In Tom Nairn’s 1977 book “The Break-Up of Britain”, he pokes fun at Scottish Nationalists who believe their nationalism to be better than other, less sophisticated, patriotic movements.
For, as he argued, it was ever thus: at several points in the past century or so a similar cry had gone up – our nationalism is “good”, yours “bad”; my nationalism is positive and inclusive, the argument usually runs, the other sort negative and exclusive.
Despite Nairn’s cynicism, it is self-evidently true that some nationalisms are preferable to others. Ronald Reagan’s sunny, optimistic patriotism was certainly more palatable than the Donald Trump variety, while contemporary Scottish nationalism is less offensive than the Ukip or Tory variety.
At the same time, it’s worth remembering that pretty much everyone is nationalist to some degree, although that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone supports independence or Brexit. Even the most Unionist Scots blanche at references to the “Queen of England”, while the most Europhile Brits take a degree of pride in their country’s history and culture.
But nationalism of any sort fundamentally rests upon an assertion of, or belief in, some sort of superiority. Most folk didn’t vote Yes in 2014 or Leave in 2016 to give effect to some sort of technocratic self-governance, but because they believed Scotland or the UK was better – or could be better still – outside the UK and EU respectively.
Everywhere this is made obvious, from vague references to rarely defined “Scottish values”, to the accusation, levelled at anyone flagging up inconvenient truths, of “talking Scotland down”. Both these devices assert Scotland’s superiority, albeit in a nuanced way. Likewise, the SNP are presented as not being like “other parties”, just as it’s leader isn’t like “other politicians”, in other words, better.
Of course all these things aren’t true, not that that really matters, and just because one of those nationalisms is admirably pro-immigration and the other anti- doesn’t mean there is some fundamental difference between the two, just that it manifests itself in different ways.
The late historian Tony Judt captured it well when he defined the Scottish “sense of self” as a curious mixture of “superiority and resentment”, and of course most nationalisms are fuelled by grievance of one sort or another. Thus Scottish Nationalism is both positive and negative, utilitarian and existential. It’s an ideological potpourri, and looking for a solid core usually proves futile.
Over the past week, however, this assertion of superiority has gone into overdrive as a result of the mood music emanating from the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. Now it seems unlikely that little, if any, of the ideas floated or briefed, much like Donald Trump’s “beautiful” wall, will ever happen, but that isn’t really the point: various dog-whistles were sounded, and judging by subsequent opinion polls a lot of voters (and not just in England) like what they hear.
And such rhetoric, of course, influences broader discourse and creates an atmosphere, and not a particularly pleasant one at that. Even in the wake of Brexit Theresa May’s party had an opportunity to embrace a predominantly civic English nationalism that would have complimented Ruth Davidson’s “nationalist unionism” perfectly well, but instead the Prime Minister has chosen to promote a more ethnic and anachronistically British sort, which will not only find limited appeal north of the border but actively undermine the Scottish party just as it’s beginning to escape a two-decade-long period of electoral irrelevance.
That the UK Conservative Party has ended up here isn’t really that surprising. As the former chancellor Ken Clarke reflects in his engaging new memoir “Kind of Blue”, he can’t help contrasting the “atmosphere of a new dawn” that led he and other Tories to support European Community membership in the early 1970s with the “nostalgic yearnings for an older nationalism” which later divided and consumed his party.
The First Minister and others in her party are right to condemn this shift. Nicola Sturgeon said just before the EU referendum that a Leave vote would provoke a right-wing coup in the Conservative Party and that now looks remarkably prescient. Leadership is important in this context. Sure, the leader of the SNP is actively reinforcing the often-overstated argument that Scotland and England are fundamentally different, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong to do so.
This, however, only takes you so far, and I’ve still found much of the turbo-charged virtue signalling and #WeAreScotland exceptionalism of the past week difficult to stomach. The nationalism deniers have also been out in force. In an article that repeatedly invoked Godwin’s Law the SNP MP Mhairi Black said she had “never identified” with the word “nationalist” and that it “irritates” her that she’s automatically labelled as such “purely because I am in the SNP”.
Similarly, the former SNP spin doctor Kevin Pringle said that while he accepted “the aspiration to statehood for Scotland reflects a form of political nationalism” the term “nationalist” had nevertheless “rankled” when he first joined the SNP in the 1990s. This reflects a contorted logic: their (Tory) nationalism is bad, ours is good, but anyway we’re not actually nationalists at all, we just happen to believe in, er, nationalist things.
There’s a similar confusion on the other side of the constitutional divide. Nick Clegg’s recently-published mea culpa relentlessly criticises identity politics only to end up urging the Liberal Democrats to pursue “a modern, positive patriotism”, while the former Labour Cabinet minister John Denham, speaking at a Fabian conference in Edinburgh two days ago, made a similar plea for the centre-left to “become the champion of a progressive patriotism”.
This, he acknowledged, carried dangers, but also opportunities. “A progressive patriotism”, he added, “can bring disparate and divided communities together with a sense of common purpose. It can start conversations between people who would normally see themselves divided by politics.” Denham, like others in the Labour Party, self-identifies as an “English nationalist”, but the trouble for them is that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t appear very interested in a rapprochement with identity politics.
But there is, as I said earlier, an opportunity there, especially now Mrs May’s party has opted to relinquish that ground in order to pursue a quixotically “British” nationalism that implies there’s still such a thing as “British politics”.
Where, meanwhile, does all of this leave Scotland? Last year the journalist Peter Geoghegan wrote of the UK becoming a “zombie union”, not yet dead “but listless, inert and lacking the vital human spark that nations, like people, need to prosper”. And while Scottish independence might appear inevitable as a result, many Scots find themselves wanting to take the leap while (subconsciously) concerned about the economic consequences.
So here we are, trapped between a nostalgic Brexit fantasy and a still unconvincing independence vision. Scots can now choose between the jingoistic claptrap emerging from a divided Conservative Party or the fluffier nationalism that’ll undoubtedly be offered up at the SNP conference in Glasgow later this week. It isn’t much of a choice.
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