Scots believe a “harmful myth” after being “victims” rather than partners of the British Empire, a staggering new opinion poll has revealed.
A plurality (40 per cent) of the 1,067 YouGov respondents north of the border claimed Scotland was more of a “subject” country, with a mere 29 per cent acknowledging the role of colonial “partner” with England.
The figure is unsurprisingly higher among 2014 ‘Yes’ voters (55 per cent) and 2024 SNP supporters (60 per cent).
Labour voters, who were split in the 2014 independence referendum, were almost evenly divided on the issue of colonialism.
Pro-independence supporters in Scotland
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One-in-three Labour voting respondents agreed that Scotland was more of a partner, with 35 per cent believing England had made the country “subject” to its colonial endeavours.
Despite a plurality of Tory voters (46 per cent) accepting Scotland’s role in the British Empire, just over a quarter (27 per cent) rejected the suggestion.
There was no clear split between attitudes towards Scotland’s role in the British Empire when splitting respondents up by how they voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The findings, released by YouGov yesterday, sparked fresh fury on social media.
Retired lawyer David Forrester said: “If this correctly reflects people’s understanding it shows an enormous degree of ignorance on their part.”
Conservative commentator Mark Wallace added: “Troubling to see a harmful myth like this spreading.”
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Scottish soldiers in the British Army in 1808
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“Utterly delusional,” another user simply wrote.
Scottish journalist Kevin Schofield also commented: “Scottish education used to be the envy of world.”
Christopher Whatley, emeritus professor of Scottish history at the University of Dundee, blamed Scottish nationalists for the spread of disinformation and the promotion of an “old trope” that Scotland was a “nation oppressed”.
He told The Telegraph: “The idea that Scotland was a ‘victim’ of the British Empire is to deny the fact that Scotland was a major contributor to and beneficiary of the empire project. Scotland was not an English colony.
“Glasgow is a case in point, with the monies made from the transatlantic sugar and tobacco trades being invested in landed estates and industries that were the basis of the Glasgow region’s remarkable economic success.
“Scots were involved too in the slave trade and exploited slave labour in the plantations of the Caribbean.”
A map of the British Empire in the early 20th century
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Scotland ended up joining the UK in 1707, almost a century after the “Union of Crowns”, after leaving itself in economic ruin following a botched colonial trip to South America.
In an ambitious plan, dubbed the “Darien Scheme”, Scotland hoped to establish New Edinburgh as the capital of part of Panama.
However, the 1690s scheme proved an unmitigated disaster after the basically uninhabitable land was retrieved by Spain.
Following the disaster, a English-funded bail-out ultimately led Scotland to sign up to the Act of Union.
Merchant Sir John Gladstone, whose son William would go on to serve as Prime Minister, would later become one of a number of Scotsmen to have owned slave plantations.
Glasgow
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He received an enormous pay-out after being compensated for the abolition of the trade.
Glasgow Cathedral also has ties to Scotland’s colonial past, with the iconic attraction including several memorials to tobacco and sugar merchants on its stained-glass windows.
At least 11 buildings in Scotland’s largest city are connected to individuals who were involved with the trade, while eight individuals implicated have monuments or other memorials to them in the city.
Buchanan Street and Glassford Street were even named after “tobacco lords” Andrew Buchanan and John Glassford.
Academics even estimate that by the turn of the 19th century a staggering 50 per cent of the East India Company were Scotsmen, a proportionately higher number given Scotland represented just 15 per cent of the UK’s entire population in 1800.
