Victimhood, Identity and the SNP

I have long struggled to understand in what ways, if any, the Scottish National Party are nationalists. I have long illustrated this question with a set of statements, which I will include here.

But first, let us acknowledge that the SNP today do not claim to be nationalists. While the party started out as explicitly nationalistic, it has drifted (at times, jolted) ever farther from that. Today, it is saddled with a historical name which has become very inappropriate. In 2017, its then leader Nicola Sturgeon said:

The word [“national”] is difficult. If I could turn the clock back, what 90 years, to the establishment of my party, and choose its name all over again, I wouldn’t choose the name it has got just now, I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.

… what those of us who do support Scottish independence are all about could not be further removed from some of what you would recognise as nationalism in other parts of the world.

Presumably she would call it something like the Scottish Independence Party. Clearly, she is not interested in nationalism as such, and neither is anyone else with influence in the SNP today. It is good that they are honest about this discrepancy between their party’s name and what they stand for.

Unfortunately, it leaves one wondering what the party actually does stand for, that distinguishes it from any of its rival parties. Socialism? Gay marriage? Mass immigration? Trans rights? Nope, all of the parties in Scotland are fervent advocates of all those things. Maybe business and enterprise, a less airy-fairy and more realistic, hard-headed understanding that you need capitalism if you want to sustain a welfare state? Nope, all of the parties understand that and are in full agreement that business is good. They also agree that we should look after the environment, help little old ladies with heavy shopping, and return library books on time.

As far as I can see, there really is nothing to distinguish the SNP from its rivals other than a commitment to getting Scotland out of the United Kingdom.

The trouble is, many people are mis-led by the party’s name into thinking that it has nationalistic fondness for Scotland. That is to say that it:

• values Scottish culture

• values the Scottish people (ie. as an ethnic group)

• values Scottish sovereignty

• values Scottish history

• values Scottish identity

… in other words, that it has love for Scotland rather than just hate for England.

But, looking at its policies, it is difficult to see anything about Scotland that the SNP actually loves. All of its policies destroy, or work towards destroying, everything that anyone could value about a nation. Let us examine the above five matters individually:

• the SNP does not care about Scottish culture, since it wants multiculturalism which will inevitably, in time, erase whatever native culture pre-dated it

• the SNP does not care about the Scottish people as an ethnic group, since it wants mass immigration which will inevitably, in time, transform that ethnic group out of recognition

• the SNP does not care about Scottish sovereignty since, having wrangled Scotland out of the UK, it would have every intention to re-integrate it into the European Union and thus surrender its sovereignty

• the SNP does not value Scottish history since that history would be (is being) obliterated by multiculturalism and mass immigration. The more of these a nation has, the more radical is its break from its history, and the more difficult and perverse would be any attempt to reconnect with that history (since it would be alien to a great portion of the population)

• the SNP does not value Scottish identity since its policies preclude it even recognising any Scottish identity. Whoever happens to be in Scotland is “Scottish”, and that’s the end of the matter, just like if you’re born in a stable you’re a horse.

So, does the SNP conceptualise Scotland as merely a zone, nondescript in every way, that happens to be oppressed by another zone (England)? Judging by its policies, one would have to conclude “yes”.

But perhaps a better way to characterise the situation would be as follows: the SNP does see a Scottish culture, but it is one that is illuminated primarily by English oppression. The SNP does see a Scottish identity, but its sole defining feature is the struggle to escape English oppression. For the SNP, the only salient thing about the Scots is that they are not the English. In other words, it is a negative identity and a victim identity. “Scottish identity” could comprise anything - gay, black, Protestant, Hindu, trans, whatever - but the person must oppose English oppression.

Of course, there is only so far this can be taken, because it excludes all Scots who want to remain in the UK, making them “not Scottish”, which is clearly absurd. Obviously the SNP does not view its political opponents as “not Scottish”. It views them as naive, or misguided, or at worst traitorous. It hopes to win them around. In the meantime of course it regards as them as “Scottish”. The trouble is, it cannot define what that word means, since no definition would fit the ideology it espouses.

If the SNP succeeded in getting Scotland out of the UK, what would be the national identity it would then use to define Scotland? For that matter, what is the national identity by which it currently justifies getting Scotland out of the UK? The only answer is “because England is oppressing us”. Right, okay, but what is “us”? The people who happen to be in Scotland right now. Okay, but why should they care about Scottish independence, if they could emigrate at any moment and be just as at home in Sweden, India, China, or wherever? There is no answer to this, except presumably that everyone everywhere should be opposed to oppression, so it makes no difference; it is a universal moral matter rather than one contingent on having a particular identity.

Let us say the SNP did succeed. What then? Scotland re-enters the EU and a dozen similar institutions, becoming fully integrated into the globalist system. It enjoys mass immigration, multiculturalism and global investment. It becomes an open marketplace of consumer choice, where everyone can consume whatever products and use whatever services they want, and there is nothing - no religion, no ethnic profile, no cultural requirements - to unite or define its population. This newly globalised Scotland would be free, not only of England’s oppression, but also of the oppression that comes with having a history, an identity, a culture of your own. It would be free of the burden of history, free of the limitations conferred by identity.

Glasgow, Scotland: if you idolise efficiency, beauty seems irrational

Much of this is already the case with modern-day Scotland. Its history is irrelevant to most people, invoked only as a cudgel to use against England. New buildings are universally ugly, because nobody can think of a justification for beauty. (Indeed, new buildings tend to be of a generic aesthetic, not tethered in any way to Scotland’s architectural history.) The population are taught that seeing themselves as a group would be evil. They are taught to believe in nothing but consumerism (freedom) and lifestyle liberty (openness). They are taught that they don’t really have a culture, certainly not one that can be defined, and certainly not one that should get in the way of the new cultures now arriving in their towns. They are taught that class, sex and religion are all illusions, and civilisation means nothing but “progress”. They are taught to believe in nothing but economic expansion and ever more personal choice. Scotland, in this age, is nothing. Its only defining feature is its oppression by England.

I do not believe that Scotland is in any real way oppressed by England, but I understand the drive to reject oppression where you believe it exists, so I can understand SNP activists desiring independence. But ideally you liberate something, not only because you hate oppression, but also because you love the thing - and I don’t think the SNP love Scotland at all.

But then, who can blame them? They are as befuddled as everyone else is these days. In our age, to love anything real is to be a thought criminal.

For those you would have flourish, you promote a love of tangible things (a nation, a people, a religion, a history, a race, a civilisation). For those you would have go extinct, you promote a love of principles (equality, freedom, safety, social justice), in the pursuit of which they will sacrifice all of the tangible things which are, and should be, theirs.

Edinburgh, Scotland: the exact same view, 30 years apart

And thus it is that the SNP, like their sister parties Sinn Féin in Ireland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, have a most strange goal: to graduate a nation from the only identity they conceive of it having (eg. a victim of oppression) into a new mode where it has no identity at all. They want to liberate Scotland into oblivion.