Section Three: The mechanisms and manifestations of Scottish identity, home and away.

Parliamentary nationalism and the SNP

Perhaps the highest profile manifestation of Scottishness in a political sense is the existence of the Scottish National Party. The SNP was formed in 1928, and since then has consistently campaigned for Scottish independence, through parliamentary and constitutional means. As I have stated from the outset, I am not concerned primarily with ‘nationalism' in Scotland, and as such I will not be discussing the role of the SNP at length 68. Instead, what I am concerned with here is the importance of the SNP to Scotland's national identity. Denounced by some as ‘the keepers of the nation's inferiority complex' 69, the SNP have in the main received a mixed response from the Scottish electorate, although the party's assumed role as a political mouthpiece for Scotland's identity is of significance, and stems from the assertion made in the introduction that nationalism is but a political mechanism through which national identity is promoted. Some Scottish voters distrust the SNP 70, whilst others feel the party stops short of ‘true' nationalism, in failing to emphasise the cultural roots of Scottishness 71. As a result, the SNP has had varying electoral success, peaking in the mid-1970s at a time when the oil discoveries in the North Sea were leading to claims of ‘oil-fired nationalism' 72. Indeed, the SNP's "it's Scotland's Oil" campaign 73 received a high profile from both the media and academic observers, and was given considerable weight following Scotland's emergence as the world's fifth largest producer of oil 74.

The central significance of the SNP to this dissertation is not solely within the national context, but also within the global one. The SNP has had an enormous impact in focusing Scottish national identity towards Europe, and the party's ambivalence on this matter is great importance, partly due to the feeling within the party,

It was particularly galling to the pride of members of the SNP that had the United Kingdom joined the Common Market Luxembourg would have had a vote (even though it has a smaller population than Edinburgh) but Scotland would not. 75

In 1974, one year after Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC, now the European Union, or EU), and one year before the referendum, the SNP manifestoes were championing a clearly anti-European stance. The February manifesto advocated a Norwegian style stance of independence from the EEC 76, and the ambivalence was more succinctly stated in the October manifesto,

the SNP will support moves for British withdrawal while continuing to demand Scottish representation in the organisations of the Common Market. 77

A year later the SNP sent a European MP to Strasbourg whilst the Party ‘unobtrusively reversed their policy' 78. The 1980s saw a change of policy towards achieving independence within the EEC, and a realisation of the political importance of European Union. Whilst the run-up to the 1997 General Election saw major rifts developing within the Conservative Government in Westminster over the question of European unity, the SNP were by now fully supportive of the EU,

Scotland will be a full member of the European Union, participating fully in the institutions of the Union. As a small independent country Scotland can have considerable influence in a Europe which is increasingly dominated by small member states. 79

Isobel Lindsay, an SNP member, has observed that the reason behind SNP support for Europe may be as a perceived ‘escape route' from the constitutional constraints of seeking independence through Westminster 80. Lindsay does expand her view to incorporate the shift towards support for Europe as part of widespread ‘modernisation' 81, thus supporting the assertion that Scottish identity has been affected by the ‘global era', a theme I shall return to in section four.