In this chapter we turn to the story of the Scottish independence referendum, to showcase how social and political context play a critical role in critically shaping identity conflicts. Similar demographic and value divides were present in the Scottish Independence and EU referendums, and in both contexts a nationalist party had surged to prominence in part by mobilising these divisions and promoting constitutional change. Both Independence and Brexit won their strongest early support from identity conservative voters wishing to ‘take back control’, and in both cases the electoral success of nationalist parties advocating withdrawal from a larger union was a key factor leading to the holding of an exit referendum. Yet despite these parallels, the politics of the two referendums has been very different. Different patterns of identity attachment explain the divergent patterns of conflict and ultimately their outcomes – Scottish attachments to an overarching British identity are much stronger than English or British attachments to a European identity, while negative views of England and Westminster as out-groups are much weaker in Scotland than negative views of the EU and Brussels as out-groups in England. We also reflect on what lessons the political aftermath of divisive referendum campaigns Scotland offers.

This concluding chapter draws together the strands of argument in the book by surveying the political thought of the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum. The chapter then examines why the 2014 case for independence had changed in significant respects from the earlier versions of the case examined in this book. Finally, the chapter weighs up the changes that will be needed to the case for Scottish independence as nationalists look towards another referendum.

Scottish nationalism understood as support for an independent Scottish state is notable by its absence from most of Scotland’s history after 1707. Although the initial organised advocacy for greater Scottish democratic autonomy within the United Kingdom emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the goal of Scottish independence only received its first sustained modern articulation after the First World War. This chapter examines the ideology of these early Scottish nationalists as they tried to construct a persuasive case for independence before the rise in support for the SNP in the 1960s. The aim of the chapter is not to offer an exhaustive account of the nationalism of this period but to set the scene for the rest of the book by clarifying the ideological resources that were already available for advocates of independence in the mid-twentieth century. The chapter looks in turn at the political economy and constitutionalist arguments that were framed by nationalists in the decades around the Second World War.

This chapter analyses nationalist attempts to yoke together Scottish independence and the egalitarian politics of the left. From an initial embrace of the radical participatory politics of the 1960s to a later enthusiasm for the heritage of the British labour movement, this chapter shows that nationalists have presented independence as the route to a socialist Scotland. But as this chapter also demonstrates, the early twenty-first century saw some key nationalists turning away from this agenda and embracing instead a revisionist social democracy that accepted some significant capitalist constraints on the politics of independence.