gracchusdixit

The stunning results of this week’s national election in the United Kingdom were eerily similar to those of our own mid-term elections last fall.  Pollsters in both countries predicted close races, with uncertain outcomes.  In the U.S., it was never expected that Democrats could retake the House, but it seemed entirely possible that they might retain, even expand, their majority in the Senate.  That didn’t happen.  In the U.K., the Conservatives seemed to be on the verge of disaster, and it was widely predicted that they, even with their coalition partners the Liberal Democrats in tow, might not be able to retain a majority, leading to months of post-election chaos.  That didn’t happen, either.  Defying all predictions, the Conservatives won outright, winning a slim majority all on their own.  The Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, were decimated, while the Labour Party lost ground nearly everywhere, causing the leaders of both parties to promptly resign.

What happened?

For one thing, the pollsters in Britain got the election wildly wrong, just as pollsters here got it wrong last November, failing to foresee that voters on the right would come out in droves while those on the left would stay home, unconvinced that the Liberal Democrats or Labour offered clear, credible alternatives.

There was, however, one exception to this pattern—an exception that took everyone by surprise.  It occurred in Scotland.  There, left-leaning voters did indeed turn out, but instead of turning out for Labour, they swept the Scottish National Party into power.  Until this election, Scotland had been a Labour stronghold.  No more.  Of 59 Scottish seats in the British House of Commons, the SNP now holds 56, a result that stunned even the leaders of the SNP itself.

Just eight months ago, the SNP demanded, and got, a referendum to test the idea of Scottish independence.  That idea was soundly defeated.  In the wake of that defeat, many concluded that the Scottish National Party was finished, along with its dream of an independent Scotland.   Just seconds after the latest election results became clear, however, pundits in the U.K. rushed to a new conclusion: that the desire for independence was about to enjoy a comeback.

But another, more significant, factor is at play.  The Scottish National Party stands for something a good deal more threatening than political independence.  It stands for an entirely different social and political philosophy.

Scotland has its own Parliament; of the 129 seats in that Parliament, only 12 are held by Tories.  Scotland has its own version of Britain’s National Health System, one that is more comprehensive, and many would say, more effective, than its English counterpart.  Indeed, the Scots have more in common with the egalitarian Scandinavians than with the governing elite in Westminster, simpering in their upper-class accents and strutting in their bespoke suits.  The Scots are quite simply tired of being lectured to by such people.  They are tired of five years of “austerity” that have done little to restore the U.K.’s economic health and nothing whatever to benefit a majority of the British people.

In the cushy suburbs surrounding London, where the Tories hold sway, the Scots are routinely dismissed as spongers and welfare drones.  In Scotland itself, the relentless accumulation of wealth by the privileged few is despised as selfish Darwinian greed.  The stunning victory of the SNP is a reflection of this fundamental divide.

The irony in all this is that the idea of free-market capitalism to which the Tories are so devoted was invented by Adam Smith, a Scot to his fingertips.  However, Smith understood what the Tories seem to have forgotten: the market only works when it is channeled by what he called the “moral sentiments” of common decency, human kindness, and social obligation.  Ignore these sentiments, and we are left with an amoral monstrosity, with a market, not a nation.  Smith’s modern-day devotees in London, Washington, and Brussels may have forgotten his warning, but his fellow Scots have not.

In the wake of this election, Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to govern a “United Kingdom”.  Despite his victory, this quintessential child of the elite is in for a tough time, because the British people are less united than they have been in three centuries.  Whether the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland survives as a political entity remains to be seen. It is sadly clear that it ceased to be a united society long ago.