{"id":35230,"date":"2016-07-04T03:00:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-04T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=35230"},"modified":"2016-07-03T11:46:14","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T15:46:14","slug":"the-snp-manages-to-be-a-party-of-protest-and-a-party-of-government-at-the-same-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2016\/07\/04\/the-snp-manages-to-be-a-party-of-protest-and-a-party-of-government-at-the-same-time\/","title":{"rendered":"The SNP manages to be “a party of protest and a party of government at the same time”"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Kay<\/a> discusses the differences between the English anti-EU vote and the Scottish anti-English vote:<\/p>\n

As a schoolboy in Edinburgh, I was taught that, long before the union with England, Scotland had been a cosmopolitan country. The ports on the east coast showed the influence of trade with the Netherlands and the Hanseatic League. The Scots language demonstrated continental influences. The citizens of Edinburgh would shout \u201cgardyloo\u201d, supposedly from the French \u201cgare de l\u2019eau<\/em>\u201d, before throwing their slops into the streets from the windows of the tall tenements of Edinburgh\u2019s Old Town.<\/p>\n

Even then, this example of early Scots sophistication did not convince. And the claim that their vote to stay in the EU \u2014 all districts of Scotland voted Remain in the referendum, and 62 per cent of the nation\u2019s voters as a whole voted to stay in the EU \u2014 is the product of a broad-minded outlook not seen south of the border also misses a crucial point.
\n The reality is that the discontent with established politics that erupted in the Leave vote elsewhere in the country has found expression in other ways. As one student of Scottish politics, explaining the UK Independence party\u2019s lack of traction north of the border, put it to me two years ago: \u201cPeople in Scotland who are disgruntled and suspicious of foreigners [the English] already have a party they can vote for.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fracturing of the opposition Labour party\u2019s traditional support in depressed areas of the north of England, which was decisive in securing an Out vote, paralleled the collapse of Labour\u2019s vote in the west of Scotland in favour of the Scottish National party in the general election of 2015.<\/p>\n

The great achievement of the SNP, now in government in Holyrood and with MPs in Westminster, has been to be a party of protest and a party of government at the same time. This is an achievement Brexiters will find hard to emulate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

H\/T to both Colby Cosh<\/a> and Tim Harford<\/a> for the link.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Kay discusses the differences between the English anti-EU vote and the Scottish anti-English vote: As a schoolboy in Edinburgh, I was taught that, long before the union with England, Scotland had been a cosmopolitan country. The ports on the east coast showed the influence of trade with the Netherlands and the Hanseatic League. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,62,53],"tags":[570,337,338,114],"class_list":["post-35230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-europe","category-politics","tag-england","tag-eu","tag-scotland","tag-separatism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-9ae","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35230"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35233,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35230\/revisions\/35233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}