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A new Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report warns that the ‘muscular unionism’ approach to governance adopted by many Westminster politicians in recent years risks backfiring among those who want Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to remain part of the UK. School of Social and Political Science (SPS) academic Professor Ailsa Henderson is one of the leads on the report, which was published today by the IPPR think tank. 

The report provides the first detailed analysis of the 2021 ‘state of the union’ survey, led by Professor Henderson and Professor Richard Wyn Jones (Cardiff University). The survey asked identical questions of representative samples of around 1,600 voters in each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enabling cross-cutting comparisons of attitudes between all four nations of the UK. 

The report’s authors devised a ‘muscular unionism’ index to assess where people stand on a spectrum between full support for and complete rejection of the approach. Voters as a whole in all four constituent territories tend slightly away from the centre line – away from ‘muscular unionism’. Only those who support the Conservatives in Scotland and the UUP or DUP in Northern Ireland lean towards the muscular unionist approach – putting them out of kilter with attitudes of most supporters of the union in England. Although the approach resonates with Conservative and some Labour voters in Scotland, it is not shared by the far greater number of pro-union voters in England and Wales – suggesting that adopting its rhetoric risks weakening already ambivalent support. 

Among its other findings the report reveals: 

• High support for the principle of transferring money from richer to poorer parts of the UK, so that everyone can have a similar level of public services – ranging from 70 per cent support (in England) to 86 per cent (in Northern Ireland). 

• But lower support for the more concrete notion of ‘sharing tax revenue’ with other parts of the UK (from 28 per cent support in Wales to 41 per cent in England) - and even less when voters were asked about particular nations: from only 15 per cent of those in Wales who supported sharing revenue with Scotland, to 32 per cent in England who backed sharing with Wales or Northern Ireland. 

• Widespread belief within each of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland that the others receive more than their fair share – particularly England, identified as such by at least half of those polled in each other nation – and that their own country receives less than it should do (between 43 per cent in Northern Ireland and 58 per cent in Wales). The authors say this suggests the UK is partly “a union of grievance”. 

• Low concern among voters in each of the four nations at the possibility of others (except England) going their own way. Asked to rate their support for England, Scotland or Wales becoming independent, or for Northern Ireland becoming part of a united Ireland, voters in each nation gave similar average scores. These ranged from minus 2 to plus 1.5 on a scale of minus 10 (no) to plus 10 (yes) - suggesting the UK is a highly “ambivalent union”. 

• Willingness to trade off the current union, even among its supporters, for another objective seen as more important. Fewer than half in any nation see maintaining the current union as a priority – suggesting further evidence of “ambivalence”. 

Professor Henderson said: “Attitudes to the union are typically understood as polarised between those who want its end and those who believe its benefits should be defended more assertively. Nowhere is that polarisation more obvious than in Scotland, but UK-wide there is also considerable ambivalence to the union, with much support either muted or conditional on perceived benefits.  

“In addition, the way ‘Britishness’ coalesces around not just different but at times opposite values, preferences and attitudes across the UK must be seen as a considerable challenge to anyone hoping to identify a unifying narrative around what it means. The union’s advocates might wish for a more muscular defence of its benefits, but the United Kingdom is, in many ways, an ambivalent union.” 

Read the full report here.