Election 2015: What the past can tell us about the SNP's role at Westminster

Talking to Andrew Marr on Sunday, David Cameron argued that a Labour government backed by the SNP would be calamitous (Wintour, 2015). He said:

"This would be the first time in our history that a group of nationalists from one part of our country would be involved in altering the direction of our country..." (Marr, 2015)

Historically that is not, however, strictly true.

If, as the polls suggest, Labour and the Conservatives are unable to break their deadlock and a hung parliament results, then we could be looking at a repeat of 1910. Swap a few of the parties around - Liberal Party and Labour Party, the Irish Parliamentary Party for the Scottish National Party - and you have a similar outcome on 7th May as occurred in 1910: the Left and Centre outnumbering the Right, and a Centre-Left minority government propped up by a party of regional nationalists (Collins, 2015).

In the years preceding 1910 there had been a withering struggle between the Liberals and Conservatives over reforming the power of the lords, to limit the power of the Tory landowners and to allow for the passage of the Liberal 'People's Budget' (Cavendish, 2009). That struggle resulted in the first election of 1910, where the Liberal majority was reduced to a Liberal minority. In an attempt to break the deadlock, a second election was held in December - but that only produced the same result.

The third largest party was the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) with 74 seats, a full 70% of the seats in Ireland - a sweep not unlike that expected from the SNP in 2015 (Kuenssberg, 2015). Since the early 1880s, the IPP had been allied to the Liberal Party in pursuit of Home Rule for Ireland (Baston, 2015). After decades of campaigning, their position of power in propping up a Liberal minority allowed them to finally achieve the passage of a Home Rule Bill.

The comparison to Irish Nationalism of the early 1900s should not be overstated, though. The struggle for Irish independence carried barely suppressed undertones of direct action and violence - reprisals for suppressions and centuries of denied reform (Baston, 2015).

Yet there remain some interesting comparisons. When the IPP secured itself the role of kingmaker in a hung parliament, it succeeded in putting Ireland right at the centre of discussions. Having been defeated in the 2014 referendum, Alex Salmond had acknowledged that the independence question would be off the table for a generation (McVeigh, 2014). But that doesn't mean that, if as expected the SNP become the third largest party in Parliament, there isn't a Scottish corner to be fought at Westminster - including the promised further devolution.

However, Ireland becoming the centre of political attention in 1910 was resented in England (Boland, 2015). That same sort of resentment is being seen again, with an anti-Scotland sentiment on the rise, fed by Right-wing propaganda (Milne, 2015). But that negativity has been countered to a degree, though, by the popularity of Nicola Sturgeon, who has received a positive reaction outside of Scotland.

The SNP's clear stance of supporting a Labour government, and opposing a Conservative one, will also have helped (The Guardian, 2015). Again, that is not unlike the IPP, who stood alongside the Liberals for decades in the campaign for Home Rule - although they had little alternative with the Conservatives utterly opposed to their aims.

While adopting a clear position - being clear as to what side the party will take in advance - has let voters know what to expect, the SNP's announcement of who they will side with in a hung parliament will restrict their bargaining power, just as it restricted that of the IPP. Yet the SNP has tried playing the two big parties off against each other before, and that did not achieve better results.

In 1979, James Callaghan's Labour minority government was defeated in a motion of no confidence - by just one vote - which ushered in the Thatcher-Conservative era. Callaghan's minority government, in return for SNP and Plaid Cymru support, had legislated for devolution of power to Scotland and Wales. Struggling to pass the act, the focus switched to a referendum. Devolution for Scotland was narrowly rejected by referendum, though not without controversy (Aitken, 2015). Having lost a referendum, the SNP took the Conservative side and moved to oust Labour. The SNP subsequently lost most of their seats at the general election.

One big difference between 2015 and either 1910 or 1979, it that reciprocity on the part of Labour to the overtures of the SNP has been at an all time low (Ship, 2015). Even if a Labour minority governs after the next election, the SNP's direct influence may well still be further restricted.

Yet the party's seats, and those of the other possible members of the discussed Progressive Alliance bloc that would sit in the next parliament (Mason, 2015), could still act as a significant anchor-weight, holding the government in the Centre-Left.

In doing so, the SNP seem to have learned the lessons of the past. They has striven to avoid accusations of splitting progressive voters by committing to being part of a broad progressive voice at Westminster. The problem is that Labour seem to have learnt the lessons as well, believing they cannot afford to appear weak and at the mercy of sectional interests if they want to keep the support of those voters they appeal to on the Centre-Right.

Having now staked out their territory, the SNP can no longer afford not to keep to their Left-leaning commitments. Any failure or perception of wavering will see the party facing the same fall from grace as suffered by the Lib Dems. Those factors should at least ensure a progressive, Left-leaning parliament if people in Scotland vote for the SNP.

One final interesting note: the strength of Ireland's voting block in the 1880s was strong enough to force a reorganisation of parliamentary workings. In order to stop the IPP voting block from using Parliament to force its issues onto the agenda, the establishment's answer was to give the the government more power over Parliamentary proceedings and reduce the power of backbenchers (Baston, 2015).

The rise of the SNP and impending minority administrations - by restricting the ability of central government to act with impunity while they hold a majority - could now return that power back to Parliament. Far from disassembling the country in the next Parliament, the SNP could just be in a position to do the whole country a favour.

References

Patrick Wintour's 'Labour-SNP coalition would be calamitous, says David Cameron'; in The Guardian; 19 April 2015.

Andrew Marr's 'The Andrew Marr Show Interview: David Cameron, MP Prime Minister'; on the BBC; 19 April 2015.

Stephen Collins' 'Stephen Collins: Labour win in UK elections is preferable from Irish perspective'; in The Irish Times; 18 April 2015.

Richard Cavendish's 'The House of Lords rejects the 1909 People’s Budget'; in History Today; 1 November 2009.

Justin Parkinson's 'A century of hung parliaments'; on the BBC; 7 April 2010.

Laura Kuenssberg's 'Election 2015: Can SNP really smash Labour? By Laura Kuenssberg'; on the BBC; 10 April 2015.

Lewis Baston's 'Will Salmond follow Parnell's example after the next election?'; on Conservative Home; 13 February 2015.

Vincent Boland's 'Rise of SNP has echoes of Irish nationalism'; in the Financial Times; 20 April 2015.

Seumas Milne's 'Playing the anti-Scotland card is Cameron’s desperate last resort'; in The Guardian; 22 April 2015.

Karen McVeigh's 'Scottish referendum: yes and no agree it's a once-in-a-lifetime vote'; in The Guardian; 17 September 2014.

'Salmond hints at SNP backing for minority Labour government'; in The Guardian; 19 December 2014.

Mark Aitken's 'Politics unspinned: Did the SNP really bring down a Labour government and usher in Margaret Thatcher?'; in the Daily Record; 5 April 2015.

Chris Ship's 'Ed Miliband says 'no deal, no way' to SNP coalition'; on ITV; 21 April 2015.

Libby Brooks' 'Jim Murphy: ‘The SNP know they’re up against someone who isn’t crap’'; in The Guardian; 19 December 2014.

Rowena Mason's 'Green party held talks on alliance with SNP and Plaid Cymru – Caroline Lucas'; in The Guardian; 6 March 2015.