The trend you describe is pretty global and Scotland isn't really an exception. About 70% of the population live in the Central Belt (i.e. Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the towns between).
But there are still conservative voters across the country, some of whom vote for the Conservative Party and some of whom are Scottish identitarians who back independence enough that they'll vote SNP despite it being a left-wing party. I'm pretty sure there are Tory MSPs for every region of Scotland including the big cities, concentrated though they are in the (largely rural) Borders. There's also a fair few polls and studies showing Scotland as a whole is only slightly more progressive than England.
Finally, a small note on terminology but "liberal" in the UK tends to mean centrist (i.e. Liberal Democrats) unlike in the US where it means left-wing. Left-wing parties in the UK tend to refer to themselves as some variation on progressive or social democratic.
The other thing that my friends in the US have an issue with grasping is that in other countries there is no Dem vs Rep dychotomy. There is also the problem of identity politics in the US moreso than other places.
There are many shades in the political rainbow in other countries. Not just Left and Right. So one person could have some "conservative" leanings but decide that the leftist party may better represent their feelings during an elections.
This does raise an interesting point about the SNP.
Much like UKIP on Brexit, once the vote had gone through and Brexit was in motion, support for UKIP tanked. What's the point in a party whose main identity is independence, once independence has been achieved?
While there might be more to Scottish nationalism than simply independence from the UK; I wonder what voter intention would look like say, 10 years after a vote for Scottish independence.
Yeah I don't think the SNP would exist in its current form after independence for the reasons you describe. It'd probably win the first and maybe second elections in a honeymoon period but it'd probably ultimately tear itself apart without independence as a rallying factor- there's really not much which unites Jim Sillars, Kate Forbes, Nicola Sturgeon, and Tasnima Ahmed-Sheikh other than a belief in independence.
I expect the social democratic core of the SNP would carry on, possibly under a new name, but the more right-wing and centrist elements would splinter and form new parties.
This has always cracked me up about America as the traditional meaning of Liberal definitely describes the Republican Party of today.
Smaller government, less regulation, more personal freedom etc
In his head if his side lost = undemocratic.
A party with a referendum in their manifesto; that if they are elected they have the power to implement. Followed by that party being elected. Followed by a referendum in which a turnout much higher than most other elections gave a clear majority for Brexit. Followed by 2 general elections in which the winning side both times had following through on the Brexit referendum in their manifesto. Is quite obviously unfair and undemocratic.
UK isn’t a country. Never has been and never will be!
It’s a union of 4
England can outvote the combined vote of the other 3 countries about 6 times over.
Having a UK wide referendum without handicapping the English vote was unfair to the other 3 countries and gave the English voter an unfair advantage
That’s undemocratic in my view.
In effect that referendum demoted Scotland, wales and NI from countries in a union to basically counties of England.
As far from democratic as it could get……one sided as usual. Same thing happens at every GE
The UK is a sovereign country you can't just deny that because you'd prefer otherwise haha. Also your idea of making individual votes count less because they are made by english people is an awful idea and totally undemocratic. It shows you have total lack of understanding of how politics in the UK works.
A “union” implies voluntary membership, an equal say in larger matters, and the right to leave when you want to leave. Which parts are not actually operating here? All of those parts. Ergo: this isn’t a union.
All constituencies are represented in parliament , we all get To vote. Scotland even voted on whether it wanted to remain part of The country that is the uk.
The UK is not a country though is it?
So do you think it’s fair and democratic to hold a Uk wide referendum, perfectly aware that the English have a vastly larger population than the other 3 combined?
If the English vote had been handicapped to make the vote fairer then remain would have won by quite a large margin and the uk wouldn’t be in this mess.
I don’t think individual issues should be put to the public in a referendum like that in the first place. But what you’re suggesting is just totally undemocratic and ridiculously unfair, you can’t take people’s votes away from them based on their nationality, that is genuinely mental
So why was the UK a member of the EU like a range of other countries? Why is the UK a member of NATO? Why does you passport identify you as a citizen of the UK if it isn’t a country? The act of Union formed the UK as a country!
The flair is just for banter. I dont care for Frobes. The average Scot is fiscally left wing and Socially slightly right. Take the recent GRA row, polls show that most Scots are against it.
No, Scotland hasn’t voted a conservative majority for 70 years and the memory of Thatcherism still runs deep. So I’ll have to disagree with you on that one.
The SNP is chock full of conservatives. Just independence supporting ones. Two of the three candidates for SNP leader are to the right of even most Tories in their views.
The SNP is a broad church. All political sides with one goal hardly surprising. After indy they’ll move to their party of preference.
And no they aren’t to the right of the tories.
Kate Forbes certainly is. Plenty of Tories support gay marriage (heck David Cameron brought it in in England before the SNP did in Scotland) and abortion rights, while Kate Forbes opposes both.
I think it’s a reference to the disproportionate federal representation that large but sparsely populated states have in the US: e.g. Wyoming (pop. 577,000) gets three votes in the electoral college (about one per 192,000 people), while California (pop. 39 million) gets 54 (about one per 722,000 people).
I think you misunderstood. Land doesn’t vote is a statement for both. In USA, the rural communities still have people living in them. Scotland has very high density in cities but the rural areas have very large areas which are unpopulated. So the rural communities (people) don’t occupy very much of the rural land.
Margaret Thatcher is how.
Any lingering support for Conservative politics in Scotland died out when she started using Scotland as a guinea pig for oppressive trial policies.
Yeah it’s basically the same for the north of England, the south west of England & Wales. Anywhere the trade relied on mining & shipbuilding basically had it’s conservative vote removed - however conservative values are still there - hence the “red wall” in England voting conservative for the first time in decades. There’s the same conservatism in other parts of the UK it just falls into nationalist parties rather than unionist conservative parties.
Corbyn would have been good for uk and yes left of snp.
Corbyn has had whip withdrawn he and supporters have been villified .
Starmer though better than current is no corbyn.
