Political Commentary

Small minds at Motherwell

John Grigg

The Scottish National Party is now holding its forty-second annual conference at Motherwell, and nobody could deny that it has come a long way during the last few years of its short life. Though its opponents may be trying to convince themselves that it has begun to run out of steam, rational observers must admit that it has a fair chance of emerging from the next election with a majority of seats in Scotland.

In other words, we are faced with a possible repetition of what happened in the last century, and again early in the present century, when the Irish Party held the balance of power at Westminster. The British Parliament was then indeed an Imperial Parliament, and Ireland could not claim—as Scotland certainly can—to have been a sovereign nation in the past. Even so our politics were bedevilled by the Irish.

The SNP has, therefore, to be taken very seriously. But is it taking itself seriously enough ? The Motherwell agenda seems more appropriate to a large local authority than to Scotland's prospective government.

The delegates are almost exclusively concerned with internal matters. There are sections on trade and foreign investment in the party's industrial policy, and one resolution extends congratulations to the people of the United States on the occasion of their bicentenary. There is also a ritual gesture to the Third World. But for the most part the orientation is relentlessly inwards. Defence and Scotland's role as a European nation are not on the agenda at all.

This does not mean that the party has no policy on Europe or on defence, but it does unfortunately show how little SNP activists care about their country's international standing. They are more interested in promoting 'a system of full-time, salaried elected councillors' or improving ferry services to the Isles.

The party line on the Common Market is that Scotland will adopt its own very tough negotiating position and become a full member only if it can get more or less what it wants, endorsed by the Scottish people in a referendum. Hostility to the EEC is perhaps slightly muted since last year's massive 'Yes' vote in Scotland, but there is still a very strong tendency to believe that the Norwegian free trade relationship would suit Scotland better than full membership.

Norway is also the model for the SNP's defence policy. The party stands for continued Scottish membership of NATO but only on a strictly non-nuclear basis, with no facilities for Allied nuclear units in Scottish waters or on Scottish soil. This policy is defended even by the most outward-looking of SNP leaders, the vivacious and dressy Ms Winifred Ewing, MP for Moray and Nairn and SNP representative in the European Parliament.

Ms Ewing is no pacifist or isolationist. In her command of languages she is a good enough European; she speaks (with varying degrees of fluency) French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch. She also supports direct elections to the European Parliament and feels that Scotland should be prepared to accept less than its fair share of seats at this stage, so that the principle can be established. (Ultimately its representation should be on the same scale as Denmark's.)

But Ms Ewing is content that her country should be only a second-class member of the Western alliance. She draws an untenable moral distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear defence, and announces proudly that the SNP has maintained a consistent 'purity' on the subject. What she means is that the party is so committed to its idee fixe that it is impervious to argument and never, in fact, discusses the question.

Norway's non-nuclear policy was dictated by fear, but at least the Norwegians have the excuse that their country is the only member of NATO, apart from Turkey, which has a land frontier with the Soviet Union. Scotland would have no such excuse. The decision to go non-nuclear would be a blow to Western defence, and more especially to the defence of the British Isles.

The Americans' strategic need of Scotland may be less than is used to be, because their new generation of nuclear submarines has a much-extended operational range. But to Great Britain the loss of Scottish base facilities would be comparable with the loss of the Irish Treaty ports. Scottish independence would indeed be a disaster if it meant that our island could no longer have a unified defence system.

Ms Thatcher believes that it would be disastrous in any case, and Ms Ewing can only reply that it has been all right for the Norwegians. The SNP has Norway on the brain. But Scotland, surely, is a very far cry from Norway, or any other potbound little community on the fringe of European culture. At the risk of hurting Norwegian feelings one must say that when the names of Ibsen, Grieg and Munch have been mentioned, the catalogue of Norway's famous sons is just about complete. And much the same, numerically speaking, is true of Sweden and Denmark.

Nothing, however, could be less true of Scotland, which is one of the great mothercountries of the world and whose roll of fame would fill many columns of the Spectator. Moreover it is a plain fact that Scotland's golden age was not in the remote past, but followed the Spectator cotfa tit o 9 May 1916 Union. i2on . In the eighteenth century Scotlatgl became, and gained immeasurably fr0111,. becoming, an Imperial province instead 01 a provincial nation. Now that the British Empire has gone, a major justification for the Act of Union has also disappeared. Bat the Scots are still the same people and it i5 hard to believe that they will revert t° provincialism. Any nationalist movement that is to be worthy of Scotland must look to the country's future as part of a larger whole' If the United Kingdom has lost much oil° point, then Scotland may find a new destillY as an equal partner in the European Cony munity. But if it turns in upon itself, it5 future will be bleak and petty beyond words. A psychologist of nationalism ring,ht argue that when a nation is trying to gala' or regain, its independence, there has to be a period of somewhat exaggerated chativill. ism. Only by emphasising what is unique tad itself can it demonstrate its identity, an only by making difficulties for others ca,a it prove that it is not under their control. De Gaulle's prickly attitude towards eigners, and his success in reviving Irene" morale, may be cited in support of the vie'''. But de Gaulle was no small-minded Pate' riot. No Frenchman has ever had a rno,_r. exalted sense of his country's mission to world—through the rayonnement of Fren0 culture—or less desire to settle for the cOsY comforts of Scandinavian-style mediocritY. He would hardly recognise the nationalislas of this week's conference at Motherwell a the genuine article. It may be that Scotland's just aspiratintlos have been frustrated for so long that ele half-way house will now prove viable. 911e must hope that it will not be so, but the bead is past when the SNP could be describes —as Mr Heath described it in 1967-4

'flower people with flower power'. or

Scottish nationalism, in one forrn e another, is almost bound to prevail, but tilt, present policies of the SNP can still checked or modified. English politicians W ety be foolish if they merely denounce the which is most successfully harnesslaid Scottish national feeling. They sh°„la0. criticise it only for having too trivial ac 4y ception of Scottish nationality. And t"„ly should consider very urgently what is tr't vital in the Union, and what is desirable bit in the last resort, expendable. A common defence is vital. So is the fr.° movement of people and goods. (No tuna. id surely, is going to suggest that there sntljna be customs and passport control at Gre or Carter Bar.) It is also of crucial iiTIPid ance that Scotland and England sn° belong to the same international bodie.se, more especially the EEC—and that trIro;, should have, in all essential respects, a mon foreign policy. Finally, they should preserve free trade in b and skills, resisting the temptation to Prat

tice job discrimination of any kind. sing But the SNP is not even discus these matters. it is vital mills