Scotland, Britain, Europe: Parallels with Eighteenth-century Political Debate

Abstract

This article focuses on the controversial eighteenth-century Whig politician, John Wilkes (1725–97), his journalism and his reception in the Scottish periodical press, while considering parallels with current debates on Brexit and Scottish independence. Wilkes, seen by some at the time as a notorious rabble-rouser and a voracious Scotophobe, was nevertheless elected democratically (an unusual phenomenon at this time) to various political offices while campaigning for the freedom of the press. His outspoken attacks on the Scottish Prime Minister, Lord Bute, and associated insults to Scotland, prompted an angry response in the Scottish press and magnified the political divide between Scotland and England. If Wilkes represented ‘liberty’ to many English Whigs, he symbolised outspoken prejudice to many in Scotland. The article will examine some of Wilkes's own pronouncements on the Scots in his North Briton magazine, alongside responses in the contemporary Scottish periodical press. The debates that Wilkes focuses on – Scotland's so-called ‘rebellious’ nature and its unhelpful attachment to continental Europe – resonate with twenty-first-century political debates in illuminating ways.