The Scottish Nationalist Party
by Ian Cross
Scotland has had a complicated past with its place in the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the interpreting of that history is controversial in its own right. In 1934 the Scottish National Party (SNP) was founded, and in the middle of the 1970s the party won eleven seats in the British Parliament (SNP Member Handbook 2005, 11). The SNP has continued to see electoral success since 2004. It aspires toward two main, if far-reaching, objectives:
Aims of the Scottish National Party
(a) Independence for Scotland; that is the restoration of Scottish national sovereignty by restoration of full powers to the Scottish Parliament, so that its authority is limited only by the sovereign power of the Scottish People to bind it with a written constitution and by such agreements as it may freely enter into with other nations or states or international organizations for the purpose of furthering international cooperation, world peace and the protection of the environment.
(b) the furtherance of all Scottish interests.
(“Welcome” SNP document)
The platform of the SNP calls upon left-of-center, progressive political campaigns to obtain this “vision…of a successful social democratic nation, which is not just positive about wealth creation but is also committed to ensuring that all of our citizens share in the benefits of that wealth. That is why we [the SNP] argue for progressive policies” (Member Handbook, 18). The 2005 member’s handbook openly declares the party as left leaning (17) and outlines several campaigns and their constituent values, including the “prohibition of discrimination” based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and religion (19); free, universal education (20); pursuit of sustainable “green” energy and environmental protection (20); removal of nuclear weapons and proscribing nuclear power plants (18); humanist wealth distribution (20); transparency and democratic participation (19).
Gaining enough public support to enact such policies is of course a different matter than developing a coherent corpus of values and projects. Utilizing national identity to appeal to the public is one common strategy, used in a variety of times and places. But it is important not to forget that national identity, as much as it is defined by both consciousness and action, is itself defined, reshaped and affected by policy. Calling upon interpretations of national identity requires, at least in part, both construction and presentation of that interpretation.
Nationalist sentiments in the age of European nationalism relied on exclusive interpretations of national identities. These emphasized and reinforced a societal picture that, while often being largely and recently invented, maintained a conservative political agenda, one designed to elevate the nation’s interests, or at least the interests of the nation’s elites, while preserving the status quo. Such interpretations of national identity were often employed by the upper classes of a society in order to maintain the existing societal structure or hierarchy. Bavaria in the nineteenth century is one example of invention for the sake of “vertical” integration, where purportedly ancient and indigenous costumes were deliberately designed for each social stratum to reinforce class lines and loyalty to the crown (Regina Bendix, “Moral Integrity in Costumed Identity: Negotiating ‘National Costume’ in 19th-Century Bavaria”). “Vertical” integration is meant in opposition to “horizontal” integration: the former refers to integration that unites classes or blocs within one national-political boundary, while the latter refers to the integration of classes across national-political boundaries. There were widespread attempts at vertical integration in the nineteenth century across Europe, recognized now most often as nationalist movements, in reaction to the increasing possibility of widespread horizontal integration, recognized most often as early communist movements.
In the late eighteenth century and the 1800s, a national Scottish identity was invented. Various symbols, easily recognizable today, were created in this period, sometimes even by outsiders to the Scottish “nation.” The kilt is perhaps the best example of this; an English Quaker businessman named Thomas Rawlinson first created it in 1727 near Inverness, Scotland, in conjunction with a British Army tailor. In this modern, pleated form, the kilt disappeared into obscurity after an act of the English Parliament banned it in 1746. The prohibition was designed as a way to “break up the distinct Highland way of life and integrate the Highlanders into modern society” after the predominantly-Highlander Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 (Hugh Trevor-Roper, “Invention of Tradition,” 21). This integration was also intended because of centuries of relative social and economic isolation in the Highlands. By 1780 the kilt was not seen being worn publicly. But nearly half a century later, in 1822, kilts were donned with extravagance when King George visited Edinburgh, and a great spectacle was made of the “ancient” tradition.
In this period the tartan industry was similarly generated. Tartan designs, also called setts, had previously been hand woven in whatever garish designs the weaver desired; there was no connection to clan lineage or locale, and setts were often copied and exchanged freely. As the tartan industry prepared for George’s visit, the first to Edinburgh by a sitting monarch since 1650, setts were arbitrarily assigned to clans for the benefit of the event (Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Invented Our World & Everything In It, 317-8; Trevor-Roper, “Invention of Tradition,” 29-31). This grew to extensive proportions, with almost two centuries of continued tradition and growth, and more than a little poor scholarship and obvious romanticism, leading to shop-at-home catalogues of “correct” clan tartan setts available around the globe.
