We’ve seen from this & other threads how much some Scottish people are enthralled by fantastic virtuousness of a bunch of people who co-incidentally just happen to be born in the same country as them.

Folk like Mike Russell and Stuart McMillan?

Nationalism is just a wish for self-determinism.

That’s tautological. You’ve used the word ‘self’ because you are assuming that everyone born within the invisible lines has some sort of common aim or connection. Which is nationalism, and it’s bollocks.

They often do have a common aims and connection through language, music, literature, religion etc.  This isn’t radical stuff, of course some national movements have very nasty elements, but that is not a requirement.  What you describe as invisible lines were once natural obstacles, which weren’t so easily surmounted as they are now, so it is not bollocks, it is reality – reality that deniers have often found has bit them on the bum.

They often do have a common aims and connection through language, music, literature, religion etc.

Typing this in the Netherlands. Which teaches you a few things about national identity. Also was in Scotland earlier in the year, I noticed quite a lot of shared language and culture. Then there are countries with different languages and cultures inside the invisible lines. And most countries are recent inventions anyway made up of all sorts of groups and regions.  Then there are all the people who share the same country, culture and language but have radically different aims.

So yeah nationalism is still bollocks.  Learn some history maybe.

I know a reasonable amount about history, I also know a reasonable amount about the Netherlands as I have lived there a couple of times, so I would be most interested to find out what you have learnt from your sojourn there about Dutch Nationalism.  I am not sure why you are bringing up Scotland, it clearly has a Nationalist movement which want self-determinism.  So I am struggling to see how your argument has progressed from “its bollocks”, which I am afraid to say I find remarkably unenlightening, although it does have the merit of succinctness.

nationalist

1. a person who advocates political independence for a country.

“a Scottish nationalist”

a person with strong patriotic feelings, especially one who believes in the superiority of their country over others.

Mefty – dissonance – I take it neither of you live in Scotland?

Quite hostly some of you mutterings on this are pretty offensive and have zero relationship with the truth

Its not about a perceived superiority by accident of birthplace.  For starters the people of scotland do not have to be born here.

There are two main threads IMO to the people who want independence.  the ideological who simply believe a country like scotland should rule its own affairs and the pragmatists who believe an independent scotland would be abetter country to live in

Its so obvious you have a little Englander cast and simply do not understand the scots civic nationalism

The difference in political and civic outlook is obvious to those of us who have lived in both countries.  Yes there is some overlap of course but the central or average position is very different as is obvuious from the voting patterns.

One key thing – in the independence campaign we were told that anindependenct scotland would have no more influence the EU that any other small country.  We all shrugged and thought – that sounds about right.

Attitudes in the average are very different.  Its a simple fact as demonstrated in many way.  You may not want to see it ‘cos it hurts your little englander pride.  that does not mean it does not exist.

Mefty – I have made no such suggestion, not intentionally anyway, on this thread.

The link I posted went back as far as 2012 and shows a slow but definite collapse in Brexit support.

Now as far as the Brexit thread goes (which is as you will notice another thread) the trend is still valid.

Only 8% of the swing is post June 2016 agreed (though that is not insignificant really, Curtice questions the reasons for the swing more than the swing), however the more interesting point is that June 2016 looks like about the last point the Brexies could have railroaded the country into Brexit.

They’d been losing share for a long time and they haven’t recovered yet – which given they wo we lost and there is a tendency for people to pull together after these things is surprising.

But there it is.

Now stop using short run data when it doesn’t suit your argument. You are better than that done if the time.

There are two main threads IMO to the people who want Brexit. the ideological who simply believe a country like The UK  should rule its own affairs and the pragmatists who believe an The UK would be abetter country to live in

Don’t agree of course, but what is sauce for the goose…

<p>The difference in political and civic outlook is obvious to those of us who have lived in both countries.  Yes there is some overlap of course but the central or average position is very different as is obvuious from the voting patterns.</p>

<p>In your own words – bullshine.</p><p>I don’t see any of those differences between my peers on either side of the border, of course the fact I’m (roughly) half your age probably has a lot to do with that.</p>

Attitudes in the average are very different.  Its a simple fact as demonstrated in many way.  You may not want to see it ‘cos it hurts your little englander pride.  that does not mean it does not exist.

