Holyrood
In a film essentially about self-identity, the Scottish National Party (SNP), with independence from the UK as their stated goal, campaigns in the 2007 election for the Scottish parliament against the incumbent Scottish Labour Party and wins by one vote, largely because of Britain's involvement in the Iraq War.
The Act of Union in 1707 dissolved the Scottish Parliament creating the Parliament of Great Britain in Westminster. In 1999 Tony Blair's new Labour government reconvened the Scottish Parliament with reduced powers devolved from London. The 2007 election was for the third term
of the Scottish Parliament in its new building at Holyrood in Edinburgh. Scotland has been dominated by the Labour Party for decades, and the first two terms Holyrood had been run by a coalition of the Scottish Labour Party and the Scottish Liberal-Democrats.
Holyrood follows the five-week campaign and the month of negotiations following, as the SNP attempts to build a coalition, but ends up settling for minority government. Did the SNP win, or did Labour lose?
A professionally organized SNP ran a brilliant campaign and independence is in the European air from Kosovo to Catalonia. Yet is it also true that the Scottish voters had clearly turned against the Labour Party because of Blair’s policies in Westminster, in particular the cosy relationship with Bush over Iraq, and a renewal of Trident nuclear missiles housed in Scotland. The subtitle of the film, were there to be one, could easily be that George Bush may be responsible for the break-up of Britain.
