This chapter assesses why the experience of Thatcherism produced such different outcomes in Scotland and Wales in terms of promoting nationalism and some form of self-government. Although the experience of Conservative rule was cited by supporters of home rule in both countries as a factor in turning many to the policy of devolution, the fact remains that this gained more momentum in Scotland. While a degree of ambivalence about self-government haunted Wales, in Scotland it was confidently asserted as the ‘settled will of the people’.

This chapter will focus on three themes. First, it will examine the role of unionism in Scotland and Wales and show that it had less of a pedigree in Wales and was not so central to Welsh Conservatism. Unionism had been integral to Scottish political culture in the twentieth century and the ‘peculiarities’ of the Scots had long been taken for granted by both Conservative and Labour politicians. Scottish Tories had come to believe that they were the party of the Union, and a unionist tradition that encapsulated both Scotland and Ireland had been part and parcel of Scottish Conservative identity throughout the twentieth century. Nonetheless, both Labour and the Tory parties had banged the Scottish nationalist drum for their own ends on occasion when political expediency dictated. In many respects, Toryism was more ideologically suited to utilising Scottish patriotism as part of a wider British nationalism than Labour, which was duty bound to stress the significance of class. As Iain Hutchison has noted, Scottish Tories actually became more aristocratic and rural in the period after the Second World War and, although anachronistic and stereotypical, the party was still identifiably Scottish. Welsh Conservatism, on the other hand, did not have as distinctive a Welsh tradition. Thatcher, however, had a limited and flawed understanding of unionism in Scotland, and conflated unionism with unitarianism. Many of her dealings and problems with Scotland can be explained by this basic failure to grasp the historic role of unionism in Scottish political culture. More to blame are Scottish Thatcherites, who had even less of an appreciation or understanding either of the party’s traditions or of its association with unionism. Indeed, if Thatcherism can be seen as a form of ideological updating of the Conservative Party, it conspicuously failed to update unionism. Arguably, the lack of a similarly prominent role for Welsh unionism undermined the distinctive national dimension in Wales.