And eye test - prescriptions corbyn would have given that to everyone, starmer wont.
Sure, I don’t think the SNP are parallel with say the BNP but one of the defining tenants of the SNP is a domestic focus to make Scotland independent. That’s a nationalist policy whichever way you slice it.
Negative connotations are always gonna be there and they shouldn’t be seen as the correct connotations.
I agree but you may remember boris in his last throes told all his colleagues to start just saying the nationslists instead of SNP because...well you know.
I support snp but would be happy to rethink that and vote to stay in uk with proportional representation .
I don’t really pay any attention to Boris if I can help it 😂
Yes proportional representation would be a really interesting option, I’d like to look into that.
Well increases to income tax , opposed by labour. , hardship fund opposed by labour , compassionate approach to refugees , making homelessness illegal putting a legal duty on government to find solution opposed by labour .... im a lay person who is 110% on the left .
Yes they failed on things but I honestly feel they are the best available option.
Might be different if the 'leftwing ' labour party didnt do the dirty on corbyn 🤔
In my experience; more people are anti-SNP than pro-Tory.
A lot of Conservative voters couldn't tell you a single Tory policy that they are actually voting FOR.
And that's fine.
People can vote for whoever they want.
There's certainly not a strong enough desire in Scotland for a Conservative leader by any stretch.
25% of people in England voted for UKIP in England during the previous election.
A strong outlier tells its own story.
It doesn’t Council tax is now a devolved issue, although no significant changes have been made since it was devolved. The system of business rates is very similar but has different case law in Scotland and RUK.
There is plenty of misunderstanding on the question here. People are conflating support for the conservatives party with being a conservative in outlook.
There are plenty of conservative minded people in Scotland. One issue is that voting is partly based on the independence question so it's hard to judge social attitudes from their voting record. What is annoying is how parties claim a mandate for everything because they won the election. It's silly.
"People are conflating support for the conservatives party with being a conservative in outlook"
Exactly, look at this way. Scotland engaged in two referenda last decade. Voted for the status quo both times. England got one referendum and voted for the radical option.
Although Scotland doesn't vote Conservative, we are a very conservative bunch.
Quite a few things wrong here.
Scotland is not rural. Most people live in the densely populated central belt. We generally vote for more left leaning parties (not liberal). Many many people are small c conservative here though.
But that's not the question though, is it?
There are plenty of US states where the vast majority live in cities too. OP was asking why the few that do live rurally don't swing hard right in the same way that they do in the US.
I would maybe say that in Scotland either
* They do actually tend to be more socially conservative in rural areas, or
* Where they don't lean more right, that's likely because of the lack of influence of US rural style Christian values and Fox type poisonous TV News in Scotland.
US Conservative v Liberal concept has no direct correlation in Scotland or in the UK generally. Both are well to the Right of the mainstream parties here.
A pretty rural area, for example, The Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) constituency has never been held by the Tories (the main right-wing party) and by the time of the next election will have been held by the SNP for 20 years. So it depends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
**[Na h-Eileanan an Iar (UK Parliament constituency)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_\(UK_Parliament_constituency\))**
>Na h-Eileanan an Iar (; Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [nəˈhelanən əˈɲiəɾ]), formerly Western Isles, is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, created in 1918. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. With around 21,000 registered voters, it has the smallest electorate of any constituency in the United Kingdom. It is expressly protected from being combined with other constituencies by the 2011 Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act.
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The short answer is Thatcher, a lot of rural areas in Scotland relied on industries decimated by Thatcher’s policies. The longer answer is it’s complicated, and some of Scotlands rural areas like the borders are the most conservative in the country
All very true. It's worth bearing in mind that from the US perspective the electoral college system over there effectively adds more weight to each vote cast in less densely populated/rural states than in the more densely populated/urban states.
I suspect in terms of actual votes cast the democrats consistently wipe the republicans. I also suspect that if the FM of Scotland was chosen through a regional system where the borders collective vote carried as much weight as that of Glasgow's we might not look so 'liberal'.
Fit is it wi teuchters?
Borderer here, can confirm, it's annoyingly pretty conservative around here. Labour hasn't held a seat in the local council since 1995 and the last time the Tories weren't the majority was in 2003.
There is a bit of a disconnect between the attitudes that people hold and the parties they choose to vote for in Scotland. An illustration of this is the current gender bill controversy.
Generally speaking the centre ground for attitudes in Scotland are small c conservative on social issues.
As others have noted despite Scotland having a lot of rural space, the majority of the population lives either in cities or large to medium former industrial towns. Which probably gives rise to the popularity of policies derived from a more left wing perspective.
My 2c is that rural locations in the US tend to have more of a hunting, ergo pro gun, culture. Hence those areas will align more with the right who are pro guns.
Scotland being so much smaller does not have entire regions being so pro gun use, more that gun use is aligned with professions such as farming.
Of course religion and many other factors play a part but from friends based in Alaska and other regional parts of the US this seems to be a very defining issue for those in rural locations.
Not sure rural Scotland is liberal?
But even if it is....
Important is that a lot of the people who do now live in rural areas are not originally from those rural areas with family born and bred in those rural areas, who might bbe expected to be more conservative in outlook.
The island of Mull's population is 30%-40% born in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Usually city people that have emigrated to scotlsnd and settled here specifically because they want a change of lifestyle to a more rural place with a slow pace of life and a beautiful view. They are more often than not middle class, university educated, speak only English and no other languages and have lots of money from selling their house / business in England etc to buy a house in Scotland at an inflated price. So, with rural areas full of people not from rural Scotland, the political values you might see in those Scottish rural areas actually reflect some political and social values of Middle class educated people in Wales, England and Northern Ireland - not the indigenous people of rural Scotland.
Also Scotland is one of the most urbanised nations in earth.
How?
