2015 and all that

Abstract

The UK General Election of 2015, in which the Scottish National Party won 56 of the 59 seats, is likely to be a landmark in Scottish history. Moreover, for the first time since 1886, the victor in the predominant country in the Union – the Conservative Party in England – seemed to gain electoral victory in part by hostility to one of the partners of the Union. The article discusses the origins of this electoral tsunami. The immediate origin of the SNP landslide commenced with the disillusion with Scottish Liberalism, but its main victim was the Scottish Labour Party, seemingly fatally damaged by its alliance with the Conservatives during the campaign for a No vote in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. But whoever lost the election of 2015, it was won by Nicola Sturgeon, setting an example of civil debate untarnished by Westminster politics. Analogies with the politics of Ireland in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century cast helpful light on the present situation.