It was ironic that just as the doors opened at St Andrew's House in Edinburgh – the physical manifestation of newly self-confident inter-war nationalist unionism – Scotland and the UK faced an existential challenge from a very different sort of nationalism on the Continent. But just as in 1914–18, the Second World War was to have an impact on Scottish national identity while fundamentally redrawing the pre-war boundaries of UK party politics, and thus the ever-adaptable Scottish Unionist Party was once again compelled to respond.

During and after the war there was also a renewed challenge from within, not only from a better-organised Scottish National Party but also from the non-partisan Scottish Convention movement, which desired legislative autonomy within the United Kingdom. Both these forces would serve to make nationalist unionism even more ostentatious in its acknowledgement of the Scottish dimension, while further developing its political ‘offer’ within the confines of the Union.

Although the ‘ethnic’ nationalism that surfaced in the 1920s and 1930s in response to a perceived threat from Irish immigration receded, nationalist unionism still rested upon myths and symbols derived from Scotland's pre-Union history; these reminders of Scottish nationhood, meanwhile, were ‘flagged’ with greater frequency than before in party propaganda, speeches and election literature, a ‘banal’ nationalist unionism sitting alongside the British variety, particularly during and after the war.

The immediate post-war era also found Scottish Unionist strategy taking a more overt form during a process that culminated in the quasi-nationalist ‘Scottish Control of Scottish Affairs’ agenda. Although developed in concert with the unionist ‘centre’, this demonstrated a willingness to allow the Scottish ‘periphery’ a degree of autonomy when it came to containing growing pressure for legislative devolution. Conveniently, as will be shown, this dovetailed with a Britain-wide Conservative campaign against Labour's ‘centralisation’, thus ‘local patriotism’ was to be encouraged, not just in Scotland but also Wales and parts of England, the party's ‘territorial code’ at its height.

Putting ‘the Interests of Scotland First’

The appointment of the English-born Ernest Brown (the Liberal MP for Leith) as Secretary of State for Scotland in May 1940 provoked something of a nationalist-unionist backlash.