The patriot game is one the left can’t win
An otherwise unremarkable tenement flat in the street next to mine had a flagpole installed last year. After a break of a few months, it is once again flying a large Saltire.
The head of an ostensibly left-wing think tank compares Scotland’s place in the UK to that of Elisabeth Fritzl.
A few weeks ago the Scottish Labour party changed its rulebook to include a commitment to ‘the patriotic interest’.
These things aren’t connected other than that they all say something about Scotland’s ‘new political situation’. This is one where the Patriot Game is the only one in town, or rather the only one that anyone seems interested in playing.
This isn’t a state of affairs that anyone on the left, either in Scotland or beyond, should be happy with. Because ‘new political situation’ is simply a euphemism for an upsurge in nationalism, and the Patriot Game is one progressives can’t win.
That the prevailing political trend in Scotland is nationalism is seldom acknowledged. Had anyone managed to copyright the phrase ‘I’m not a nationalist but…’ they could long since have retired on the royalties. Instead, the flag waving and transformation of the SNP into a mass party is attributed to ‘anti austerity politics’, or ‘an embrace of democratic potential’ or other such warm words – anything but nationalism.
Advocates generally deny all nationalist motivation, claiming rather that the SNP deserve support because they will ‘push Labour to the left’ or, bizarrely, help ‘reclaim Labour’s soul‘ . This ignores the inconvenient reality that it is the SNP who have only recently adopted Labour’s plans for a 50p tax rate, having previously voted against the principle.
It took until after the leaders’ debates last week for the SNP to adopt a policy on zero hours contracts. They now support Labour’s proposals word for word. The SNP are widely proclaimed as an anti austerity party despite a governmental record that has seen over 50,000 jobs lost in public services, while they adamantly rule out using any of the tax raising powers they have and boast of having the lowest business taxes in the UK.
The SNP are a ‘radical anti-establishment force’, as anyone who has read the serialisation of Alex Salmond’s memoir in the Scottish edition of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun would know. The SNP are ‘progressive’ in a way that Labour somehow aren’t, having adopted all-women shortlists, some two decades after Labour. And so on. But pointing these things out makes little difference. In today’s Scotland, flags beat facts.
Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us. Nationalist movements, as Eric Hobsbawm put it, are ‘dual phenomena, constructed essentially from above, but which cannot be understood unless also analysed from below, that is in terms of the assumptions, hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people, which are not necessarily national and still less nationalist.’
Put more bluntly, nationalist movements do not arise in a vacuum. As we can see right across Europe, they do better in hard times. And the last time a nationalist movement said ‘Let’s get rid of the foreign influence and get poorer’ was never.
Scottish Labour’s response to all this has been an attempt at a ‘Clause 4’ moment. The ‘Aims and Values’ statement of the Scottish Labour Party was rewritten by Jim Murphy so that it now has 12 references to ‘Scotland’ or ‘Scottish’ and a commitment to ‘work for the patriotic interest of the people of Scotland’.
It is difficult to believe this move stems from a sense of mission on Mr Murphy’s part. Rather it’s a response to grim polling numbers and an acknowledgement of a situation where arguments need to put more emphasis on saltire than sense. The ‘patriot clause’ exemplifies where Scottish politics is now – to gain permission to speak you have to be seen to be, and only be, ‘speaking for Scotland’. This isn’t progressive at all – it’s the opposite.
The politics of identity seem to have all but displaced the politics of economic interest north of the border. The party arguing that the country wins ‘when working families win’ is trailing badly behind the party that promises to be ‘strong for Scotland’.
The nationalist movement by definition seeks to divide rather than unite and looks to emphasise difference and particularity ahead of common endeavour. Their advance is not something the Left, however broadly defined, should be welcoming.
Stephen Low lives and works in Glasgow
225 Responses to “Nationalism is sweeping Scotland – and progressives should be concerned”
andrea
Bollocks that the SNP seeks to divide …or is racist or cultist …….it is uniting people all over Britain to vote for change ..because change is sorely needed when the biggest rise in ‘industry’ is a network of foodbanks….and emigration ……step back and look at your own country – it is a joke that a country so resource wealthy struggles to give jobs to its brightest and best…… it is hard to beleive that the SNP could do any worse than the Labour or Tories with their eyes firmly fixed on Westminster……the opposite direction to Scottish hopes.
Annette Kupke
I am a left-wing German and about as suspicious of nationalism as anyone can be. I am also extremely suspicious about your article, which seems designed to deny a small country the right of political self-determination and prefer it to remain dependent on its hugely more powerful imperial masters. What’s the point in dropping some not-very-subtle hints about good things Labour have done in the past? The reality of the present is that the leader of “Scottish” Labour is a right-wing, pro-tuition fees, pro-austerity, neo-liberal Blairite nuclear bomb enthusiast who lies as soon as he opens his mouth and shouts at anyone who asks him an uncomfortable question. The very idea that this narcissistic bully aspires to becoming First Minister gives me the creeps. While the SNP are not left enough for my tastes, I look at the country and I see the SNP passionately opposing Trident and the Iraq War. I see Labour voting for austerity with the Tories and failing to support the fracking moratorium. The SNP have a gender balanced cabinet and have put an inspiring woman into the position of First Minister. Labour have the Barbie Bus. I rest my case.
not on
You say, flags not facts. I say to you, you think bullshit baffles brains!
desb74
What an awful waste of time his article is. The only people mentioning patriotism or nationalism during indyref were the BT clones. I’m a non-patriotic socialist who has been abandoned by the right wing labour party. If you’re going to invade my FB page with your writing you could have at least researched your subject matter first. Only racism on show is the outrage expressed that people in Scotland might choose how to vote instead of slavishly voting for a UK party. Democracy in action.
Alasdair Riktam de Voil
What a load of rubbish points! Its not nationalism that s made SNP popular and where it is today- its the choice of policies, the positive messages and the distinctive emphasis on let’s build a fairer society and imagine better expectations of what kind of government we want, which has inspired mass engagement with SNP vote. You d do better to title your website, “left foot back ward’s”.