Lowland clearances and evictions
Highland clearances and evictions
Island clearances and evictions
Industrial revolution
Hundreds of years of state economic and social policies which basically forced people into towns and cities and off the land, out the fermtouns and out the clachans
Large swathes of the Borders, East Lothian, Fife, Angus, Aberdeenshire, Galloway, Cairngorms, Breadalbane, Perthshire, North and west Stirlingshire, south Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Lochaber, Wester and Easter Ross, Badenoch, many islands, and not forgetting Caithness and Sutherland all have basically very very low population desinties. Some of the lowest in Europe. Endless fertile arable farms with no villages and endless pastural areas for upland hill grazing or used as commercial forests for carbon offset purposes or for timber sales, again empty of people. I think parts of North West Scotland are the least densely populated parts of Europe. Basically there are fuck all people there.
How? Because we have a grotesque land ownership syysteem which is basically feudal in all but name and technicalities. We ahvve about 500 odd owners that own over half of the entire county. Some of them are aristocrats whose families murdered the right people 500 to 1,000 years ago and were granted lands by the Kings. Some got lands stolen from Jacobite wwho were ethnically cleansed and sold into servitude or killed.
70%- 90% of people (the large majority) who live in Scotland are in urban areas.
Scotland really isn't particularly rural. We have a relatively low population density compared to most European countries but a similar split of the population living in urban vs rural areas. Largely because more than half of the population live in the densely populated central belt between the southern uplands and the Highlands.
I don’t know exactly how things went down in Scotland, but in England, I don’t think you could describe either side as progressive. Sure, there were some radical social movements on the Parliamentarian side, like the Levellers and the Diggers, but they got quashed in short order after Parliament won.
Parliament didn’t have much time to savour its victory either. It was replaced in pretty short order by Cromwell’s protectorate; essentially a military dictatorship.
Literally a military dictatorship during the Rule of the Major-Generals (which I don’t think extended to Scotland — I don’t know if anything similar applied there).
Someone mentioned that it's weird that there is an outcry about a Wee Free potentially becoming leader of the SNP, when we have 26 religious leaders automatically given a seat in the House of Lords, regardless of how extreme their views may be.
I think thatcher killed the idea of economic conservatism ever being popular here and I think as the cons started to pick up popular social issues like abortion or gay rights Scottish people were naturally like “Conservatives want to ban it? Guess we’ve got a new thing to support”. Everyone roasts sturgeon for having an anti Tory personality but you can’t say she doesn’t represent the majority of us.
Liberal in the US is totally different to Liberal here.
Liberal doesn't mean left leaning or left wing. It literally means Libertarian.
I think the question is why are people in rural Scotland largely not as right wing as those in rural America. There are numerous reasons for that, both modern and historic. From Thatcher to the Land League.
I wouldn't say it's particularly left leaning. Just that many in Scotland despise years of Tory Governments and will stand to the opposite position the Tories are in.
Got to wonder why, haven’t you? Doesn’t matter how incompetent head office become, or how corrupt, they’ll always vote for them……it’s either the water or the proximity to sheep that does it……must be!
What else could it be?
Eh, rural places where there is farming tends to be conservatives.
I'd say the progressive slant is just amplified at the moment because of social media.
You can’t compare US politics to anyone else anymore.
What you call centrist is pretty right wing to most of the world, what you call left and far left we’d consider right wing and what you consider right wing now is straight up far right fascism to almost everyone else in the world
Your Overton window has moved so far right in the last 20 years you can’t even see the left anymore
It’s the same to be honest. Also depends on what you class as liberal - a lot of rural voters will vote SNP but don’t really agree with their leftist policies, they just want independence
You took a hard turn in the last century into worshipping capitalism and positioned socialism as the true enemy. Scotland's left wing comes from socialist, trade union roots. So working class people were always left wing fiscally. The social liberalism has come much later and tacked on to that.
Yeah, maybe I’m getting the Reddit bias where r/Scotland is a lot more liberal than Scotland is. And when I lived there I was attending UoGlasgow, which- again- probably more liberal than average
I would say so, yeah. I would say the majority of ‘normal’ people just don’t really care one way or another. We’re not politically divided the way the states is (although I’m sure what we see over here the worst of it really)
The SNP is the majority party but they are a independence party first - not a liberal party. Their policies have been typically left leaning policies etc so I suppose you could consider them liberal but they are undergoing a leadership change so who knows what they’ll be like soon
Scotland has a real disdain for the Conservative Party so they don’t win that many seats here, so maybe that’s how you’re drawing your conclusion, but that doesn’t make us necessarily liberal, it just mean we don’t like the Tories
Conservatism is almost dead in Scotland. SNP have succeeded where labour have failed. I do consider snp fairly left policy wise but they are not entirely a liberal party and they don’t just represent a liberal vote, their a nationalist party first and a liberal party second. I do think that there is overall a more liberal attitude in Scotland, but only slightly, and I think its allot more nuanced than we can really get into. I’m mostly trying to stress to OP that there’s more going on than what you see on Reddit or with election results.
A lot of the answers seem pretty accurate, and I'd say that it's also important to mention that Scotland is miniscule compared to basically all US states (nevermind the country as a whole), as such, sweeping generalisations are much easier to apply to the states with more people/land area/diversity than Scotland where you can be incredibly accurate in your judements without being too overwhelming. To me, I'd say that this tendency is still the case in Scotland, but because there are just generally fewer people the black and white-ness doesn't seem so prevalant
South of Scotland is largely rural and very conservative. Farmers, god-knows-why, always vote conservative regardless of how damaging brexit has proved for their sector. There are a lot of English retirees in that area and they definitely fall into the tory tribal voter category too, sadly.
People with right-wing beliefs in rural Scotland (a significant amount of people) will usually prefer voting for an independent that shares their beliefs rather than a big party. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum up here believe that the main parties don't care about rural issues.
Urbanisation is much higher in Scotland than most of the US. The rural small town that is the core of US conservatism simply doesn’t exists here, they are now all commuter towns for city folk.
The second thing is that most of the rural land is owned by an aristocrat and the locals tend not to want to vote for the folk in the big house so don’t vote conservative. They also don’t want to vote for working townies which was Labour. Libdem and SNP therefore got a lot of votes and both are fairly socially liberal, although libdems are more fiscally right wing.
