The United Kingdom and its Component Parts

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

The United Kingdom and its Component Parts

This book is about Britain, but that word has no clear definition. When people say 'Britain' they usually mean the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', which is a single state, and as such a member of the European Community and United Nations. Some people mistakenly call this whole unit 'England', and in doing so annoy the Scots and Welsh. They consider their parts of the island of Great Britain to be distinct 'nations', though they, and the people of dozens of inhabited Scottish offshore islands and Anglesey (or Ynys Mon) off Wales, are wholly within the United Kingdom

Wales and Scotland both have their own internal administrations, each with a Secretary of State who is a member of the UK cabinet - though some services which are separate for Scotland are not separate for Wales. One irksome effect of these arrangements is that some official statistics are produced separately for the four parts of the UK, some put England and Wales together, some refer to Great Britain but not Northern Ireland, and some cover the whole UK.

Scotland and Wales both elect their MPs to the UK House of Commons, by the same electoral system, with each seat won by the candidate who receives more votes than any other. Both have more seats per million people than England has. Scottish and Welsh politicians have been important in the UK's national affairs. Neil Kinnock, who became leader of the Labour Party in 1983, is a Welshman. He represents a Welsh seat in the House of Commons; so too did his two predecessors as leaders of the party. The UK's last Liberal prime minister; Lloyd George (1916-22) was Welsh. In the period 1892-1964 half of the UK's prime ministers were Scotsmen.

In both countries the Labour Party is very strong in the old industrial areas where most of the people live. At every general election since 1959 Labour has had more votes and won more seats than the Conservatives in both countries. But for most of this time the Conservatives have been in power in the UK, and therefore in charge of the internal administrations, with Conservative ministers for Scotland and Wales. On the other hand, at three of the four general elections won by Labour in this period the Conservatives won more seats than Labour in England, so that it was the Scottish and Welsh votes that put Labour into office.

In Scotland support for Labour increased in the 1980s. In 1987 the Conservatives won only ten seats in Scotland, to Labour's fifty (out of seventy-two). The allied parties of the centre won nine seats, the Nationalists three. In Wales Labour won twenty-four of the thirty-eight seats - eight more than in 1983.

Both Scotland and Wales have for a long time had their nationalist parties, with aims ranging up to the extreme of complete independence. These parties gained enough support in the early 1970s to cause alarm in the major parties, particularly Labour. At the October 1974 election the Scottish Nationalists got 30 per cent of the Scottish votes and won eleven of the seventy-one Scottish seats in the House of Commons. As the Labour government in London had only a tiny overall majority (which it soon lost through defeats in by-elections), it needed to take action to identify its party with the ideas which were causing many Scots (and small but increasing numbers of the Welsh) to vote for their Nationalist politicians.

In 1978-79 a bill was passed by Parliament to increase the autonomy of Scotland and Wales within the Kingdom, and to provide for them to elect national parliaments (though still keeping their seats in the UK House of Commons). But some English Labour MPs did not like these privileges, and the bill was finally passed with a requirement for a referendum in each of the two nations. To bring the bill's provisions into effect there must be not only a majority of those voting, but at least 40 per cent of those registered to vote. In Scotland the votes were 32.88 per cent 'Yes' and 30.78 per cent 'No', so the bill collapsed. A similar provision for Wales produced 12 per cent 'Yes' votes and 47 per cent 'No'. So the bill failed. The Scottish Nationalists then moved a vote of no confidence in the Government and the Government was defeated. At the ensuing general election, which returned the Conservatives to power, the Nationalists lost nine of the eleven seats which they had held before. The nationalist momentum had collapsed and did not revive in the next eight years -though the Scottish Nationalists showed signs of a possible recovery in 1987-90.

Northern Ireland is within the UK and most of its people feel themselves to be British, though a minority do not. 'Their political parties are entirely different from the British, being based on the Protestant and Catholic communities.