This period of Scottish history is sometimes referred to as the “Scottish Highland Cultural Revival.” As Arthur Herman discusses in How the Scots Invented the Modern World, this period may be more accurately summarized as turning “Scottish history into Highland history, with Lowlanders and Borderers largely forgotten” (313), where the history and traditions of the two other groups were marginalized in the production of the new identity. This created national identity was based on an exclusive, cultural conceptualization: where it was founded on recently invented traditions and presented them as ancient and genuine, it marked national identity by this culture and by its distinctiveness as compared to other cultures or nationalities.
The national identity presented by the modern day SNP is not exclusive but, rather, inclusive. Based on the democratic ideals expressed by the party literature, this might be expected. Party ads feature images of individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds out of proportion to their statistical representation in the population (www.snp.org, accessed 2006). More recent campaigns include changing legislation in order to provide asylum children with the same rights to education as all other children in Scotland (“Government”), and an official statement condemning the potential banning of the burqa and niqab (“SNP Attacks Burqa Ban Attempt”). Scotland’s Muslim population makes up 0.6% of the population of the approximately 10 million citizens living in the country (“SNP Attacks”).
The politics of the Scottish National Party have continued left-of-center. Previous commitments have been continued, such as the recent “Say No to Trident” campaign (“Scottish Parliament Votes on Antinuclear Motion”): the public petition reads,
The Westminster Government wants to spend £90 billion in replacing the UK's nuclear weapons system. The SNP believes this money can be better spent in our schools, hospitals and on other public services…The majority of the Scottish people don't want their money spent on these weapons of mass destruction (“Say No to Trident”).
Similarly, the SNP committed to no new nuclear power stations or nuclear waste dumps and to aggressive climate change reduction targets in the last few years (“Government”). Other leftist policies that have been pursued include the “Keep Our Post Public” campaign against privatization of public services (“Keep Our Post Public”) and the offering of Human Papilloma Virus vaccination to all girls between 12 and 14 years of age (“Government”).
In recent years the party’s electoral success, like that on the legislative end, has increased. In 2004 the SNP could boast of twenty-five Ministers of the Scottish Parliament, two to the English Parliament, five to the Westminster Parliament, and 179 councilors (Member Handbook, 11). In 2010 the SNP is the largest single party in the Scottish Parliament with 47 out of a total of 129 seats, it is the fifth largest group in Westminster with 6 seats out of 1,390 total, and also has two members in the 736-seat European Parliament. In the EU’s parliament the SNP is part of the European Free Alliance (EFA), which is currently in coalition with the Greens. The EFA is “an alliance of progressive parties with a regional or democratic nationalist programme. The EFA stands for solidarity with peoples, languages and cultures…[and] defend[s] the right to self-determination of peoples…in the EU” (Member Handbook, 70). The EFA’s policies are based primarily on values of social equality and justice, and like the SNP the EFA is primarily left leaning in its politics (The Greens-EFA).
The Scottish National Party is one example of a contemporary, leftist political party that relies on national identity for its programme, and has also seen significant success in the last decade. Although the party existed well before the 1997 referendum in Scotland that created the Scottish Parliament (Member Handbook, 11), in recent years it has taken increasing responsibility of running that assembly. Through its commitment to the diffusion of democratic methods of governance, the SNP has utilized a “vertical” integration scheme that, unlike many previous nationalist platforms, calls upon a non-exclusive national identity. In this period of increasing globalization and change, the path for democracy is inclusive in its interpretation and presentation of national identity.
Works Cited
Bendix, Regina. “Moral Integrity in Costumed Identity: Negotiating ‘National Costume’ in 19th-Century Bavaria.” The Journal of American Folklore. Vol. 111, no. 440 (Spring, 1998): pp. 133-145.
“Government.” The Scottish National Party. <www.snp.org/government.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
Herman, Arthur. How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything In It. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2001.
“Keep Our Post Public.” The Scottish National Party. <http://www.snp.org/node/14945.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
“Say No to Trident.” The Scottish National Party. <http://www.snp.org/node/185.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
“Scottish Parliament Votes on Antinuclear Motion.” January 18, 2010. Nuclear Energy Initiatives Magazine. <http://www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?sectioncode=132&storyCode=2048402.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
“SNP Attacks Burqa Ban Attempt.” The Scotsman. <http://news.scotsman.com/scottishnationalparty/SNP-attacks-burqa-ban-attempt.6426036.jp.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
The Greens-EFA. < http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/default/rubrik/9/9272.about_efa@en.htm.> Accessed July 18, 2010.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh. “The Invention of Tradition.” Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
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