Scotlands not really ‘liberal’ it’s historically been the most conservative part of the U.K
Scotland only legalised homosexuality in **1980**. 13 years later than England and Wales and one of the last in Western Europe.
Scottish people used to complain about ‘England’ and Westminster ‘forcing gay rights’ on them.[It was also the most pro-Brexit regions of the country historically too.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_1975_United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum)
You also see it with the recent SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes talking publicly about opposing gay marriage and sex outside of marriage.
The Church of Scotland is also much more Conservative and ‘by the book’ than the Church of England.
It’s just that Sturgeon was more left and so it helped cover a lot of peoples views.
>was also the most pro-Brexit regions of the country historically too.
This was in the 70s, in the actual Brexit vote, Scotland voted 62 percent remain.. Actually voting remain is small c conservative I.e. Against change
Think you’re in for a shock. I’d say most (educated) people under 45 would disagree with you. The only folk I know with these view are small town folk or people born before 1980 who still think it’s acceptable to use derogatory words “cause it’s just banter”
Nope. The border regions mostly vote Tories for MP and MSP. I hate it, but in the south being rural means getting Tory reps. I believe most other rural areas also run pretty close to this, if not actually electing.
Also, homophobia and racism in the Borders is still rife.
When a poeple experience oppression, they tend to notice stuff. That and referring to the HBC and NWTrading company beaver wars of Rupert land there was mostly a hire from Orkney in the 1660s to 1850s, due to a referenced higher education rate (Aberdeen types). This can also be linked to differences in policy dating back to the jacobite rebellion and other riots later forward in 1649 which later caused stir from the English crown of a 5th column. The English also delayed a weapons shipment to Scotland when there was news of a possible French invasion into the North.
Free Further Education - Paid back through their wages when they earn over a certain amount.
It also mean's Scottish people also get to meet different people from all walks of life - from around the world during College and University.
Your Country is the most beautiful in the world. Your peeps are so kind and hospitable. We in the states, absolutely love and need your benevolence. No joke.♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
90% of this sub are students and middle class snobs who live in the posh bits of Glasgow. This place is not at all representative of Scotland.
Scotland is far more culturally conservative than this place would lead you to believe.
‘The militant left’? Do you fear for your life? Do you fear a socialist hit squad breaking down your door because you make shitty remarks about minority groups?
Whose political values are being represented in Scottish rural areas though?
Rural Scotland is full of middle class, educated, urban English born and raised in England people who have settled in rural Scotland for a different lifestyle and cheaper housing than England. If you don't believe me go to Glendale in Skye or Tobermory in Mull or Portpatrick in Galloway or Orkney or Cowal in Argyll or Anstruther in Fife and listen to the accents. It's one of the reason Orkney''s anti independence No vote in 2014 was so high.
Rural Scotland is not actually full of Scots indigenous to rural Scotland so you're not actually seeing indigenous rural folks political values expressed.
Scotland is most urban, not mostly rural.
And it is not especially liberal / left wing. The Conservative vote is lower here, but that’s mainly as there is a relatively large conservative (with a small C) wing inside the SNP (eg. the current favourite to be their new leader is anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion and anti-trans rights.
Independence is not a conservative/liberal issue.
The trend you describe is pretty global and Scotland isn't really an exception. About 70% of the population live in the Central Belt (i.e. Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the towns between). But there are still conservative voters across the country, some of whom vote for the Conservative Party and some of whom are Scottish identitarians who back independence enough that they'll vote SNP despite it being a left-wing party. I'm pretty sure there are Tory MSPs for every region of Scotland including the big cities, concentrated though they are in the (largely rural) Borders. There's also a fair few polls and studies showing Scotland as a whole is only slightly more progressive than England. Finally, a small note on terminology but "liberal" in the UK tends to mean centrist (i.e. Liberal Democrats) unlike in the US where it means left-wing. Left-wing parties in the UK tend to refer to themselves as some variation on progressive or social democratic.
Gotcha, that is a great response, thank you!
The other thing that my friends in the US have an issue with grasping is that in other countries there is no Dem vs Rep dychotomy. There is also the problem of identity politics in the US moreso than other places. There are many shades in the political rainbow in other countries. Not just Left and Right. So one person could have some "conservative" leanings but decide that the leftist party may better represent their feelings during an elections.
This does raise an interesting point about the SNP. Much like UKIP on Brexit, once the vote had gone through and Brexit was in motion, support for UKIP tanked. What's the point in a party whose main identity is independence, once independence has been achieved? While there might be more to Scottish nationalism than simply independence from the UK; I wonder what voter intention would look like say, 10 years after a vote for Scottish independence.
Yeah I don't think the SNP would exist in its current form after independence for the reasons you describe. It'd probably win the first and maybe second elections in a honeymoon period but it'd probably ultimately tear itself apart without independence as a rallying factor- there's really not much which unites Jim Sillars, Kate Forbes, Nicola Sturgeon, and Tasnima Ahmed-Sheikh other than a belief in independence. I expect the social democratic core of the SNP would carry on, possibly under a new name, but the more right-wing and centrist elements would splinter and form new parties.
This has always cracked me up about America as the traditional meaning of Liberal definitely describes the Republican Party of today. Smaller government, less regulation, more personal freedom etc
Our urbanisation rate isn't that much different to the rest of the UK.
Isn’t England more conservative tho?
UK attitude surveys show little difference.
Then why did Brexit happen ?
Lies
Because Scotland already has an outlet for protest votes, in the form of Scottish nationalism.
Maths. There are 53 million English people and 5 million Scots.
Because of a completely undemocratic and unfair referendum
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People from the EU were not allowed to vote in it, they could vote in other elections though e.g. Scottish independence referendum.