The islands of Jersey and Guernsey, near the coast of Normandy, and the Isle of Man (in the Irish Sea) are not within the UK, though all are smaller in area than several Scottish islands, and less far from the British coast than some of them. They are not represented in the UK Parliament, they have their own governments and finances, fix their own taxes, and have their own courts and judicial systems. They are self-governing 'crown dependencies'. Their people regard themselves as British. When necessary the UK government represents their interests in foreign relations and in the European Community. They are very prosperous, and benefit from their peculiar status.

Wales

The only big towns in Wales are along the south coast and in the nearby coalmining valleys which run down from the southern hills. Less than half of the Welsh people live in the remaining nine-tenths of the country's area, most of which is mountainous and full of medieval ruined castles. The greatest of these, Caernarvon, in the north, was used, according to tradition, for the investiture of Queen Elizabeth II's eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, as Prince of Wales. There are good castle ruins in the south as well, but the castle in the centre of the nation's capital at Cardiff was rebuilt a hundred years ago. Apart from the old castles, Welsh architecture is not distinctive, though Cardiff has some fine buildings of the early 1900s.

Choral singing is a national art. It is a fine thing to hear the spectators' hymns at a Welsh victory over England at the national game of Rugby football at Cardiff. All the Welsh team are likely to have been chosen from towns within an hour's journey of Cardiff.

Another special Welsh art is an ability to use the English language with imaginative elegance, particularly in speech. The poet Dylan Thomas came from a place near Swansea; so did the actor Richard Burton (whose real name was Jenkins). For a long time eloquence flourished among the preachers in the Baptist and Methodist chapels of the southern mining valleys. Now it is heard more in the trade unions and the Labour Party. The Welsh language, which is Celtic, has survived in parts of the north and west, more spontaneously than the rather similar Gaelic languages of Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany. At the 1981 census 19 per cent of the whole population claimed that they could speak Welsh, us compared with 29 per cent in 1951. In the past twenty years there has been a serious attempt to revive the language. All over Wales children in the counties' schools arc required to spend some time learning Welsh, though many of them do not remember much beyond the correct pronunciation of place names like Troedyrhiw and Cwmrhydyceirw. Anyone can claim a right to speak Welsh in a court of law, or to use it in academic examinations. Many official jobs are reserved for people who have at least some ability to speak Welsh. Public documents and notices are in Welsh and English, and road signposts show place names either in Welsh only or in both Welsh and English spelling. Nobody drives to Cardiff without knowing it by that name, but the signposts also call it Caerdydd.

Welsh nationalism is mainly cultural and linguistic. The national flag, with its fine dragon, is regularly displayed, the Welsh national anthem played and sung. The 800-year-old National Eisteddfodd, a festival of Welsh music and poetry dating from the twelfth century, is held each year with official help. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh National Party, won three of the country's thirty-eight seats at the election of 1987, all in the Welsh-speaking far north-west. But in more than half of the constituencies in Wales its candidates received less than 5 per cent of the votes cast, and so lost' their deposits. In Cardiff their support was below 2 per cent.

Scotland

Scotland has just over a tenth as many people as England, in an area more than half as big. It was a separate kingdom, with powerful local lairds, until 1603, when its King James VI became King James I of England too. From then onwards the two countries had the same monarch, though the Act of Union was not passed until 1707. This Act incorporated Scotland with England in the United Kingdom, but the Scots kept their own legal system, religion and administration and still keep them now. Thus Scotland has never been united with England in the same way as Wales. Scottish national consciousness is cultural and sentimental, and not much concerned with language. The Gaelic language, a Celtic form, is still used rather than Englishamong the people of some remote Highland districts, but elsewhere most of the people are not of Celtic origin and would have no possible reason for wanting to introduce the Gaelic language, which would be an entirely foreign tongue. English is spoken all over Scotland with a variety of regional accents, but all of these can be at once recognised as Scottish, with thevowels and consonants pronounced more nearly as written than in standard English or any of the regional accents of England. Also, there are many words and phrases which are peculiar to Scottish use, and this is felt to maintain national distinctness quite enough.