As usual you fail to engage with the argument dissonance was making about how the data doesn’t support this Scottish exceptionalism that you suggest, and there are pretty good reasons why two populations with same outlook has different government’s and policies.  We could delve into this further, citing Iceland’s energy policy and other esoteric things.  However, there is no point because you will never engage with the argument because you never do.  You just say the same thing again and again getting more abusive, so my TJ Bingo Card is ready, Little Englander is crossed out, just need racist, bigot, misogynist and mentally ill to be able to call “House”

As usual you simply fail to understand the position.  the data is clear.  Social attitudes are different and your closed mind and lack of any knowledge does not allow you to see that.  Again – the data is very clear and obvious .  Look at voting records.

Again with the insults and false representation of my poisition

Its not scots exceptionalism.  thats a false statement because its not an argument I made

Its just there are clear and obvious differences.

So go on Mefty – what is your first hand knowledge of Scotland and its attitudes to civic questions?

Igm  – I am perplexed, you are clearly alluding to an instance where I have used short run data to support an argument which you have a bee in your bonnet about.  I am pretty certain I haven’t done on this thread, maybe you have confused me with someone else.  Otherwise you must be alluding to some other instance, which, as is obvious I assumed to be the Brexit thread – I don’t propose to go into that – the arguments have been rehearsed and there is little new.  As it appears that is an incorrect assumption, could you be a bit blunter.

Classic from you mefty.  Claim I have a position I do not have then rubbish that position that I do not hold on the basis of zero data.

dissonance passim

Mefty – no bees, no bonnets. Actually I recognise a lot of the tactics I would use to get a argument over the line in the way you are presenting stuff on here and also on the Brexit thread (fair play, I’m not exactly whiter than white). And I don’t disagree with everything you say. However…

You are arguing (or at least you appear to be) that long run data on social attitudes is the way to go, but that I am using short run data that doesn’t support my argument on Brexit attitudes. Now both long and short run data have their place, but longer run data does support my argument on Brexit (I think we can agree that) and the short run data certainly doesn’t support a counter-argument.

I’m merely suggesting you are picking data selectively to support or otherwise the argument you choose to see me making.  If longer run data on attitudes makes sense for one then it probably makes sense for the other – and the oh but it’s different argument is merely an assertion that needs substantiating.

When all is said to be fair, you are displaying no more or less than the confirmation bias that is so prevalent these days – and in fact the Curtice piece you quoted was alluding to (though I don’t recall that he mentioned it specifically).

And I’m sure I could be accused of the same.

On the nationalism thing, it is worth differentiating better a national pride (we’re pure dead gallus, us) and a nationalism (we’re better than them, they’re inferior).

The former wishes to take its brilliance and gift it freely to the world, absorbing in return things from other places that are equally pure dead gallus.

The latter wishes to impose its view of the world on the rest of the world.

You can form your own views on which is outward looking, about creation and building bridges and which is about isolation and destruction.

Self determination can exist in either of course

Perchy you forgot the right to roam.

Meanwhile, seeing as we’re talking about nationalism now:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/13/banksy-shredded-art-united-kingdom-britain-brexit-union?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX0JyZXhpdEJyaWVmaW5nLTE4MTAxNg%3D%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=BrexitBriefing&CMP=brexitingbriefing_email

You are arguing (or at least you appear to be) that long run data on social attitudes is the way to go, but that I am using short run data that doesn’t support my argument on Brexit attitudes. Now both long and short run data have their place, but longer run data does support my argument on Brexit (I think we can agree that) and the short run data certainly doesn’t support a counter-argument.

