What’s in a name? The SNP and nationalism
Speymouth
There’s nationalism and there’s nationalism. On the Rest is Politics podcast hosted by Tony Blair’s erstwhile Director of Communications Alastair Campbell, First Minister John Swinney addressed the issue of the SNP’s name, or rather, the non-issue. Both previous first ministers, Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon had expressed some disquiet that the SNP’s name, Scottish National Party, causes it to be confused with the reactionary right wing nationalism espoused by Nigel Farage and his political vehicles, and increasingly also by the Conservatives and the Labour party under Keir Starmer. In 2017, former first minister Nicola Sturgeon said she found the “national” in the SNP name “difficult”. Her successor, Humza Yousaf, told the BBC in 2024 he also had misgivings about the national part of the SNP’s name, saying he had “never really been comfortable with the fact we have ‘national’ in our party’s name … because it can be misinterpreted”.
During the podcast Alasdair Campbell asked why the SNP does not change its name in order to avoid confusion with Farage’s “sort of nationalism”.
The First Minister replied: “The SNP is a moderate, left of centre, civic political party that believes in welcoming individuals into our society, believes in the cohesion of our communities, believes in acting in the collective and common interests of people in Scotland. None of that is what Nigel Farage believes in, none of it whatsoever.
“So we’re the antithesis of Reform, and we’ll continue to see that.”
This confusion, which is deliberately fostered by the anti-independence parties, is bolstered by lies about mainstream Scottish nationalism such as the hoary old canard that a desire for Scottish independence is motivated by anti-English racism, painting the English as the victims of ‘grievance mongering’ and pretending that the movement for Scottish independence has no legitimate or principled basis.
Any confusion is only possible because the English word nationalism covers two very distinct political ideologies. On the one hand there is the nationalism of the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and other left wing or centre-left pro-independence parties such as Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ‘the Republican Left of Catalonia’ or Euskal Herria Bildu ‘Basque Country Unite’. These are parties which seek independence for a nation which is not currently independent, but which, as in the case of Scotland, may have been so in early modern times. These parties espouse a civic definition of nationalism and seek independence for their respective countries as a means of addressing social and economic inequality and strengthening democracy and representation.
In Spanish, which has a more sophisticated and nuanced vocabulary than English for certain political phenomena, this kind of nationalism is called independentismo. It is rightly seen as quite different from the political movements which fall under the rubric nacionalismo in Spanish.
Nacionalismo is the reactionary and often authoritarian and intolerant right wing ideology which deals in the aggrandisement of an existing independent state, most often by purporting to defend the nation from internal enemies. In the case of the modern far right these supposed enemies include but are not limited to immigrants, the LGBT community, the imaginary ‘woke elite’, antifa, and others. . This kind of nationalism revels in what it calls its patriotism and fiercely defends the nation from criticism of its symbols or history.
Elements of this second kind of nationalism are now found in all the main British political parties, but Reform UK and the Conservatives are most strongly characterised by it. These parties, together with the Labour party of Keir Starmer, wrap themselves in British flags, promote policies antithetical to immigration, seek to distance themselves from the European Union, and are united in their denial of their own Anglo-British nationalism, which they insist is ‘patriotism’.
Despite the very clear differences between independentismo and nacionalismo, it suits the anti-independence parties in Scotland to conflate the two, partly in order to tar the SNP with the brush of far right reactionary authoritarianism, but also because it’s a convenient distraction from their own nacionalismo, which they continue to insist does not exist. By attacking the SNP for its nationalism, they can continue to maintain the pretence that they themselves are not nationalist. The truth is that even were the SNP to change its name, the anti-independence parties would continue to attack it for its ‘nationalism’ while pretending that they themselves are not nationalist and would double down on spurious accusations that the renamed party had only changed its name in order to hide its supposed hatred of the English from the voters. It would hand the anti-independence parties a major victory for no real advantage and would deprive the SNP of its brand recognition, an intangible asset which the party has built on for generations.
Although the conflation between independentismo and nacionalismo is politically motivated, insincere, and opportunistic, it has traction in certain quarters. A person of my acquaintance told me in 2014 that he was voting no in that year’s independence referendum because he “hated nationalism.” Indeed this was not an uncommon sentiment and the anti-independence parties leveraged it to their full advantage.
In the next Scottish independence referendum, the anti-independence parties will find it much harder to frame the campaign as being a choice between nationalism and non nationalism. The Anglo-British nationalism of the Conservative, Labour, and Reform UK parties can no longer be disguised in post Brexit UK the way that it hid under a cloak of Europeanism in 2014. Brexit has exposed Anglo-British nationalism for what it really is, resentful, fearful, intolerant, and constantly painting itself as the victim.
The next Scottish independence referendum will be seen as a choice between two nationalisms, the outward looking, pro-European and inclusive civic nationalism of Scottish independentismo, or the reactionary, inward looking reactionary and exclusive nationalism of Anglo-British nacionalismo, increasingly dominated by the anti-immigrant and racist obsessions of the far right, blaming immigrants for the problems created by billionaires.
As Farage and his vile racist far right Anglo-British nationalism stoke fear and division in the service of Farage’s super-rich paymasters, and position themselves to capture the institutions of the British state, with or without the Tories as junior partners, while being emboldened to espouse ever more overtly racist and extreme policies, the differences between the Faragistes and the tolerant, inclusive, and pro-European civic nationalism of the SNP will grow ever more self-evident.
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