EP49: The Scottish Devolutionists

25 years ago this week, Scotland voted for its own Parliament. This cut against the grain of centuries of British constitutional logic; traditionally, what the Monarch's government in Westminster said applied not just to England, but to Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland too, and debates around whether devolution has undermined that supremacy still rage today.  More controversially still, though, is the blurred line between self-government for Scotland within the UK and Scottish independence. Whilst most of the devolutionists discussed today advocate for Britain staying in the UK but with greater autonomy, the Parliament set up in Edinburgh has been controlled since 2007 by the pro-independence Scottish National Party, currently led by Nicola Sturgeon. The Scottish Devolutionists may therefore have opened a pandora's box over which they have little control. My guest for this conversation commemorating the Parliament's 25th birthday is a man who knows it better than perhaps anyone else. Lord Jack McConnell was First Minister of Scotland between 2001 and 2007, and is the first former head of government to appear on the Hated and the Dead. We discuss the flourishing of the modern Scottish, as opposed to British, identity; the government of Margaret Thatcher as a catalyst for change, the complex interplay between Brexit and Scottish independence, the future of Jack’s Labour Party in Scotland, and much more.