, we will never truly know if we are too late to recognise our Union is under real threat. The lesson of a century ago is that we need to abandon complacency, own up to the betrayal and deliver on the political promise given to the four nations of our Union. In this, we can create an equal partnership between each part of the United Kingdom.

This also is not just a Scottish problem. This growing desire for political change exists across the UK. I fundamentally believe that the anthem of Brexit, “take back control”, was not just about Brussels, but also about regions across our Union taking back control from an over centralised Westminster. Yet, that thirst has not been quenched. Resentment will grow, if we fail to offer radical political solutions to these desires.