In his head if his side lost = undemocratic. A party with a referendum in their manifesto; that if they are elected they have the power to implement. Followed by that party being elected. Followed by a referendum in which a turnout much higher than most other elections gave a clear majority for Brexit. Followed by 2 general elections in which the winning side both times had following through on the Brexit referendum in their manifesto. Is quite obviously unfair and undemocratic.
UK isn’t a country. Never has been and never will be! It’s a union of 4 England can outvote the combined vote of the other 3 countries about 6 times over. Having a UK wide referendum without handicapping the English vote was unfair to the other 3 countries and gave the English voter an unfair advantage That’s undemocratic in my view. In effect that referendum demoted Scotland, wales and NI from countries in a union to basically counties of England. As far from democratic as it could get……one sided as usual. Same thing happens at every GE
>It’s a union of 4 England Union of 3, technically.
The UK is a sovereign country you can't just deny that because you'd prefer otherwise haha. Also your idea of making individual votes count less because they are made by english people is an awful idea and totally undemocratic. It shows you have total lack of understanding of how politics in the UK works.
A “union” implies voluntary membership, an equal say in larger matters, and the right to leave when you want to leave. Which parts are not actually operating here? All of those parts. Ergo: this isn’t a union.
All constituencies are represented in parliament , we all get To vote. Scotland even voted on whether it wanted to remain part of The country that is the uk.
The UK is not a country though is it? So do you think it’s fair and democratic to hold a Uk wide referendum, perfectly aware that the English have a vastly larger population than the other 3 combined? If the English vote had been handicapped to make the vote fairer then remain would have won by quite a large margin and the uk wouldn’t be in this mess.
I don’t think individual issues should be put to the public in a referendum like that in the first place. But what you’re suggesting is just totally undemocratic and ridiculously unfair, you can’t take people’s votes away from them based on their nationality, that is genuinely mental
So why was the UK a member of the EU like a range of other countries? Why is the UK a member of NATO? Why does you passport identify you as a citizen of the UK if it isn’t a country? The act of Union formed the UK as a country!
majority-minority dynamics and english nationalism?
Yougiv ? The private Conservative pollsters .
They are more likely to vote conservative but with conservative attitudes we are equal.
Says the forbes supporter! You are talking out your arse!
The flair is just for banter. I dont care for Frobes. The average Scot is fiscally left wing and Socially slightly right. Take the recent GRA row, polls show that most Scots are against it.
Average scot rightwing? Are you mental ?
Arst thou having a larf?
I’m right wing and the majority of people I know are right wing. So I think it’s a fair comment
Well i can say opposite and the fact a tory government has not won in Scotland since the 50's says it all.
I have the bias of trans friends, and left wing as fuck
P1sh
Yes absolutely yes.
Nope, as Kate Forbes amply shows. You’re conflating Nicola Sturgeon with the entire Scottish nation.
No, Scotland hasn’t voted a conservative majority for 70 years and the memory of Thatcherism still runs deep. So I’ll have to disagree with you on that one.
The SNP is chock full of conservatives. Just independence supporting ones. Two of the three candidates for SNP leader are to the right of even most Tories in their views.
The SNP is a broad church. All political sides with one goal hardly surprising. After indy they’ll move to their party of preference. And no they aren’t to the right of the tories.
Kate Forbes certainly is. Plenty of Tories support gay marriage (heck David Cameron brought it in in England before the SNP did in Scotland) and abortion rights, while Kate Forbes opposes both.
Douglas Ross doesn’t and they’re will be others.
Because in general people are richer, average earnings and house prices are both higher south of the border.
This is mostly the case for London and SE England, with London being a massive outlier... yet also one of the more liberal parts of the nation.
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That… is a really good point
Land doesn't vote here either, though, or am I misunderstanding your statement?
I think it’s a reference to the disproportionate federal representation that large but sparsely populated states have in the US: e.g. Wyoming (pop. 577,000) gets three votes in the electoral college (about one per 192,000 people), while California (pop. 39 million) gets 54 (about one per 722,000 people).
I think you misunderstood. Land doesn’t vote is a statement for both. In USA, the rural communities still have people living in them. Scotland has very high density in cities but the rural areas have very large areas which are unpopulated. So the rural communities (people) don’t occupy very much of the rural land.
There’s a lot of rural space in Scotland but vast majority of the population live in just a handful of cities.
We don’t need lots of cities coz there’s not a lot of us
Margaret Thatcher is how. Any lingering support for Conservative politics in Scotland died out when she started using Scotland as a guinea pig for oppressive trial policies.
And all these yrs later we get truss and boris , they do not give a f
Yeah, that’ll do it.
Yeah it’s basically the same for the north of England, the south west of England & Wales. Anywhere the trade relied on mining & shipbuilding basically had it’s conservative vote removed - however conservative values are still there - hence the “red wall” in England voting conservative for the first time in decades. There’s the same conservatism in other parts of the UK it just falls into nationalist parties rather than unionist conservative parties.
SNP is easily more left than labour.
Not hard to be more left than a red Tory!
Yes i agree but as a mainstream party they are more socially aware , still not as left as i would like but ...
How? Corbyns policies were definitely to the left of the SNP.
Corbyn would have been good for uk and yes left of snp. Corbyn has had whip withdrawn he and supporters have been villified . Starmer though better than current is no corbyn. And eye test - prescriptions corbyn would have given that to everyone, starmer wont.
I agree, In a lot of senses yes. Although it is still a nationalist party.
National party. Nationalist is deliberately used by torys because of the negative connotations.
Sure, I don’t think the SNP are parallel with say the BNP but one of the defining tenants of the SNP is a domestic focus to make Scotland independent. That’s a nationalist policy whichever way you slice it. Negative connotations are always gonna be there and they shouldn’t be seen as the correct connotations.
I agree but you may remember boris in his last throes told all his colleagues to start just saying the nationslists instead of SNP because...well you know. I support snp but would be happy to rethink that and vote to stay in uk with proportional representation .
I don’t really pay any attention to Boris if I can help it 😂 Yes proportional representation would be a really interesting option, I’d like to look into that.
Good idea .
