Religion and Political Parties

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter explains the ways that religion has been a significant factor in Scottish politics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It examines the decades-long identification with the Labour Party on the part of the Catholic community, and the dramatic shift in Catholic allegiance to the SNP in more recent times. The chapter also considers the ways in which Protestant identity has related to party politics in Scotland. It discusses the political significance of Scottish society’s increasingly multifaith and ‘no faith’ character and argues that religion is tied up, if ambiguously, with contemporary cleavages over the question of Scotland’s constitutional future.