Parts of south-western Scotland are full of thriving farms, favoured by a mild climate. But even in this area most of the land is too high for easy cultivation. Two-thirds of Scotland's people live in the industrial belt which stretches from the picturesque Clyde estuary in the south-west, across the country's narrowest part to the River Forth and Edinburgh, then up the east coast to the great fishing port of Aberdeen, which now also serves as the mainland centre for the North Sea's oil industry.

Glasgow has always rivalled Edinburgh in medicine, scholarship and the arts, and in the age of iron and steel nearby coalmines helped the Clyde 10 become one of the world's main shipbuilding centres. Glasgow's prosperity in the nineteenth century produced a special and distinguished style of architecture, both in the city's public buildings and in the houses of the old bourgeoisie. Lately, with the near-collapse of Glasgow's old industries, the city has suffered heavy unemployment. But efforts at rehabilitation have had some success. A fine new building, in a suburban park, houses the great art collection bequeathed by the ship owner, Sir William Burrell. The soot has been cleaned off the old buildings. There is afresh confidence in the air. But Edinburgh, as Scotland's administrative and legal capital, is more prosperous. Its annual festival of music and the arts is truly international, and a worthy celebration of the grandeur of the city's setting. Near its castle, across a deep valley from the famous Princes Street, are some of Britain's finest eighteenth-century streets and squares.

Scottish towns look very different from English ones. Architectural traditions have been quite distinct, with certain styles appearing all over Scotland but not at all in England. In the central areas of towns, where in England nineteenth-century building consisted mostly of long rows of two-storey red brick houses, the Scots built grey four-storey apartment-houses. In the past thirty years Glasgow's notorious smoke-blackened old tenement buildings have mostly been demolished, replaced by modern blocks of flats (including Britain's highest tower blocks). At the census of 1981 more than two-thirds of Glasgow's people were tenants of the local council. The streets of most small towns and country villages have little of the grace of the English eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Stone has been the usual building material until very recently, though now brick is often to be seen; in fact Scottish architecture seems to be gradually losing its distinctive character.

The most interesting and beautiful part of Scotland - and of the whole of Britain - is the north and west, or the region commonly called the highlands and islands'. Great sea-lochs, or fjords, not unlike those of Norway, alternate with wild and empty hills, and on some of the lochs there are farms which can only be reached by boat. Cone-shaped, boggy mountains of 1,000 to 1,300 metres high, separated by deep valleys, cover the whole inland area as well as parts of some islands. Agriculture is hard and poor. Vast new and dull coniferous forests have been planted on the mountains, helped by government subsidies. They give some employ­ment but spoil the scenery. Shooting and fishing are rich men's sports, pursued mainly on estates belonging to old aristocrats or new tycoons of commerce, some of them English, some foreign. The old small towns and villages have hotels and caravan sites, but the country has not been spoiled by overdevelopment. Aviemore in the Cairngorm region of the Central Highlands is the only big ski resort. Thousands of holidaymakers visit the Highlands in the summer, hoping for good luck with the weal her.

Many hydroelectric power stations have been built to make use of some of the vast water resources of the Highlands, and North Sea oil has brought a temporary prosperity to the north-east. Elsewhere communities are kept alive partly by tourists, partly by rich men who have big estates to which they come for shooting and fishing, and partly by the few who, like the writer George Orwell, when he lived on the island of Jura, want to escape from the busy modern world. But since 1960 the Highland population has grown for the first time for a hundred years.

The foundation of Scotland's distinctness from England is partly religious. Calvin's influence at first affected doctrine in England and Scotland alike, but when the English adopted the moderately Protestant system of the Anglican Church the Scots would not follow them. Under the religious leadership of John Knox they fully accepted the Reforma­tion and established their own Presbyterian church, which has survived, with some serious breaches in its own ranks, until the present time.

