Scottish Nationalism

Unionists, come out and declare your ‘nationalism’ Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, August 10th 2013 The story is familiar: there is a pesky, partisan, immature nationalism out and about influencing our body politic. This is the account of Scottish nationalism put forward by a range of commentators and public figures. Yet it could as easily be articulated about the ideas of unionism because unionism is at its heart a form of nationalism - British state nationalism. Scottish nationalism has its faults and limitations. It is cautious, conservative and shaped by the characteristics of the society from which it was born. It

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Labour and Independence: The Power of the Past Gerry Hassan National Collective, August 2nd 2013 Beyond the posturing, allegations and counter-allegations of recent days on the vexed subject of Labour for Independence, there are a series of important and often unexplored questions which tell us much about Scottish politics. Why does Labour, ostensibly ‘a non-nationalist, non-unionist party’ in the words of Lallands Peat Worrier’s reflective blog (1), so preclude not only any consideration of independence, but so firmly, trenchantly and aggressively, a rejection of it? The answer is complex, and can be found deep in the history and evolution of

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Time for a Radical Scotland to challenge our forces of conservatism Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, June 1st 2013 Scotland has long prided itself on its radical and socialist traditions, from Red Clydeside and UCS to rent strikes, occupations and the campaign which achieved the Scottish Parliament. This week Alex Salmond faced more criticism over his corporation tax policy from predictable quarters such as Johann Lamont and less predictable ones such as pro-independence supporters and economists Jim and Margaret Cuthbert and Council of Economic Advisers member Professor Joseph Stiglitz. This raises all sorts of questions: about the nature and dynamics of

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Nigel Farage, the Scottish Debate and the Future of Europe Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, May 19th 2013 This is an age of uncertainty, crisis and doubt. The UK is experiencing multiple crises: political, constitutional and economic, of the UK in Europe and of Europe itself as an idea and project. And underneath all of this is a deep-seated Western fear, of loss of confidence in Western modernity and anxiety about the future. The lack of sureness now being displayed in Britain’s political elites is one manifestation, as is the rise of Nigel Farage’s UKIP. The Westminster village has been

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The Framing of the Scottish Independence Debate: A Tale of Two Referenda Gerry Hassan Bella Caledonia, May 15th 2013 Two independence campaigns are now running in the UK: one on Scottish independence; the other which has become more public in the last week, on the UK’s possible exit from the European Union. Strangely they operate in near complete isolation of each other, with the Euro referendum being talked about as if we still lived in the high days of untrammelled Westminster parliamentary sovereignty. In the last week, the front page of the Scottish edition of The Times reported a

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What Difference Does It Make? Making Explicit the Change of Independence Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, May 4th 2013 It has been another fast-moving week in Scotland’s constitutional conversation even leaving the comedy controversies aside. There was Denis Canavan, chair of ‘Yes Scotland’, distancing himself from SNP policy in suggesting Scotland that should have its own currency; while the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee made the startling observation that independence will involve shaking things up for the UK. Then there was Alex Salmond’s announcement that an independent Scotland would not have a central bank. This is part of the

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We may be anti-Tory but the ideas of conservatism are everywhere Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, April 6th 2013 Two laments have been constant in Scotland in the last decade. One is that our politics are not what they used to be; while another is that our media isn’t up to the task it once was (along with that our football is going down the pan!). This yearning for the past and an unspecified ‘golden era’ in public life which never was has become a sort of national pastime. It is wrong, dangerous and debilitating, and the reasons for so

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Dreaming of a Different Scotland: Alt Independence and Alt Unionism Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, February 26th 2013 Social justice is everywhere north of the border. It has always been about, but now it has become more explicit, as the debate on Scotland’s independence referendum hots up, the Westminster Government’s welfare plans show their character and the Tory intent at inhumane social engineering, while the market fundamentalist project of the last three decades proposes at the moment of crisis and doubt, to go into over-drive. The last week has seen Anas Sarwar, Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour give an important

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The Scotland of the Democratic Future: Some Tentative Lessons from Chile Gerry Hassan Della Caledonia, February 14th 2013 It has been a telling week for the contours of the future debate on whether Scotland becomes independent. Both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ campaigns contain different tones and messages within them, but what has been revealing has been the over-reach and uncompromising character of the UK Government in dealing with its pesky, upstart northern troublemaker. We shouldn’t expect anything better. The British state has increasingly become the vehicle of a narrow set of economic and political interests, introverted, obsessed with their own

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A New Scottish Democracy: A Small Nation with Big Ideas Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, January 5th 2013 The Scottish experience like most places is filled with myths and delusions about who we are and what it says about us. Unlike other places, Scotland also seems to have a deep-seated conservatism, lack of curiosity in others, and a profound insularity which sees Scotland as exceptional and unique. This spreads across the political spectrum, from complacent social democrats to safety-first nationalists and unionists who never acknowledge that in the last two decades 24 new nation states have emerged from the end of

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