The Return of the Doomsday Scenario

A marvellous very special guest post from Peter Lynch, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Stirling:


For those of us of a certain vintage, the Doomsday scenario was an important part of Scottish politics which emerged from the Radical Scotland collective in the mid-1980s. It pointed at the negative political consequences of a Conservative electoral victory at the 1987 general election based on English votes and seats whilst Scots voted in favour of parties favouring constitutional change. The scenario pointed to the fact that the Tories would have no mandate to govern Scotland and also offered encouragement to Scots voters to cast their ballots tactically to make doomsday happen. And, given that the Tories lost 11 of their 21 seats in 1987, this tactic was reasonably successful.

Of course, the Doomsday idea was not merely intended to operate in this way. It was also an attempt to stimulate the Home Rule debate in the mid-1980s and to move Labour, in particular, to a more radical position. The Doomsday scenario was not an isolated issue during these years. It existed alongside the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, the Claim of Right and the various efforts to involve Labour and the other parties in a constitutional convention.

Now, on the face of it, the Doomsday idea was a 1980s construct that has been superseded by time and change in the political environment. After all, what use was a Doomsday scenario in a post-1997 context of popular Labour governments at Westminster and the establishment of a Scottish parliament in 1999?

However, given the likelihood of a future - indeed perhaps imminent - Conservative UK election victory, Doomsday is back, albeit it in a different way. Sure enough, it isn’t like the mid-1980s as devolution has happened and questions of governance and mandates are not the same.
Nonetheless, there are several potential Doomsday scenarios in the current period – where a popular SNP government in Edinburgh faces a Conservative government in London that is politically unpopular in Scotland (meaning winning very few votes and seats). We can refer to this as the Doomsday Plus scenario: where two different governments rub up against each other over conflicting mandates and goals. It can be seen to create the seeds of a constitutional crisis though also opportunities for change – meaning a renegotiated devolution settlement. Arguably, this type of thing already began in a very modest way with the establishment of the Calman Commission to review devolution.

However, there is also a Doomsday Max scenario possible, in which the SNP becomes the leading party in Scotland at the UK general election in addition to running the Scottish government, whilst the Conservatives triumph on the back of English votes and face the constitutional consequences of their unpopularity in Scotland. This scenario might seem unlikely (witness Glenrothes and Glasgow North East), but is a potential one. And it would change the nature of the constitutional debate and the parameters for an independence referendum (as does Doomsday Plus).

Of course, the two Doomsday scenarios painted here focus on two parties only – the SNP in Scotland and the Conservatives in the UK government. Given the multi-party, multi-level nature of politics post-devolution, a simple two-party game is unlikely. Labour and Liberal Democrat responses in Scotland and Westminster will be important too though Labour may be incapacitated by losing power at Westminster whilst the Lib Dems seem dissatisfied with Calman yet also confused about their position on a referendum. Both may find themselves sidelined in a dispute between governments in the post-2010 period.