The Church of Scotland performs the function of a national Church. Its services are relatively well attended, and the annual meetings of its General Assembly are attended by the Queen or the Lord High Commissioner as her representative. Its Moderator, elected annually by the Assembly, has precedence in Scotland over the Prime Minister. 1 le is not a bishop; there are no bishops, no hierarchy. The Queen attends Church of Scotland services when in Scotland, but has no formal position in relation to it. Its sole head is Jesus Christ. Scottish Presbyterianism has a puritan tradition, expressed in the past by doctrinal rigidity and by condemnation of Sabbath-breaking, the theatre, dancing and pleasure-seeking, but these severities have largely disappeared. Sundays in Scotland, once notorious for their austerity, are now about the same as in England . There is a large proportion of Roman Catholics, particularly in Glasgow, and hostility between Catholics and Protestants occasionally produces lights, usually associated with football matches.

Because of the Puritan influence education was for a long time more easily accessible to the people and more democratic than in England . Three hundred years ago nearly every Scottish community had a good school, and for a very long time alter that, while most students at Oxford and Cambridge were the sons of rich men amusing themselves, the four universities of Scotland were full of poor students who had no means or inclination to do anything but study. Some became school teachers or ministers of the Church of Scotland, but many others took the road to England to seek their fortunes and to use the abilities which education had developed in them. This process is sometimes called the conquest of England by the Scots, and it has not stopped yet.

Many Scotsmen have gone to England to seek their fortunes, but many others have gone farther from home. It has been estimated that there are over twenty million people of Scottish extraction in North America, Australia and other parts of the world. Two hundred years ago the typical Scotsman, hard-working, serious-minded and economical, was notice­ably different from the Englishman of the privileged classes, who tended to admire extravagance and a certain frivolity, and this contrast may have much to do with the development of the Scottish reputation for meanness. Modern Scotsmen may still dislike wasting money, but most visitors to modern Scotland come away with an impression that the people are hospitable and generous.

Scottish law, based on Roman law, remains distinct from English. The Scottish courts are organised quite differently from the English, and the law itself is different - though on some matters legislation affecting Scotland has made the law the same in the two countries. Most cases in Scotland are tried in sheriff courts, which have no exact equivalent in England. Sheriffs and sheriffs-substitute are advocates who have been appointed to judicial posts. They deal with fairly minor criminal cases under summary procedure, sitting without juries or with juries to "try more serious cases. A Scottish jury consists of fifteen persons instead of twelve, and is not bound to find a person 'guilty' or 'not guilty'; it may find a charge 'not proven'. The most important cases are tried before courts presided over by judges of the Court of Session, who travel around on circuit. They have the official title of 'Lord', but are not members of the House of Lords.

Education, agriculture, housing, health, planning, roads, transport, public order and local government are the responsibility of departments of the Scottish Office, under the political control of the Secretary of S tate for Scotland, who must always be a Scottish MP. Legislation concerning these matters has for a long time been separately passed for Scotland. The Scottish health service is based, for example, on the National Health Service (Scotland) Act, and the Local Government (Scotland) Act of 1973 reformed Scottish local government in a way different from the English, with 'regions' instead of 'counties'.

Although Scottish bills are passed by Parliament at Westminster, their details are in practice debated only by MPs representing constituencies in Scotland. (Most, but not all of these, are Scots and some Scottish people represent constituencies in England.) Apart from their work on bills, the MPs for Scotland have for many years held at least six debates a year on aspects of Scottish affairs.

Northern Ireland

In a book about Britain something must be said of Irish history in order to make it clear what is the position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. The inhabitants of this large and beautiful island are mainly Celtic in origin and the majority never accepted the Reformation. In 1801 a new law added Ireland to the United Kingdom. By this time much of the land belonged to Protestant English landlords, and the Act of Union followed a period in which rebellious peasants were brutally repressed. But in the six northern counties the Protestants were not a dominant minority: they were a majority of the population. Most were descended from Scottish and English settlers who had moved into Ireland several generations before. They considered themselves to be Irish but remained as a distinct community, and there was not much intermarriage. There had been conflicts and battles between the two communities, still remembered along with their heroes and martyrs.

The Union of 1801 gave Ireland seats in the UK Parliament, and after the extensions of the franchise in the nineteenth century a nationalist party won most of the seats. Soon its MPs were demanding self- • government, or 'home rule' - a status similar to Canada's.

