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”
Alasdair Riktam de Voil
So if you loathe the Tories, who is it holding us back from being able to give real power to Scottish government to plan a better more equitable future starting now? Its the Tory voters in England who will always mean we can’t see the type of change we want- unless Scotland can elect a more powerful government that fits what Scotland s voters want to see. Its Red and Blue Tory parties that block this opportunity
gunnerbear
In the linked UNISON report was this gem, “”We have not had a decent pay rise for years and inflation is still more than our pay rise and we now have to pay more towards our pension.” Nurse, Highlands” Well, guess what, those of us working in the private sector are in exactly the same boat as our employers shut our pensions………no silly me….I forgot there are millions in the public sector who have their gold plated pensions underwritten by those us in the private sector who’s own employers are saying, “Sorry, it is simply too expensive in real life for us to pay the sums necessary towards a good pension…” …..but lo and behold…..hellfire…..the public sector still think that the cold hard facts of economic life shouldn’t apply to them….
gunnerbear
Scotland, the nation that thinks that it should be able to access much cheaper electricity generated in England but then expect English taxpayers to foot the bill for eye wateringly expensive ‘green power’ from Scotland. Sorry to say it, but the sooner the Scots go, the better. We’ve now seen the SNP be prepared to end CASD to suit their own parochial aims……time the rUK got a vote on whether we wanted to be tied to the deadweight that is Scotland.
gunnerbear
“- No prescription fees, No Tuition fees” Paid for the excessive amount Scotland gets from rUK taxpayers. ” A revolution in green energy in Scotland” That the SNP are demanding that rUK taxpayers pay for that yet also that Scottish fools who wanted the unreliable Green power also get nice, stable, conventionally generated power from England at a low price. Time for another ‘indie vote’ – except this time the rUK decide if we think Scotland should be allowed to stay in the UK.
Jim Bennett
Enjoy the time you have before the general election results gunnerbear: because after it, we’ll be coming down there to take more of your money, force you to wear see-you-jimmy hats and eat porridge for breakfast!
It won’t just be Derby we get to this time!