Can the UK government win Scottish hearts as well as minds?

There has been fury over a suggestion to brand the Covid vaccine with the union flag, writes Kate Devlin

The Scottish flag flutters next to the union one over Downing Street in London (Getty)

In the run-up to the last Scottish referendum, Jean Chretien, the former prime minister of Canada, warned British politicians of the need to win hearts as well as minds if their union was to stay intact.  

Born in Quebec, he led his country the last time his home province held an independence referendum.  The result was incredibly tight.  The people of Quebec voted to remain a part of Canada by a margin of less than 1 per cent.  

In the years that followed, he, like many Canadian politicians, had a lot of time to think about the nature of that result.  I spoke to him in London in 2013, after he had been asked to give a speech on his experience in Whitehall.  

His message was complicated. Much of it was about emotions. He spoke of his own, as he sought to keep the place where he was born within the country he was leading.  

But he also spoke of the wider emotions, cautioning Westminster politicians of the fallout that is involved in killing other people’s “dreams”.  

In the end the UK government won the 2014 Scottish referendum but not without criticism, even from within, that it had focused on minds to the detriment of hearts.  

Those complaints are being heard once again. And the stakes could be higher this time around. A number of opinion polls have recently suggested a majority of Scots now support independence.  

Support for Nicola Sturgeon’s handling of the pandemic suggests she is winning over “minds”.  And when it comes to hearts, the UK government again seems to be floundering.  

A number of senior Scottish Tories were furious at the suggestion this week that Covid vaccinations should be branded with a union flag. They said the idea crass and simplistic.  

Of particular concern to some Scottish Tories was that the flag idea could turn off Catholics in the west of Scotland who voted against independence during the last referendum but might be persuaded to change their minds this time around. 

The issue of Quebec independence has waned in recent years, in part because of a feeling that the rest of Canada “lovebombed” Quebec enough to stay.  

Would the UK government have the emotional know-how to do the same to Scotland, even if it wanted to?