In 1912, when the Liberals were in power with the support of the main group of Irish MPs, the House of Commons passed a Home Rule bill, but it was delayed by the House of Lords. It was bitterly opposed by the Protestant majority of the people in the six northern counties, and by the MPs they had elected. They did not want to be included in a self-governing Ireland dominated by Catholics.

Eventually the island was partitioned. In 1922 the greater part became effectively an independent state, and (in 1949) a republic outside the Commonwealth. (However, the many Irish citizens who live in the UK are not treated as foreigners.) Its laws, on divorce and other matters, reflect the influence of the Catholic Church. Its Protestant population soon fell by half.

The six northern counties remained within the United Kingdom, with seats in the U K parliament, but had their own parliament, prime minister and government responsible for internal affairs.

In the politics of Northern Ireland the main factor has always been the hostility between Protestants and Catholics. On appropriate dates each year both groups commemorate past confrontations with great and bellicose processions. Although some people do not like these sectarian demonstrations, the only political parties which win seats at elections are based on the two communities. The Catholic population has increased; the Protestants have declined, but are still in the 1990s about three-fifths of the whole.

Until 1972 the Northern Irish Parliament (called Stormont) always had a Protestant majority and a government formed from it. By the 1960s Catholic discontent produced serious riots. The police were mainly Protestants. Their actions against the rioters were seen as partisan. The UK Labour government of the time had sympathy with the Catholics' grievances. The Protestant parties, calling themselves Unionists (that is, supporters of the union of the province with the UK) regularly supported the Conservatives, while some MPs elected for Catholic parties to the U K parliament took little or no part in its business except, in a few cases, to ask for redress of the Catholics' grievances.

In 1969 the UK Labour government sent troops to Northern Ireland, with orders to help impartially to keep order. But to most Catholics UK troops have become identified with the union of Northern Ireland within the UK. Many moderate Catholics dislike the division of the island, but recognise that the union of the North with the Republic could only be imposed against the wishes of the majority in the North, and would probably lead to civil war. Less moderate Catholics have some sympathy with their own extremists, the Irish Republican Army (IRA), who are prepared to use any means, including indiscriminate violence, in support of the demand to be united with the Republic of Ireland.

In 1969-72 the UK governments, first Labour, then Conservative, tried hard to persuade the Protestant politicians to agree to changes which might be acceptable to the Catholics, but made little progress. In 1972 the UK government (then Conservative) decided that the independent regime could not solve its problems, and put an end to it. Since then the internal administration has been run under the responsibility of the UK cabinet. In political terms this decision of Mr Heath's government was an act of self-sacrifice. Until 1972 the Irish (Protestant) Unionist MPs had regularly supported the Conservatives in the UK parliament, but since then they have become an independent group, not united among themselves, and not linked to any UK party: a sort of dissident Protestant nationalist party. Most of them, like the Northern Irish Catholic MPs, members of Sinn Fein, the Republican party, have taken little part in UK affairs except those involving Northern Ireland.

From 1972 onwards successive UK governments have tried to find a 'political solution' to the Northern Irish problems, that is, a solution acceptable to most Catholics and most Protestants. Several devices have been tried, with little or no success. Protestant politicians are elected on programmes which involve refusal to accept compromise. At the European Parliament election of 1984, run on proportional representation, that formidable orator the Reverend Ian Paisley got more first preference votes than any other candidate - and in 1988 he shouted insults at Pope John Paul II when lie visited the European Parliament Strasbourg. Mr Paisley was also elected to the UK I louse of Commons by a huge majority, in 1987. He has held his seat there since 1970.

Meanwhile the IRA continues its terrorist campaign. It receives both moral and financial support from some descendants of Irish people who emigrated to the United States. Although so many innocent victims have been killed, many of them by chance or through mistakes, it does not seem likely that any different British government policy would have succeeded in preventing the violence that goes on.

Northern Ireland's economy, based partly on farming, partly on the heavy industries of Belfast, has brought its people a standard of living well above that of the Republic, but lower than Great Britain's. With the decline of shipbuilding there is now serious unemployment, and vast sums have been spent by UK governments in attempts to improve the situation.

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1739