Disuniting the Kingdom: How the SNP Uses the Nordic Countries to Distance Scotland from the United Kingdom

• Main Author: Fontaine, Astrid
• Other Authors: Centre for anglophone studies (CAS), Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (UT2J), Université de Toulouse (UT)-Université de Toulouse (UT), Société Française d'Etudes Ecossaises
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2024
• Subjects: Scottish National Party; Nordic countries; Scottish independent movement; [SHS.HIST]Humanities and Social Sciences/History; [SHS.SCIPO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Political science; Faroe Islands; Greenland
• Online Access: https://univ-tlse2.hal.science/hal-04617174

International audience The Scottish nationalist movement has shown an interest in the Nordic countries from very early on in its history, with Roland E. Muirhead, who was one of the major figures in the movement and President of the Scottish National Party from 1936 to 1950, for instance taking a particular interest in Norway’s and Iceland’s independence journeys from Sweden and Denmark respectively. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the success of these countries has been interpreted by the SNP as evidence that it would be feasible for Scotland to leave the UK without war or economic collapse. It examines in particular how Norway’s success as a small independent nation proved to be a very common trope in the SNP’s literature, sustaining the economic argument whereby independence would allow Scotland to thrive while membership of the United Kingdom and subservience to a government deemed alien and indifferent to Scottish problems would prevent Scotland from prospering. Analysis of the Scottish National Party's archives also enables us to study how the SNP drew inspiration from the evolution of the constitutional status of the Aland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Greenland to address the claims(or expectations of claims) of Shetland and Orkney autonomy or even independence of the Shetland Islands and Orkney, and from the political organisation of the Nordic countries on a regional scale. Finally, this paper argues that not only does the SNP see the Nordic countries as a model of international cooperation and successful independence, but it also seems to want to be part of the Nordic region. In rethinking Scotland's position in the world as a northern European rather than a British nation, the SNP has consciously sought to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK and bring it closer to the Nordic countries by seeking a seat on the Nordic Council, for example. Très tôt dans son histoire, le mouvement nationaliste a porté de l’intérêt aux pays nordiques. Roland E. Muirhead, figure majeure du mouvement ...