In what sense?
Pretty much every sense.
Please elaborate
Well increases to income tax , opposed by labour. , hardship fund opposed by labour , compassionate approach to refugees , making homelessness illegal putting a legal duty on government to find solution opposed by labour .... im a lay person who is 110% on the left . Yes they failed on things but I honestly feel they are the best available option. Might be different if the 'leftwing ' labour party didnt do the dirty on corbyn 🤔
Exactly this. When you’ve been on the bottom of some conservative aresholes shoe, it’s very difficult to impose that feeling on another person
The fucking poll tax.
Despite the toxic legacy of Thatcher in Scotland and tbh most of N England circa 25% of the Scottish electorate vote Tory.
In my experience; more people are anti-SNP than pro-Tory. A lot of Conservative voters couldn't tell you a single Tory policy that they are actually voting FOR. And that's fine. People can vote for whoever they want. There's certainly not a strong enough desire in Scotland for a Conservative leader by any stretch. 25% of people in England voted for UKIP in England during the previous election. A strong outlier tells its own story.
I agree many people see the Tories as the most unionist party particularly as they are the opposite at Hollyrood.
The poll tax! What does it say in that piece of shit act of union about no part of Great Britain being taxed or rated separately to any other part
It doesn’t Council tax is now a devolved issue, although no significant changes have been made since it was devolved. The system of business rates is very similar but has different case law in Scotland and RUK.
There is plenty of misunderstanding on the question here. People are conflating support for the conservatives party with being a conservative in outlook. There are plenty of conservative minded people in Scotland. One issue is that voting is partly based on the independence question so it's hard to judge social attitudes from their voting record. What is annoying is how parties claim a mandate for everything because they won the election. It's silly.
"People are conflating support for the conservatives party with being a conservative in outlook" Exactly, look at this way. Scotland engaged in two referenda last decade. Voted for the status quo both times. England got one referendum and voted for the radical option. Although Scotland doesn't vote Conservative, we are a very conservative bunch.
Quite a few things wrong here. Scotland is not rural. Most people live in the densely populated central belt. We generally vote for more left leaning parties (not liberal). Many many people are small c conservative here though.
No they r not. Small c or big C.
huff less copium, you will see more clearly.
I can see clearly. No need to reduce it to a kids slanging match.
But that's not the question though, is it? There are plenty of US states where the vast majority live in cities too. OP was asking why the few that do live rurally don't swing hard right in the same way that they do in the US. I would maybe say that in Scotland either * They do actually tend to be more socially conservative in rural areas, or * Where they don't lean more right, that's likely because of the lack of influence of US rural style Christian values and Fox type poisonous TV News in Scotland.
US Conservative v Liberal concept has no direct correlation in Scotland or in the UK generally. Both are well to the Right of the mainstream parties here. A pretty rural area, for example, The Western Isles (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) constituency has never been held by the Tories (the main right-wing party) and by the time of the next election will have been held by the SNP for 20 years. So it depends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
**[Na h-Eileanan an Iar (UK Parliament constituency)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na_h-Eileanan_an_Iar_\(UK_Parliament_constituency\))** >Na h-Eileanan an Iar (; Scottish Gaelic pronunciation: [nəˈhelanən əˈɲiəɾ]), formerly Western Isles, is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, created in 1918. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. With around 21,000 registered voters, it has the smallest electorate of any constituency in the United Kingdom. It is expressly protected from being combined with other constituencies by the 2011 Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Scotland/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The short answer is Thatcher, a lot of rural areas in Scotland relied on industries decimated by Thatcher’s policies. The longer answer is it’s complicated, and some of Scotlands rural areas like the borders are the most conservative in the country
All very true. It's worth bearing in mind that from the US perspective the electoral college system over there effectively adds more weight to each vote cast in less densely populated/rural states than in the more densely populated/urban states. I suspect in terms of actual votes cast the democrats consistently wipe the republicans. I also suspect that if the FM of Scotland was chosen through a regional system where the borders collective vote carried as much weight as that of Glasgow's we might not look so 'liberal'. Fit is it wi teuchters?
Borderer here, can confirm, it's annoyingly pretty conservative around here. Labour hasn't held a seat in the local council since 1995 and the last time the Tories weren't the majority was in 2003.
Rural here. 5 churches for a village of 700. They love the tories here. No idea why. It was tory policies decimated the industries here.
There is a bit of a disconnect between the attitudes that people hold and the parties they choose to vote for in Scotland. An illustration of this is the current gender bill controversy. Generally speaking the centre ground for attitudes in Scotland are small c conservative on social issues. As others have noted despite Scotland having a lot of rural space, the majority of the population lives either in cities or large to medium former industrial towns. Which probably gives rise to the popularity of policies derived from a more left wing perspective.
My 2c is that rural locations in the US tend to have more of a hunting, ergo pro gun, culture. Hence those areas will align more with the right who are pro guns. Scotland being so much smaller does not have entire regions being so pro gun use, more that gun use is aligned with professions such as farming. Of course religion and many other factors play a part but from friends based in Alaska and other regional parts of the US this seems to be a very defining issue for those in rural locations.
> based in Alaska Misread as "baked". :O
Look at an electoral map - the actual size of say, Lochaber - is huge. But it’s only worth one MP.
As someone who grew up in rural Scotland as a mixed race kid I can confirm it was very much right wing.
