Identity and preference

Still, any evaluation of the impact of devolution upon public support for the UK needs to consider not only what changes may have occurred in how many favour the continuation of the UK and how many its dissolution, but also among whom. In particular, is there any evidence that the issue has become more divisive, with those who feel strongly Scottish, Irish or even English becoming less keen on keeping the UK together, while perhaps at the same time those who feel mainly British becoming more keen? Such an outcome would suggest the potential for further disputation about the future of the UK rather than the emergence of a consensus about how the Union should be managed. It is to this possibility that we now turn.

Scotland

We begin by examining whether the relationship between national identity (as measured by the Moreno question) and constitutional preference has changed in Scotland. Table 6.11 shows that the more Scottish and the less British someone feels, the more likely they are to favour leaving the UK. However, the correspondence between identity and preference is far from perfect. True, few who have a strong sense of British identity wish to leave the UK. But only around half of those who deny they are British support independence, while the equivalent figure among those whose feelings of British identity are less strong than their sense of Scottish identity is only around a quarter.

Still, it seems that identity matters no more or less now to how people in Scotland would like to be governed than it did when the Scottish Parliament was first created. In almost every case the proportions backing independence to be found in each row of Table 6.11 in 2012 are almost the same as they were in 1999 (though small bases mean that the percentages in the last two rows of the table need to be treated with caution). Although support for leaving the UK may have dropped a little overall since the advent of devolution, there is no sign that those with a strong sense of Scottish identity have particularly come to be more accepting of Scotland's continued membership of the Union.

Northern Ireland

In Northern Ireland, in contrast, there have been some changes in the link between national identity and constitutional preference. This is evident first of all in the link between identity and support for remaining in the UK (not shown). As we might have anticipated from our earlier discussion of Table 6.6, the initial decline in support for remaining in the UK that was evident before 1998 occurred among those with a British identity, while the decline that occurred following the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement was evident primarily among those who feel Irish. At the same time the higher level of support registered since changes were made to the question wording in 2007 has also been evident among those stating they are Irish. The overall effect of these various movements has been to leave the link between identity and wishing to remain part of the UK looking a little weaker now than it did
in 1989.

But what of explicit support for leaving the UK? As Table 6.12 shows, the proportion of those with an Irish identity that backed that view dropped a little (from 68 per cent to 61 per cent) in the immediate wake of the change in wording in the constitutional preferences question in 2007. Subsequently there has been a further much more marked decline in support for leaving the UK among those who claim an Irish identity, such that less than half of those with that outlook now take that view. There has also been a drop among those who say they are "Northern Irish", one that can only be partially accounted for by the fact that, as we saw earlier, more Protestants now also claim that identity. Once again, it seems that we have evidence that the debate about the region's constitutional future has become somewhat less polarised between those with a different sense of national identity.

England

But what of England, where we perhaps found the strongest evidence that there has been something of an adverse reaction to devolution? Perhaps the advent of devolution elsewhere has offended the sympathies of those with a strong sense of English identity in particular? Far from being a source of confusion, perhaps national identity has come to shape people's views in a way that formerly was not the case? This view has certainly been argued by Wyn Jones et al. (2012; 2013).

There is little evidence that this is what has happened, at least so far as attitudes towards Scotland's continued membership of the UK is concerned (Table 6.13). Those who say they are English and not British are only some 10 or so percentage points more likely than those who claim to be British and not English to feel that Scotland should leave the UK - and this gap is much the same now as it was in 1999. There is not much evidence here to support the claim that it is those with a strong sense of English identity in particular who have become more inclined to believe that Scotland should leave the Union.

Much the same is true of the increased concern about Scotland's share of public spending (Table 6.14). True, in 2000 there was very little evidence at all that those with a strong sense of English identity were any more likely than those who felt primarily British to be critical of Scotland's share of public spending, whereas by 2003 they clearly were. But there is no sign that concern has subsequently increased more markedly among those who feel wholly or mostly English. Among those who say they are English and not British the proportion who say that Scotland secures more than its fair share of public spending is 18 percentage points higher now than it was in 2003, a little less than the equivalent figure, 21 points, among those who claim to be British and not English.

Finally, in Table 6.15 we look at the relationship between national identity and how people think England itself should be governed. As we might expect those who say they are English and not British tend to be most in favour of having an English Parliament and are somewhat less inclined to favour continued rule by the UK parliament. These relationships are, however, remarkably weak; those for example who say they are English and not British are only 18 percentage points more likely to back an English parliament than are those who say they are British and not English (though small bases in 2012 for the groups who say they are predominantly or wholly British mean those percentages need to be treated with caution). True, it might appear that support for the idea grew most after 1999 among those who regard themselves as exclusively or primarily English - the 11 point increase in support among that group is higher than in any other - but once we undertake statistical testing that takes into consideration the relatively small size of some of these groups, we find that the difference is not statistically significant.[24] There is remarkably little evidence in our data to support claims that the advent of devolution has so far served to turn English identity into a politically important force.[25]