Scottish Nationalism

Within the United Kingdom, a recurring issue has been raised regarding the political position of Scotland and how the Scottish Parliament could better govern the country. To establish whether the quality of life could be improved for the Scottish people, key events, devolution, and the Scottish Parliament must be evaluated and analysed. The argument for greater power in decision making and the ability to implement change for the citizens of Scotland, has been central to Scottish politics for some time.

Scottish devolution was defeated in the referendum and the two biggest parties campaigned for “No”. The SNP considered the results as a victory for devolution but was against the referendum as they were campaigning about the complete independence.

Those who are for Independence for Scotland say that they could be one of the richest countries because of their oil industry, not have to bear the problems the rest of the UK is going through, and not have to worry about their population since their immigration rate is increasing. On the other hand, those who are not in favor of Scottish independence say that they should not depend on oil since it may run out sometime later, it’s debt would only increase, and that Scotland’s population has a negative growth rate, that would lead to a smaller population in the future.

Scottish Independence has been a purpose of various political parties and Scots. Centuries ago, Scotland has been attempting to gain its independence form the UK. A number of referendums were held, in order to raise the issue of independence. Two of which were Devolution Referendums, held in 1979 and 1997 and an Independence Referendum held in 2014. There are some debates on holding a Second Independence Referendum in the coming years as well. The question here is what are the causes and effects of independence? And will they aid in flourishing Scotland’s future? There is no doubt that there are quite persuasive causes, but not all of them would last for too long; for example, oil. The issue of independence is a mixed blessing for what it

A modern approach to the increasing separation of Scotland and England can been seen beginning with the Labour Party during the 1970’s. The indecision and hesitation with respect to reform was epitomized in the bold and determined proposal of the 1974 Labour government decentralization and transfer of power for Wales and Scotland. The policy was an ill-fated one largely in part to the internal divisions of the Labour party during this epoch. Fortunately for

Be it a good or be it a bad decision! Scotland is at a turning point in its history. Why does Scotland want to be independent? Are the causes of independence quite persuasive for people to vote yes? And what about their effects, will these causes contribute to Scotland’s progression or retrogression? Although the Scottish want to gain their independence, they were divided into two campaigns; the Yes Campaign and the No Campaign. Each of which has strong arguments both for and against the independence.

In Scotland, there had been great amount of oil discovered in the North Sea, and this fully stirred up the Scots' nationalism. However, PC did not have a decisive fact like that. Therefore, it can be said that the Welsh nationalism was not raised enough to show its effect in the general election, despite their having discontent against the Union or Westminster. The nationalism had not been raised enough as well when the Welsh were asked whether they wanted devolution or not in the referendum that was done at the same time as the one in Scotland in 1979. Devolution was denied with 79.7% of "No" in the turnout of 58.8%

Scotland held its independence referendum on September 18th, 2014. The Scottish Nationalist Party wanted to hold this vote in order to give the people of Scotland a say in whether or not their country would stay in the UK. In his speech, “Silent No More”, Gordon Brown urges his audience to have the confidence in saying “no” to Scotland’s independence.

While the authors mentioned above have attempted to define nations and nationalism in general terms, the latter author has applied these theories to Scotland. Tom Nairn argues that in Scotland - where the political nationalism is impotent - a form of ‘pseudo-nationalism’ has been produced. Nairn believes that stereotypical manifestations, like Tartan and Kailyard, became a ‘sub-cultural substitute’ for Scottish nationalism. He argues that since the intelligentsia was deprived of a 19th-century cultural ‘nationalization,' Scotland turned towards Tartanry to construct a false ‘pseudo-nationalism’ (Nairn, 156 ).

The Scottish National Party was formed in 1934 following the merger of the National Party and the Scottish and has had continuous representation at Westminster since the 1967 Winnie Ewing’s victory at the 1967 Hamilton by-election. When the Scottish Parliament was formed in 1999, the SNP became the second largest party in the Scottish legislature, serving two terms in opposition. Alex Salmond became the leader of the SNP in 1990 and returned as leader in 2004, leading the party to take the majority in Parliament following the 2011 Scottish Parliament election. This essay will evaluate the importance Alex Salmond to the rise of the SNP and its effects on Scotland and Britain.

The concept of ‘banal nationalism’ was introduced by Michael Billig (1995) as a term for describing the everyday, unconscious occurrences which that allow a national identity to reproduce itself. Examples of this might be the types of coin used, flags being displayed, or certain rhetoric from politicians (Billig, 2005). Billig (1995) points out that commonly nationalism is written about when discussing extreme or violent attempts to create or seriously change a nation, such as the French revolution. It is also rarely ascribed to people from one’s own country, who are part of the mainstream culture or government. Yet despite this lack of conscious nationalism the members of the nation do not forget their national identity, only remembering them during times of conflict or during national events, such as a royal marriage. This, according to Banal Nationalism, is because the of many of the routine ways of life that reinforce ones shared sense of belonging to the nation, such as the classification of home vs foreign news stories in the media, or the British-centric history lessons taught from a young age.

Nationalism can be defined in two dimensions. First, the feeling of having a sense of national identity. This “national identity” is often confronted with a dilemma as to how to draw the boundaries of what creates a nation. This pre-requisite often comes in the form of either similarities in origin, ethnicity, culture and willingness to partake in the membership of a “nation”. This is contrasted with the concept of “states” as states such as the Native American Iroqouis, whom although are a “nation” have no presiding political autonomy over themselves.

In this essay, we will consider and analyse the effect of Brexit upon the rights of individuals as well as the effect it will have upon the competence of the devolved Scottish government and its relationship with the UK.

The notions of ethnicity and nationalism have been used to discuss the formation of what is so called a nation-state. Many anthropologists (e.g. Eriksen, 1993) assert that ethnicity is a multifaceted product of ever-changing social relations and organisation. In a similar way, Eriksen (1993) discusses nationalism as a social cohesion defined by its relationship to the state. Echoing further dichotomy to the anthropologists’ interpretation, Brubaker (2004) also affirms the presence of “normative ambivalence and conceptual ambiguity” in the study of ethnicity and nationalism. What such debates suggest is therefore neither the definitions nor the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism has been straightforward. From an anthropological point of view, loyal individuals who share symbols, history and found a common expression among themselves claim an imagined concept of civic nationhood (Eriksen, 1993). On the other hand, a different form of nationalism can be traced from “vertical relationship” between ethnicities competing for power (ibid.). Nonetheless, nationalism exists as an abstract conception that involves ‘exclusion’ and ‘inclusion’ of inevitably changing identities (Eriksen, 1993; Smith, 1994 and Brubaker, 2004).

When looking at the case of Scotland succeeding from the UK, one could come to the