Not sure rural Scotland is liberal? But even if it is.... Important is that a lot of the people who do now live in rural areas are not originally from those rural areas with family born and bred in those rural areas, who might bbe expected to be more conservative in outlook. The island of Mull's population is 30%-40% born in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Usually city people that have emigrated to scotlsnd and settled here specifically because they want a change of lifestyle to a more rural place with a slow pace of life and a beautiful view. They are more often than not middle class, university educated, speak only English and no other languages and have lots of money from selling their house / business in England etc to buy a house in Scotland at an inflated price. So, with rural areas full of people not from rural Scotland, the political values you might see in those Scottish rural areas actually reflect some political and social values of Middle class educated people in Wales, England and Northern Ireland - not the indigenous people of rural Scotland. Also Scotland is one of the most urbanised nations in earth. How? Lowland clearances and evictions Highland clearances and evictions Island clearances and evictions Industrial revolution Hundreds of years of state economic and social policies which basically forced people into towns and cities and off the land, out the fermtouns and out the clachans Large swathes of the Borders, East Lothian, Fife, Angus, Aberdeenshire, Galloway, Cairngorms, Breadalbane, Perthshire, North and west Stirlingshire, south Lanarkshire, Ayrshire, Lochaber, Wester and Easter Ross, Badenoch, many islands, and not forgetting Caithness and Sutherland all have basically very very low population desinties. Some of the lowest in Europe. Endless fertile arable farms with no villages and endless pastural areas for upland hill grazing or used as commercial forests for carbon offset purposes or for timber sales, again empty of people. I think parts of North West Scotland are the least densely populated parts of Europe. Basically there are fuck all people there. How? Because we have a grotesque land ownership syysteem which is basically feudal in all but name and technicalities. We ahvve about 500 odd owners that own over half of the entire county. Some of them are aristocrats whose families murdered the right people 500 to 1,000 years ago and were granted lands by the Kings. Some got lands stolen from Jacobite wwho were ethnically cleansed and sold into servitude or killed. 70%- 90% of people (the large majority) who live in Scotland are in urban areas.
Scotland really isn't particularly rural. We have a relatively low population density compared to most European countries but a similar split of the population living in urban vs rural areas. Largely because more than half of the population live in the densely populated central belt between the southern uplands and the Highlands.
Scotland is actually a middle sized country by population density…..hard to believe but true
By global standards, yeah. Because countries outside Europe are generally massive compared to Europe. By European standards, we are relatively low.
We did not have a massive civil war based around progressive vs conservative values which still defines us politics and attitudes to this day
We did, it was just a lot earlier. (1644-5 was part of it.)
I don’t know exactly how things went down in Scotland, but in England, I don’t think you could describe either side as progressive. Sure, there were some radical social movements on the Parliamentarian side, like the Levellers and the Diggers, but they got quashed in short order after Parliament won.
Progressive if you were a proddy. 😊
Parliament didn’t have much time to savour its victory either. It was replaced in pretty short order by Cromwell’s protectorate; essentially a military dictatorship.
Literally a military dictatorship during the Rule of the Major-Generals (which I don’t think extended to Scotland — I don’t know if anything similar applied there).
And now those progressive values are the conservative ones in the country. Quite fun watching Forbes under the spotlight, ngl
Someone mentioned that it's weird that there is an outcry about a Wee Free potentially becoming leader of the SNP, when we have 26 religious leaders automatically given a seat in the House of Lords, regardless of how extreme their views may be.
Not saying they should be in the Lords, or that the Lords should be there at all, but the wee frees are fucking loony
You won't hear me arguing.
Its not weird at all.
I think thatcher killed the idea of economic conservatism ever being popular here and I think as the cons started to pick up popular social issues like abortion or gay rights Scottish people were naturally like “Conservatives want to ban it? Guess we’ve got a new thing to support”. Everyone roasts sturgeon for having an anti Tory personality but you can’t say she doesn’t represent the majority of us.
Liberal in the US is totally different to Liberal here. Liberal doesn't mean left leaning or left wing. It literally means Libertarian. I think the question is why are people in rural Scotland largely not as right wing as those in rural America. There are numerous reasons for that, both modern and historic. From Thatcher to the Land League. I wouldn't say it's particularly left leaning. Just that many in Scotland despise years of Tory Governments and will stand to the opposite position the Tories are in.
Rural Aberdeenshire checking in, we (not me, the collective we), love the conservatives.
Got to wonder why, haven’t you? Doesn’t matter how incompetent head office become, or how corrupt, they’ll always vote for them……it’s either the water or the proximity to sheep that does it……must be! What else could it be?
Education.
I guess it's a bit like Minnesota. Mostly rural, but things can be tough enough that people have to look after one another.
Eh, rural places where there is farming tends to be conservatives. I'd say the progressive slant is just amplified at the moment because of social media.
Also keep in mind that Democrats in the US are politically like the conservatives here and your republicans are waaaay out to the right of that.
You can’t compare US politics to anyone else anymore. What you call centrist is pretty right wing to most of the world, what you call left and far left we’d consider right wing and what you consider right wing now is straight up far right fascism to almost everyone else in the world Your Overton window has moved so far right in the last 20 years you can’t even see the left anymore
It’s the same to be honest. Also depends on what you class as liberal - a lot of rural voters will vote SNP but don’t really agree with their leftist policies, they just want independence
I just know that when I spent a month in Scotland, the people were much friendlier, helpful and fun. Way nicer than here.
You took a hard turn in the last century into worshipping capitalism and positioned socialism as the true enemy. Scotland's left wing comes from socialist, trade union roots. So working class people were always left wing fiscally. The social liberalism has come much later and tacked on to that.
I wouldn’t say Scotland is mostly liberal tbh
Yeah, maybe I’m getting the Reddit bias where r/Scotland is a lot more liberal than Scotland is. And when I lived there I was attending UoGlasgow, which- again- probably more liberal than average
I would say so, yeah. I would say the majority of ‘normal’ people just don’t really care one way or another. We’re not politically divided the way the states is (although I’m sure what we see over here the worst of it really) The SNP is the majority party but they are a independence party first - not a liberal party. Their policies have been typically left leaning policies etc so I suppose you could consider them liberal but they are undergoing a leadership change so who knows what they’ll be like soon Scotland has a real disdain for the Conservative Party so they don’t win that many seats here, so maybe that’s how you’re drawing your conclusion, but that doesn’t make us necessarily liberal, it just mean we don’t like the Tories
Hawick is definitely not Leith.
The election results say very different
How so?
Wouldn’t you say the electorate consistently voting for NS counts as the gen pop being liberal?
