John Lloyd

The Scottish National party, under new and inferior management, continues to struggle out from under English oppression – colonialist oppression, as seems to be the view of the outward bound Mhairi Black, who wants Scotland to be the sixty-third country to escape from England. Yet, running through the SNP’s history has been a thin line of tenderness for authoritarian rule and rulers that contradicts its own struggle for freedom.  Despotic ideologies attracted thousands of followers in the 20s and 30s. Communism, inspired by the Bolshevik takeover in Russia, carried the promise of freedom and power for the working class, while fascism gained a hold in the 20s after the success of Benito Mussolini in seizing power in 1922.

'Russians are fleeing their country in droves'. That’s how Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, partners in life and journalism, sum up in seven words one of the many tragedies of Russia, from which they too have fled – further than most, to Britain. Had they stayed, Soldatov at least would be in jail, charged with spreading 'fake news' – or, as he puts it, 'contradicting the state narrative'. An arrest warrant was issued against him in April, and in May, he was put on an international wanted list. A trial – in absentia – is expected in October. Soldatov and Borogan are part of an exodus larger than any since the Bolshevik Revolution.

Black conservatism is a particular form of conservative politics. As a movement, it’s American, with strengthening echoes in the UK, in France and beyond. Some of its most prominent activists would be classed, and class themselves, as straight-down-the-line conservatives. Some, such as Glenn Loury, an economics professor at Brown University, confess to being, as Irving Kristol’s neoconservative quip has it, ‘liberals mugged by reality.’ All would say of themselves that they are Americans first, patriots, proud of being and glad to be so, dismissive of the radical critique of their country, and harsh on black personalities and protestors who they believe parade a status of subjugation which they have not earned.

The Scottish National Party’s great and continuing success has been to mobilize a large part of the Scottish population to see England and the English as a more or less malign force. In this, the party has connected with and deepened strong currents of thought and belief in Scots culture, especially in the 20th century. The country’s most famed and lauded poet, Hugh MacDiarmid (Christopher Grieve), its most influential ideologist, Tom Nairn and its most prominent literary novelist, James Kelman have all adopted long-running acidic views of the southern neighbour.

When Boris Johnson said no to another referendum on Scottish independence, Alex Neil, a former health secretary in the Scottish government, called on Scots to force the PM’s hand by emulating Mahatma Gandhi. Passive resistance, “securing rights by personal suffering” as Gandhi put it, was the way, thought Neil, to shame the British oppressor into acquiescence. To borrow a tactic for Scots dissent from the Indian national movement is to reveal how nationalists see Scotland (once a great reservoir of imperial officials, high and low): as an oppressed colony under the despotic rule of the South England Company. Nationalists have long believed Scots are a more moral people than the English (a view not confined to nationalists, to be fair).