One Land

Returning to the "othering" of Gaeldom in Scotland, and also in Ireland, the partition of the United Kingdom in 1922 destroyed the partnership between Highland and Irish land reformers, which would have had a knock-on effect throughout the United Kingdom as the results of their much better-organised agitation bore legislative fruit at Westminster.

You might argue that there would have been separate legislation, not applicable in England or Wales. Well, even if there had been, English and Welsh small farmers and farm labourers would have taken one look at it and decided that they were having some of that.

But instead, although the land question is not as bad as it was in Scotland, it is nowhere near where it would have been if partition had not happened, and it remains quite unaddressed in Ireland. Its addressing by the devolved body in Scotland even though there was by then a Labour Government at Westminster was perfectly scandalous, and has (undoubtedly on purpose) shielded the rural workers of the rest of the United Kingdom from what can begin - and if it had a nationwide context then it would only have begun - to be achieved.