You are missing one element from my argument.  The long run data on Social Attitudes is a very good indicator of differences between attitudes between age group, regions etc.  Its relevance to this discussion is that the data doesn’t indicate significant regional differences and never has, which some people believe exist.  However as a predictor of political results, it is completely useless because you have to layer on the “political noise” – this is why I described it as a non-partisan survey.  So it has two strengths, its long term and its ability to strip out the “political noise” to get to what people really think, rather than vote for.

When looking at a single issue like Brexit, you have to take into account the political noise because you are looking to determine how the country would vote, therefore it tends to be more volatile.  Generally we see opinion polls reverting to the status quo when an election is imminent (the last election being a significant exception) and my guess, and it is no more than that, is that the big compression in the Brexit figures was caused by the possibility of a referendum – when did Cameron make his big speech? – and ever since then they have been bouncing around 50% as near as dammit.

Mefty – I have no problem with the social attitudes survey – though there is always a problem that in a survey there’s no skin in the game. And while the long run helps with that to some extent, even then it will be subject at some level to fashionable posturing that doesn’t reflect attitudes that one would actually stand by if it cost in any way – a noise layer would be a good description. So yes it probably reflects societal attitudes; it may not reflect individual attitudes as people will say things to fit in, to be socially acceptable, that they do not believe and would not stand by. (Remember McDonalds and salads – which may be apocryphal of course)

I think you are probably going to run into the observer influencing the observed at some point here because even that is a social contract. People fib.

There is no social contract in a blind ballot, though there is a question of how we envisage ourselves and so arguably how people vote is a good indicator of true beliefs and attitudes.

The rest of your argument is an “oh but it’s different” assertion linked to a not impossible, but completely unsubstantiated, reason for the loss of support for Brexit that is definitely there.

Ok fair enough you call it a guess.

Oh and Mefty, my father’s work on the subject (he was relatively eminent in his field, held a very similar Professorship at Strathclyde prior to Curtice, then at Glasgow  – his views have some weight) suggested there is very little difference in core beliefs and attitudes between the Scots and the English.  There was some difference in their expression on nationalism and there was a desire to be different (eg English football fans wreck foreign cities so Scots ones will be the sort of fan you’d invite back to meet the family – but beware it may not be real).

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with what you say merely with the way you are making your argument.

The problem with nationalism is it generally comes down to division, its ‘us’ and ‘them’ which is not a cooperative social attitude in a single country or for neighbours.

I’m not saying Scottish independence is a bad idea, with planning i’m sure it could work well. But if its just ‘toys out the pram and unicorns to the border’ like brexit then it will help no one.

From the Irish Times

“It’s time to think about the unthinkable – a disintegrated UK, a reignition of the Troubles”

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-here-s-how-post-brexit-ireland-could-turn-out-1.3667967

so I would be most interested to find out what you have learnt from your sojourn there about Dutch Nationalism

Nothing about Dutch nationalism – just nationalism in general.

I’m struck by the number of Dutch words that are similar to English.  But not just modern English, it’s full of echoes of archaic terms, which to me serves to highlight our shared heritage, and how close the Anglo Saxons were to the Dutch.  Then looking around Amsterdam I can see similarities between the buildings there and 17th century buildings in the UK, which makes me think of the Glorious revolution and the Dutch as religious allies.

If you wanted to create national boundaries based on shared heritage and culture you’d have the country of greater Anglia which would cover South-Eastern Britain and parts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.  Wales, North-Western England and parts of Scotland would be different countries and North Eastern England would also be part of Denmark.

The Netherlands is a relatively new country like much of Europe as I’m sure you know, and to me the fact that nations come and go when people stay the same, that highlights how nationhood has been ephemeral in so much of history.  How can you pin your sense of identity on something that can change at the stroke of a pen or a sword?  It makes no sense.  Your shared identity is cultural, not national.  In much of the world the two things are separate. So it shouldn’t matter which country you belong to – just which culture.

