In Scotland there are a group of people who want
Scotland to be an independent country. But who are they and why do they want
this? They are frequently supporters of
the SNP though some also support the Scottish Greens or other less well-known
parties. Some don’t support any party but have decided that they would vote for
Scottish independence at any future referendum. But why?
The argument frequently goes that it is unfair that the
Scottish electorate frequently gets a Conservative Government at Westminster
though the Conservative Party doesn’t win the majority of seats in Scotland or
that it is unfair that Scotland voted to Remain in the EU, but the UK left
anyway. But why should this matter?
But what is to be Scottish and what is it for Scotland
to be a country that makes it illegitimate for these Scots to be outvoted by
the UK whole? Scotland being a country is based on the fact that Scotland was
an independent nation state until 1707. The basis is therefore historical. If
Scotland had never been an independent country, it is no more likely that there
would now be an SNP than there would be a Yorkshire National Party.
Likewise, the idea that there is a Scottish people is
based on the fact that there was once an independent Scottish nation full of
Scottish people and that the present people of Scotland are descended from
them. If at some point in the intervening 300 years a wholly new people had moved
to Scotland with no connection with the previous people, there would be no sense
that the present Scottish people have a historical connection with the past Scottish nation. So,
this too is based on history and ancestry.
When Scottish nationalists march or gather at the site
of the Battle of Bannockburn they are asserting that we are the same people that
fought against proud Edward’s Army and sent him homeward to think again. If
that is not how Scottish nationalists think, then why do they frequently dress
up as Jacobites and use the flags and symbols of the period when Scotland was
not part of the UK?
The SNP symbol looks remarkably like an upside-down Odal rune (ᛟ). This symbol means heritage, inheritance, inherited estate. I do not know if the founders of the SNP knew about this symbol, but it would be appropriate if they had based the SNP symbol on it, because it is the essence of their argument. Support for the SNP today is based on heritage and inheritance. The sense of Scotland being a nation and Scots being a people is something that was handed down from parents to children. How else did it come down to today?
All nationalist arguments are based on identity and
that identity being handed down from parents and grandparents. If there had
been mass waves of migration into Scotland from the other parts of the UK and
elsewhere so that there was no longer a distinct Scottish language, accent or
identity there would be no SNP. If no Scottish residents could trace their ancestry
to the Battle of Bannockburn and that Scottish ancestry
was as likely to be French, West Indian or Chinese as anything else there would be no more
demand for secession in modern day Scotland than there is in modern day
Vermont.
Scottish independence marches are overwhelmingly full
of people whose ancestors have lived in Scotland for centuries. These people nearly
all look the same and speak the same. They are not multicultural. Rather they form a monoculture. It is for this reason that they march.
In many countries national identity is a matter of
where you were born and where your parents came from. In Eastern Europe it is
still common to think of identity as a matter of language and heritage. What
made Poles continue to be Poles when Poland ceased to exist when it was
partitioned was that they spoke Polish, were Catholic and had Polish ancestry.
In Britain we no longer think this way. We rightly believe
that someone whose parents came from elsewhere and has British citizenship is as
fully British as everyone else. We do not make the distinction between identity
and citizenship. Rather in a similar way to the United States we have the idea
that anyone can become British.
But there is no such thing as Scottish citizenship
because Scotland is not an independent nation state that issues passports. Scottish
nationalists have British passports even if they reject the UK and refuse to
accept that they are British. But if it is not citizenship that makes residents
in Scotland Scottish, what is it?
I might be a resident in the United States for many
years, but I would not normally call myself an American unless I was a United
States citizen. This is also the case in Europe. Scots who retire to Spain do
not normally call themselves Spanish. Scottish people such as a certain blogger
living in Bath do not call themselves English. Many people who were both born
and raised in England such as a former ambassador to Uzbekistan think of
themselves as Scottish because their parents were Scottish. Many Scots living
in England resented not having a vote in the 2014 independence referendum even
if they had not been to Scotland for years and perhaps even if they were not born
and raised here. So, what is it that makes someone Scottish?
George Galloway has recently been criticised for
writing:
Well #Humza you’re not
more Scottish than me. You’re not a Celt like me. You’re not working-class like
me. You didn’t go to a state school like me. You’re not more socialist than me.
So stop pretending. You’re a poseur.
We should of course all accept that Humza Yousaf is
Scottish. He was born in Scotland, lives in Scotland and the Scottish identity
should not be limited to people with Scottish ancestry. But Mr Galloway does
not deny that Mr Yousaf is Scottish. He merely says you are not more Scottish
than me. But this is true. They are both equally Scottish.
