ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that attitudes to the religious cleavage in Scottish society have changed at the elite level. The social cleavage was undoubtedly a political cleavage and the Unionists exploited the 'Irish issue' mercilessly for at least the first thirty years of the twentieth century. The issue of Catholic Irish immigration then was an important social cleavage for Scotland. Although the issue of Irish immigration in itself caused much social rancour within Scottish society it was not an issue the Conservatives could hope to exploit in the nineteenth century. In the immediate post-war period the Scottish Unionist Party was careful not to send any signals to the electorate which could place in jeopardy its relationship with the 'Protestant vote'. Such denunciation by opposing elites was clearly evident in the wake of the Conservatives' relative success in Scotland at the 1992 election.