As for countries being based on natural borders – that’s nonsense, IMO.  Sure, there are borders that follow rivers, but so what?  There are many more rivers that AREN’T borders (including the two biggest in the UK being either well within the English border or crossing it with impunity).  So why choose that particular river?  It’s because that’s a convenient shorthand for the extent of one king’s power versus another’s.  Nationalism is all about the results of conquests.  It’s fundamentally got nothing to do with people, but those in power had to forge national identity within their borders purely as a means of consolidating their power and territorial claims.  Basically, you’ve been used.

Whist the current constitution is relatively new, the shape of the Netherlands isn’t that much different from that of the Dutch Republic that dates back to the 16th Century.  But your thesis seems to be the past was created by dreadful rulers and therefore we can all get along because we are all the same.  But I would suggest you are the one ignoring history because those conflicts etc create a shared experience for the nation state and leave legacies behind.

Napolean left behind the civil legal system as he did across much of Europe.  Occupation by the Nazis, which was brutal (my father was part of the liberating forces and what he witnessed scarred him for life), likewise has a huge effect on the national psyche, which one of the first things that struck me when I lived there.   As a result, you get a country historically divided by religion (the North was protestant, the south was catholic) that still pulls together.  The extent of which first struck me when the National Soccer side were playing in one of the big tournaments – everyone seemed to wearing some orange in support of the team and over 80% of the population watched some of the games – viewing figures that are unheard in this country for any event.

Of course, we had our Dutch king, William of Orange, we are still living with some of the legacies of his reign.

But I would suggest you are the one ignoring history because those conflicts etc create a shared experience for the nation state

Only where the nation state persists.  What about all those people who died fighting for Austro-Hungary?  Where is there shared experience now?  It evaporated along with that empire, as did countless other allegiances and shared experiences all over history.  If you go back far enough everything changes – now we have Scottish nationalists against Britain, but if you go back far enough pre-Saxon settlement we are all British anyway so why should we not be united?  The Scottish border is only the extent of some ancient King’s power, nothing more.

What will happen to a shared sense of ‘Britishness’ if the UK breaks up?

How do you square your idea of nationalism with people who were born and brought up within a nation state but want to be part of another e.g. Republicans in Northern Ireland?

If you wanted to create national boundaries based on shared heritage and culture you’d have the country of greater Anglia which would cover South-Eastern Britain and parts of the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.  Wales, North-Western England and parts of Scotland would be different countries and North Eastern England would also be part of Denmark.

I think people should be free to self govern at the level they choose, rather than being forced to align with bigger historical groups, so I don’t have an objection in principle to an independent Northern England or an independent Shetland, if that’s what the population of those areas collectively agrees to. I don’t think this means the world would splinter into every smaller units, because in most cases you will naturally reach a position where most people feel they have representative government, and further subdivision would be a net disadvantage.

As for countries being based on natural borders – that’s nonsense, IMO.

A lot of nations are based on natural borders because those borders had a practical influence on things like transport, settlement, trade and industry. There is a very real physical border between Scotland and England, for example, with a lot of sparsely inhabited hill country that is still only crossed by a relatively small number of major transport routes.

The argument about people identifying with a nationality because of an accident of the location they were born in is also too simplistic. If you visit Edinburgh, for example, you’ll find a large number of people identifying as Scots who were not born in Scotland, but have chosen to make a life there because they enjoy living in the country.

What will happen to a shared sense of ‘Britishness’ if the UK breaks up?

Does it matter what happens?

I don’t think this means the world would splinter into every smaller units, because in most cases you will naturally reach a position where most people feel they have representative government, and further subdivision would be a net disadvantage.

Ah but, people are not rational.  So you might get people saying ‘yeah we hate those star-bellied sneetches, so we want to separate ourselves from them, they are so awful’ even though both the star bellied sneetches and the ones without actually help each other economically.  See Brexit.  People can harm themselves socially and economically for reasons that turn out to be worthless.

There is a very real physical border between Scotland and England,

You are retro-justifying the border.  There are sparsely populated hill areas all over the British Isles, so why is *THAT* one the Scottish border?  Why are do all the other sparsely populated hill areas all over Scotland constitute one country despite being made up of different cultures and linguistic groups?  Because after they gave up years of fighting over Northumbria and Northern England that’s where the dust settled.