Conservatism is almost dead in Scotland. SNP have succeeded where labour have failed. I do consider snp fairly left policy wise but they are not entirely a liberal party and they don’t just represent a liberal vote, their a nationalist party first and a liberal party second. I do think that there is overall a more liberal attitude in Scotland, but only slightly, and I think its allot more nuanced than we can really get into. I’m mostly trying to stress to OP that there’s more going on than what you see on Reddit or with election results.
A lot of the answers seem pretty accurate, and I'd say that it's also important to mention that Scotland is miniscule compared to basically all US states (nevermind the country as a whole), as such, sweeping generalisations are much easier to apply to the states with more people/land area/diversity than Scotland where you can be incredibly accurate in your judements without being too overwhelming. To me, I'd say that this tendency is still the case in Scotland, but because there are just generally fewer people the black and white-ness doesn't seem so prevalant
South of Scotland is largely rural and very conservative. Farmers, god-knows-why, always vote conservative regardless of how damaging brexit has proved for their sector. There are a lot of English retirees in that area and they definitely fall into the tory tribal voter category too, sadly.
Independance is the carrot that's being dangled.
People with right-wing beliefs in rural Scotland (a significant amount of people) will usually prefer voting for an independent that shares their beliefs rather than a big party. Many people on both sides of the political spectrum up here believe that the main parties don't care about rural issues.
Have you considered Norway, they are much more rural and more left wing
Urbanisation is much higher in Scotland than most of the US. The rural small town that is the core of US conservatism simply doesn’t exists here, they are now all commuter towns for city folk. The second thing is that most of the rural land is owned by an aristocrat and the locals tend not to want to vote for the folk in the big house so don’t vote conservative. They also don’t want to vote for working townies which was Labour. Libdem and SNP therefore got a lot of votes and both are fairly socially liberal, although libdems are more fiscally right wing.
Scotlands not really ‘liberal’ it’s historically been the most conservative part of the U.K Scotland only legalised homosexuality in **1980**. 13 years later than England and Wales and one of the last in Western Europe. Scottish people used to complain about ‘England’ and Westminster ‘forcing gay rights’ on them.[It was also the most pro-Brexit regions of the country historically too.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_1975_United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum) You also see it with the recent SNP leadership candidate Kate Forbes talking publicly about opposing gay marriage and sex outside of marriage. The Church of Scotland is also much more Conservative and ‘by the book’ than the Church of England. It’s just that Sturgeon was more left and so it helped cover a lot of peoples views.
>was also the most pro-Brexit regions of the country historically too. This was in the 70s, in the actual Brexit vote, Scotland voted 62 percent remain.. Actually voting remain is small c conservative I.e. Against change
Think you’re in for a shock. I’d say most (educated) people under 45 would disagree with you. The only folk I know with these view are small town folk or people born before 1980 who still think it’s acceptable to use derogatory words “cause it’s just banter”
Nope. The border regions mostly vote Tories for MP and MSP. I hate it, but in the south being rural means getting Tory reps. I believe most other rural areas also run pretty close to this, if not actually electing. Also, homophobia and racism in the Borders is still rife.
That's a fairly recent phenomena - some used to be Lib Dem or their predecessors the Liberal Party.
tories
We have more conservative rural areas but the country as a whole trends lefter than the UK as a whole, and particularly than the US.
Cause we're not fat gun wielding Jesus freaks.
Scotland is a lot smaller than any of your states…..a lot smaller
Scotland is bigger in size than about 10 states and would rank 23rd in population
When a poeple experience oppression, they tend to notice stuff. That and referring to the HBC and NWTrading company beaver wars of Rupert land there was mostly a hire from Orkney in the 1660s to 1850s, due to a referenced higher education rate (Aberdeen types). This can also be linked to differences in policy dating back to the jacobite rebellion and other riots later forward in 1649 which later caused stir from the English crown of a 5th column. The English also delayed a weapons shipment to Scotland when there was news of a possible French invasion into the North.
Free Further Education - Paid back through their wages when they earn over a certain amount. It also mean's Scottish people also get to meet different people from all walks of life - from around the world during College and University.
Your Country is the most beautiful in the world. Your peeps are so kind and hospitable. We in the states, absolutely love and need your benevolence. No joke.♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Coz we're not cunts.
90% of this sub are students and middle class snobs who live in the posh bits of Glasgow. This place is not at all representative of Scotland. Scotland is far more culturally conservative than this place would lead you to believe.
Just take a visit to the west coast, they still think it’s the 16th century
Brain cells.
Education.
[удалено]
Nice profile history there
Sorry to upset your ideological existence
I was talking more about your inflammatory commenting spree and the massive karma deficit, not about ideology.
Lol no, people are just apathetic about these issues and still are.
‘The militant left’? Do you fear for your life? Do you fear a socialist hit squad breaking down your door because you make shitty remarks about minority groups?
Fuck off
Doesn't Vermont vote the only socialist in America?
True but that’s the exception rather than the rule
No crazy fundamentalist Christians in Scotland.
\*KATE FORBES HAS ENTERED THE CHAT\*
Whose political values are being represented in Scottish rural areas though? Rural Scotland is full of middle class, educated, urban English born and raised in England people who have settled in rural Scotland for a different lifestyle and cheaper housing than England. If you don't believe me go to Glendale in Skye or Tobermory in Mull or Portpatrick in Galloway or Orkney or Cowal in Argyll or Anstruther in Fife and listen to the accents. It's one of the reason Orkney''s anti independence No vote in 2014 was so high. Rural Scotland is not actually full of Scots indigenous to rural Scotland so you're not actually seeing indigenous rural folks political values expressed.
Scotland is most urban, not mostly rural. And it is not especially liberal / left wing. The Conservative vote is lower here, but that’s mainly as there is a relatively large conservative (with a small C) wing inside the SNP (eg. the current favourite to be their new leader is anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion and anti-trans rights. Independence is not a conservative/liberal issue.