The Strange Death of Scottish Nationalism

A few months ago a German magazine phoned me to talk about Scotland leaving the UK. The reporter had bought the SNP line that Scottish independence was a practical proposition, and that Scotland could survive and indeed flourish as an independent state in the Eurozone.

But, I told her, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Bank of Scotland, which were meant to be leading Scotland’s charge to become a Celtic tiger economy, have collapsed. ‘Does the EU really want another country with a failed financial system? Try selling that to the readers of Bild.’

On the BBC on Sunday, Alex Salmond became increasingly tetchy when John Sopel questioned him about a Scottish future in the Eurozone. ‘I think there are good arguments for joining the euro, but you can only do that when the euro system was stabilised and only when it was to Scotland’s economic advantage,’ he said before going on to tie himself in knots.

You can see why he’s nervous. The Eurozone is going the same way as the Scottish banks. As its crisis deepens, so does the crisis in Scottish nationalism. If the Euro collapses, or if the Eurozone shrinks to Germany and its neighbours, where do the SNP’s once powerful and plausible economic arguments stand?

The peculiarity of the SNP’s position is that it is by a considerable measure the most successful political party in these islands. Even Alex Salmond’s rivals admit that he is a leader in a league of his own. Writing in the Telegraph today, Benedict Brogan says that Cameron and Miliband behave as if they have given up on the union:

‘The civil service machinery in Scotland operates as if Westminster barely exists, ministers visiting from London behave as if they were in a foreign state, and even Her Majesty has been assured by her First Minister that whatever happens, the Union of the Crowns is not at risk.’

We should not be too surprised that the moment of the SNP’s greatest success is the moment of greatest danger. Political movements burn the brightest before they die. The old Liberal Party won a landslide victory in 1906 and then tore itself apart. The Conservatives won election after election from 1979 to 1992 and then sunk into an unpopularity, which they have yet to escape.

Salmond appears triumphant. But history is moving against him, and I think he knows it.   
 
Declaration of Interest: I have a Scottish mother and an English father and therefore have always had a familial aversion to Scottish nationalists who want to make the English foreigners in my mother’s country and English nationalists who want to make Scots foreigners in my father’s country. As someone once said – I think it was Alan Massie but I can’t find the quote – if the English and Scots who have married each other, fought for each other and worked together for centuries cannot get on, what hope is there for the rest of humanity?