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Scottish independence and Brexit are different kinds of nationalisms – research

03 Sep 2024 3 minute read
Former First Minister of Scotland Humza Yousaf (centre right) and Co-leader of the Scottish Green Party Lorna Slater (centre left) take part in a Believe in Scotland march in Edinburgh. Photo Jane Barlow/PA Wire

The nationalism behind support for Scottish independence has a “rather different” concept of identity to the nationalism underpinning Brexit, research has found.

Elections expert Professor Sir John Curtice and researcher Alex Scholes examined attitudes to national identity among independence supporters and those who back Brexit.

They found 65% of Brexiteers believe British ancestry matters to being British, whereas only 42% of Scottish independence supporters feel ancestry is important for being Scottish.

In Scotland, 59% of those who oppose independence say being born in Scotland matters to being “truly Scottish”. Among supporters the figure is 50%.

National pride

The research also found marked declines in aspects of national pride in Britain – with only 64% saying they are proud of Britain’s history compared to 83% a decade ago.

Sir John said there is evidence that the “culture war” debates around empire and slavery have had an impact on the public’s “pride in the past”.

The findings are contained in the final chapter of the British Social Attitudes report, which is published on Tuesday.

The data on public opinion was drawn from social attitudes surveys carried out across Britain and in Scotland in 2023.

Sir John and Mr Scholes wrote: “Although people’s understanding of national identity is much the same in Scotland as it is in England, our evidence strongly suggests that the nationalism which underpins the demand for Scottish independence is rather different from that which underlay popular support for Brexit.

“This reflects a sharp difference between the appeals made by the two campaigns.

“Focusing as it did on sovereignty and immigration, the argument for Brexit was more exclusive in tone than a campaign for Scottish independence that suggested Scotland should pool its sovereignty with the EU and which promoted a civic understanding of who is Scottish.”

Scottish identity

Speaking to the PA news agency, Sir John said: “Relatively speaking, people who are current supporters of independence are somewhat more inclined towards a civic notion of Scottish identity than are those people who are not.”

He added: “Scotland in general – not necessarily more civic than England, but the internal division within Scotland is in the opposite direction.

“So, therefore, the people who support independence do tend to be more likely to accept a civic notion of who is Scottish.”

While people in Britain tend to be proud of the nation’s artistic and sporting achievements, he said, there is evidence that the debates on the legacies of slavery and empire have “percolated through to public opinion”.


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Karl
Karl
3 months ago

One us positive, a positive, pride in what can be achieved given a chance. The other is regress imperialism that adds misery.

Simmo
Simmo
3 months ago

“Focusing as it did on sovereignty and immigration, the argument for Brexit was more exclusive in tone than a campaign for Scottish independence that suggested Scotland should pool its sovereignty with the EU and which promoted a civic understanding of who is Scottish.” That confirms what I have suspected. The prospect of Scotland losing membership of the EU was a ‘core plank’ of the ‘NO’ campaign in 2014 (often nicknamed ‘Project Fear’ ) – as I result, perhaps Scotland became more ‘Euro-aware’ than the rest of the UK at that time, and saw the value of retaining EU membership. So… Read more »

hdavies15
hdavies15
3 months ago

Tells us nothing new. Many of us feel strongly that our nationalism is about freeing us from the unhealthy mix of superiority, arrogance, interference and downright ignorance we perceive as driven by Westminster. Many people felt the same in the period leading up to 2016 referendum about our relationship with EU yet post 2016 cannot bring themselves to recognise the same characteristics in the UKGB – Cymru relationship. Distant big government with huge capacity for unnecessary interference and irrelevant decisions.

Steve A Duggan
Steve A Duggan
2 months ago

The Scottish and Welsh independence movements are not nationalist movements – more patriotic movements. Movements that encompass the whole country and everyone in it. It doesn’t descriminate againt certain groups or organisations (ie immigrants and the EU) like Brexit does. Brexit is an insular concept whereas independence for Wales and Scotland are not.

CapM
CapM
2 months ago

The report is called British Social Attitudes 41 National Identity But “Our data comes from an International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) module on ‘National Identity and Citizenship’ that was answered by 1,611 respondents to the 2023 British Social Attitudes (BSA) from across Britain as a whole, including 1,469 in England, and separately by 1,574 respondents to the 2023 Scottish Social Attitudes (SSA) survey living north of the border. ” Which suggests only 142 respondents out of 1611 were from outside England, some of whom would have lived in Scotland. So few, perhaps very few lived in Cymru. The report could… Read more »

John Ellis
John Ellis
2 months ago

Not really a surprise, is it? I recall an SNP politician in a TV interview a few years back saying ‘If you live here, you’re one of us’.

Which is a fundamentally different understanding of nationalism to the ‘blood and soil’ variety which tends to be embraced by the political right.

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