The argument about people identifying with a nationality because of an accident of the location they were born in is also too simplistic. If you visit Edinburgh, for example, you’ll find a large number of people identifying as Scots who were not born in Scotland, but have chosen to make a life there because they enjoy living in the country.

This is the same point as I am making I think.

There is a very real physical border between Scotland and England

When wars moved the border, were they moving it somewhere more “real” or “physicial”?

Apart from island states, borders are mainly political, not geographical. That’s an important “apart from” when looking at how “we” Brits think of our country/countries… we forget our borders are chosen by politicans and monarchs and/or fought over.

We’ve seen from this & other threads how much some Scottish people are enthralled by fantastic virtuousness of a bunch of people who co-incidentally just happen to be born in the same country as them.

This is yet another false premise from someone who does not understand

” Its not where I come from as a person that matters, its where we are going as a country”

Bashir Ahmed.  Born in parkistan, MSP for the SNP, first muslim to be elected to holyrood

This is one of the differences between the civic nationalism of the SNP and most scottish independence advocates and the blood and soil nationalism its often confused with by the ignorant.  Incomers are welcome, Its nothing to do with your country of birth, its all about a shared identity and a willingness to make this a great country

There is a very real physical border between Scotland and England

I know it doesn’t exactly follow the line of the modern border, but it’s not unrealistic to say that if Hadrian hadn’t built his wall then we probably would never ended up with modern Scotland and England. It could be argued that that physical boundary embedded the notion of two different parts of our island. We could easily have ended up as one big nation (ie Great Britain) or split into several eg Cornwall, Wales, East Anglia, Northumberland, the Highlands and so on.

The idea that there is any sort of significant difference between the Scots and the English is nonsense.

Incomers are welcome, Its nothing to do with your country of birth, its all about a shared identity and a willingness to make this a great country

The person I know who is most proud of being Scottish (never shuts up about it) was born in South Africa. To be fair, whenever I’ve visited him, it’s been clear why he thinks that way… everywhere he’s lived has been ace, and full of amazing people.

Now, I know people in England that feel much the same way about being English… despite being born abroad.

But if you are the wrong sort of “foreign born”, things are getting more tricky in many parts of Britain, for sure. And English nationalism & NI unionism  are adding to this far more than any movements to change the status of Scotland within, or outwith, the Union. Sorry for leaving out Wales…

I was born outside the UK, and only at a push would I consider myself more “English” then “British”, but that’s partly from growing up near the Welsh border, and identifying with what that great country has to offer in my youth.

Wales never feels like another country to me… some parts of England still do (and Scotland also). But I’m an alien when I visit Wales, as far as the locals as concerned, there’s never any doubt about that!

Nothing is simple, but some wish it was. National identity is a different mix for every individual, but there so many flags you can wave and briefly pretend otherwise, which can be either a warm welcoming experience, or a blunt and nasty one.

As for countries being based on natural borders – that’s nonsense, IMO.

Plenty are – look at a mountain range and you’ll often have a border. There’s a pretty good reason why India and China tend to leave each other alone…

If there is no difference in attitudes why the huge difference in voting patterns?  from the brexit referendum to westminster elections Scotland on average votes very differently to England

62 % remain v 60% leave

40% tory compared to 20% tory?  etc etc ( figures from memory)

those of you who claim there is no difference please explain this

I see other major differences as well.  a much greater % of nurses are men in Scotland compared to women ( from personal experience – no stats)

There’s a pretty good reason why India and China tend to leave each other alone…

Look at India’s other borders…

Nothing natural about them. All political. What a mess. Most borders are chosen by politicans and monarchs, and/or fought over.

Are the Scots who voted for independance from Britain those that are bemoaning the equivalent vote to leave the EU I wonder…

”

If there is no difference in attitudes why the huge difference in voting patterns?  from the brexit referendum to westminster elections Scotland on average votes very differently to England

62 % remain v 60% leave”

Sucks being in a union which you have no say in don’t it…