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Labour was decimated in the 1931 general election, but in the mid-1930s, it staged a revival and won back some of the political ground lost in the previous election with 20 seats in Scotland. But by then it was playing second fiddle to the Tories. Indeed, the rise of the Tory vote in Scotland is as much a story of the 1920s as the phenomenal rise of the left. From only 7 Scottish seats in 1910, the Tories managed to capture 36 in 1924 and 35 in 1935. There were a number of reasons for this. The first was the collapse of the Liberal vote (see ‘Fractures within the Liberal Party’, earlier in this chapter). But two other factors came into play.
Reaching out: Ideological transformation
The Tories underwent an ideological makeover at the end of the war. From a party mainly appealing in Scotland to some disgruntled rural voters, it began to redirect its attention toward the urban middle class and the newly enfranchised woman. A women’s organiser, Edith Baxter, was appointed to educate women in the principles of Unionism and the evils of Socialism. New organisations, such as the Junior Imperial League and the Workers’ League, were set up to appeal to constituencies largely ignored in the past.
Complimenting this desire to reach out to previously ignored sections of the electorate was a shift in ideology. The party fashioned a cross-class appeal based on imperialism, patriotism and Presbyterianism, and added a good dollop of social reform to underpin these ideological tenets.
Polarisation of the electorate
The Tories also played on middle-class fears regarding Socialism. So, at a time when the Liberal Party was losing support, the Tories were able to step in and fill the vacuum and present themselves as the ‘natural’ party of government. That was shown in 1924 when they took 24 seats in Scotland from the Liberals. However, even in the national government, and in spite of MacDonald and Snowden occupying the leading positions, it was Tory policies that prevailed. By 1935, they were back in power.
We are all Unionists now
In the crisis-ridden 1930s, a new form of politics emerged based on a firmer commitment to a British national identity. The years before the Great War had seen demands for some form of home rule within a federal empire gain fairly wide public support and be viewed with some sympathy by senior members of the Liberal government (see Chapter 14). After the war, the demand grew louder, with the Scottish Trades Union Congress even calling for separate Scottish representation at the Versailles peace talks in 1919, and a private members’ bill in 1924 that nearly succeeded in getting through Parliament.
However, as the Scottish trade unions began (under pressure from rising unemployment and falling finance) to amalgamate with English unions, the demand for home rule declined in popularity. By the late 1920s, as far as most Scottish trade unionists were concerned, home rule was ‘parish pump politics’.
The depression of the 1930s further undermined support for Scottish self-government, and with the rise of Fascism in Europe, Nationalism began to be seen as a toxic political point of view. The consensus on both the left and the right in Scottish politics was that the economy was too weak for Scotland to go it alone, and its interests could be promoted only within a strong UK state committed to some form of economic pla