Likewise, the statement that Mr Yousaf is not a Celt
is true. Mr Yousaf’s father was an accountant, which suggests he had a middle-class
family. It is also true that Mr Yousaf did not go to a state school. He went to
Hutchesons' Grammar School, which also suggests that his background was affluent.
If Mr Yousaf were a socialist, why is he in the SNP rather than the Labour
Party or one of the other parties of the left?
Everything Mr Galloway said was true, yet certain
commentators have condemned him for saying it, or have suggested he said something
that he did not say.
If it is wrong to point out that many Scots are Celts,
why does the SNP go to such great lengths and expense to promote a Celtic
language in Scotland. It doesn’t promote Polish or Urdu, but rather gives
Gaelic special treatment to an extent far exceeding its relatively few
speakers. It does this because Gaelic is indigenous to Scotland while Polish
and Urdu are not.
It is common to describe Scotland, Wales and Ireland
as being Celtic, though the Ancient Britons in England also spoke a Celtic
language. Most British people have Celtic ancestors, but some do not. It doesn’t
make them less British or Scottish. After all the Celts migrated here too.
But if my parents had emigrated to Poland in the 1960s,
I don’t think I would have joined the Silesian National Party (SNP). It might
be that other Polish people would be willing to treat me as equally Polish, it might
be that Silesians might be willing to treat me as equally Silesian, but on what
basis would I want Silesia to be independent? Even if lots of other Silesians
wanted Silesia to be independent or perhaps to rejoin Germany it’s hard to
imagine me thinking this had anything to do with me. Why would I have a sense
of being Silesian making me different from other people whose parents had
migrated to Warsaw rather than Wrocław. I might jump on the
bandwagon of the cause of Silesian independence, but what would it really have
to do with me?
It is for this reason that I’ve always found the
motives of people like Humza Yousaf hard to understand. He of course can stand
for any party he pleases and support any cause. But why get involved with a
party that in the end is based on ancestry when you don’t share that ancestry?
It feels like a pretence or else opportunism. There is something fake about it.
Scottish nationalism would not exist at all if all
Scots based their Scottish identity in the same way that someone like Humza
Yousaf does. He puts on and off whatever kilt he pleases and rightly so, but
many if not most Scots feel a kilt is a matter of family and that you are
either entitled to wear it or you are not. It’s to do with ancestry even if
these kilt patterns were invented in the nineteenth century.
The idea that Scotland is a country and that the Scots
are a people is not because of people whose parents arrived here in the 1960s.
If being Scottish is just a matter of living here, then why feel any
distinction between us and people in England who are also just living there. If
the basis of identity is open to everyone who moves here, then there is no
valid distinction between someone of Asian heritage living in Bradford or living
in Glasgow. It becomes a matter of arbitrary choice of where your parents chose
to live. But that is not a valid reason to campaign for independence for this
group from that group, when the basis of their identity and nationality is the
same. So called Civic nationalism make Scottish nationalism arbitrary and in the end senseless.
The only reason to suppose that the Scottish people
should have independence is that we are in some important way different from
the other people in the UK and that we have something in common which they
lack. But what can this something be if it is merely the fact that we live in
Scotland rather than England?
The campaign for Scottish independence only makes
sense when it is based on Scots having a common ancestry, heritage and history
and that this is something we share, but which is not shared by people in England.
But the problem here then is that Humza Yousaf is fighting for something that
he does not share and which none of the other SNP supporters from overseas or
other parts of the UK share either.
Scotland rightly is welcoming to people from everywhere.
The Scottish identity should be open to all. But the ideology of Scottish
nationalism depends on a concept of Scottishness that is not open to all. If it is not about ancestry it is about nothing at all. It is
this which makes it rather unwise for people from Poland, Portugal, or Pakistan
to play around with Scottish nationalism. The SNP may pretend to be welcoming,
but at root it has a concept of Scottishness that excludes people whose
ancestors were not Scottish. This is carefully hidden today, partly by useful fools like Mr Yousaf, but it is there
none the less.
Mr Galloway’s point I believe is the opposite of racism. Everything we know about Mr Galloway including his family tells us that he has no prejudice against Muslims. He is merely pointing out that Humza Yousaf is like a black man who wants to join the Confederate cause of Southern independence. It is at best an unwise pretence, at worst mere opportunism that is unlikely to end well.
Scottish nationalism is the cause of those Scots who are obsessed with ancestry, who look back to 1314 and an auld enemy. If you don’t share that ancestry, be careful helping those who think the most important thing in the world is recreating the place where their ancestors used to live. After all your ancestors did not live there. They were not Celts, nor indeed were they Scots.