EXCHANGING ONE UNION FOR ANOTHER? THE FORMATION AND ASCENT OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY

Abstract

With increasing frequency, long-established multinational states in Western Europe are fracturing under the centrifugal pressures generated by the desire of ethnonational groups to achieve self-government. In Europe, the EU increasingly serves as a potential ally for ethno-national political movements (perhaps even a potential replacement) to what are perceived as the constrictions of the nation-state. In Britain, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) began to achieve significant electoral competitiveness during the 1960s. It has now reached the point where it was the official opposition in the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2007,then became the largest party in the parliament and formed a minority government following elections on 3'd May 2007. The aim of this article is to survey the genealogy of nationalist mobilisation in Scotland as well as to identifY the factors that have fuelled the party's trajectory from that of a fractured pressure group in the 1930s and 1940s to that of a credible political actor today. Importantly, the article will elaborate on the party's oscilating attitudes to European integration since the 1930s and evaluate whether the Party will in fact be able, as it claims, to trade membership of the United Kingdom for membership as an independent state within the EU. Keywords: Minority Nationalism, Scottish National Party, European Integration, United Kingdom.