The Donaldson Lecture - September 1995

Oh, To Be In Britain ?

George Reid is a newspaper and television journalist, and was SNP MP for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire from 1974 to 1979. During this period he also served as a Member of the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the Western European Union.

In 1981-82, he made two series of seven documentaries on contemporary nationalism for BBC radio and BBC2, A Future for Our Past and The Stateless Nations. In 1984, he was invited to join the International Red Cross as Director of Public Affairs, and worked world-wide in wars and disasters. Currently he is an SNP MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).and has homes in Geneva and Bridge of Allan.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Robert Curran and Daphne Reid for their encouragement with this project. He also acknowledges the insights which he has gained from the published works of Neal Ascherson, Owen Dudley Edwards, Jaroslav Krejci, Tom Nairn, Jim Sillars, Vitezslav Velimsky and Keith Webb, on contemporary nationalism. Finally, his thanks to SNP headquarters staff, and to nationalist and socialist friends in other countries furth of Scotland.

The Donaldson Lecture

is given annually in honour of Arthur Donaldson, journalist and SNP Chairman who prepared the ground for the future growth of the party.

Sponsorship

The Scottish National Party thanks Tesco for its sponsorship of the Donaldson Lecture and for its assistance in publishing this booklet.
This lecture looks at Scotland through the eyes of one of her sons who has lived mainly abroad for the last ten years. It is a personal viewpoint, not a blueprint for SNP action. It is meant, primarily, to stimulate reasoned debate.
The last decade has seen a renaissance of political nationalism around the world. I believe that Scotland is part of that renaissance and, in consequence, that only Independence in Europe will meet the legitimate aspirations of the Scottish people. This lecture is not, therefore, about the ultimate goal that unites the Scottish National Party. Rather it is a review of the ways and means by which different nations have got, or are getting, self-government.

In particular, I want to examine how people in these countries have made common cause across the political spectrum. I want to suggest that the state, almost everywhere, is simultaneously too big and too small and that, as a result, sovereignty has to be shared between the nation and multinational groupings
like the European Union. I want to hint strongly that Scotland's problem is not England, but the Ancien Regime of the mythical British nation.

I shall examine proportional representation and the opportunities - and challenges - which it presents for the SNP. And I shall suggest that the key target group on which the party should now be expending its energies is the 15%-20% of Scottish voters who are somewhat ahead of the Labour Party and somewhat behind the SNP, fully committed to a strong, devolved parliament as a first step, but for whom Independence holds no ultimate fears.

Ten Disastrous Years

It has been a disastrous decade for Scotland. The country has been ruled by a British government to which three-quarters of Scottish voters have been bitterly opposed. It is a situation without parallel in the Western world.

It has been a "disastrous" decade for me too. For the past ten years I have worked in wars, internal conflicts, earthquakes, floods, famines and forced movements of people in 61 countries around the world. The mission has been humanitarian, but the job has been distinctly political.

Try running a relief operation in Armenia after the 1988 earthquake, which left at least 25,000 dead and 500,000 homeless - at a time when the nationalists were largely in control in Yerevan, but Moscow was still in charge of security - and you will see that a nodding acquaintance with the notions of "subsidiarity" and "devolved/retained" powers is useful.

Try working in the townships of South Africa, at the height of Zulu-Xhosa violence, and you will find that a knowledge of clan structures is helpful. Try setting up a centre in Budapest for ethnic Hungarians fleeing Ceaucescu's Romania - are they refugees, displaced persons, spies, or sirnply economic migrants? Try dealing with the obscenity of anti-personnel mines, blowing children's legs off at the buttocks. All humanitarian, but also political issues.

In the International Red Cross and other agencies for which I have worked, we are neutral. We swim in a sea of politics, but we keep our counsel so that the victim always come first. Inevitably, however, I have seen the world through Scottish eyes, and this is what I want to share with you today.

The Walls Come Down

A decade ago the world seemed fixed in stone. Global peace was secured only by nuclear stand-off and the immutable order of NATO to the West, the Warsaw Pact to the East, and the Third World trying to stay alive and make a living somewhere inbetween.

But in December 1989 the Berlin Wall, symbol of that divided world, came down. Communism imploded. The universal brotherhood of man, to be secured through international socialism transcending state boundaries, has been permanently postponed. The blueprint for the future, where nationalism would die as soon as the workers smashed the bourgeoisie, has been put in the back cupboard.

Instead, there has been a renaissance of political nationalism. Throughout Europe and much of the Third World, people have returned for security to that most fundamental form of self-government, the nation.

The effect has been mostly benign, though sometimes malign. At its worst, it has produced the madness, the tribalism, the obscenities of Bosnia and Chechnya. A bloodlust going back to the Second World War, but also encouraged by communist distinctions which stamped your ethnicity - Armenian, Jew, Tajik - in your passport as well as your citizenship.

At its best, however, it has produced the quiet civic nationalism of Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia, who sets a standard for governments everywhere when he comments:

"The state is to be judged by how it treats its minorities." [1]

The renaissance has produced the steady advance of the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties in Spain, the participatory democracy of Slovenia, the election of a nationalist government in Quebec, and the return of self-respect in the Baltic States. At the very heart of the European Union, in Belgium, the continuous cession of powers to the Flernish andWalloon parliaments gives the lie to Labour claims that devolution is a once and for all event. There too, in the words of the Liberal leader in Wallonia, Jean Gol, it is the multinational state which is the enemy:

Il est grand temps de decoloniser l'Etat belge. De rendre le pouvoir aux citoyens, qu'au fils du temps, il a conc d aux Grands du royaume. [2]
[It is high time to decolonise the Belgian state. ..to return to its citizens the power which, in the course of time, it has handed over to the kingdom's Establishment.]

Amid this global return to the roots of nationhood, Scotland is the sole spectre, the phantom at the feast. The only country in the world with its own administration, law, education, even its own national football team - but no parliament.

As Ithers See Us

Each nation has its own private place in space, time, history, social and economic development. Any attempt to link the SNP and the Nazis, as happened in the Kinross and Perth by-election, is as foolish as lumping John Smith and Stalin together because both were socialists. Similarly, while all democrats will rejoice in the re-found freedom of the peoples of Eastern Europe, any attempt to make direct comparisons with where they came from, and where we are, would be offensive. And any association of the SNP with violence is absurd, given the party's 60 years of absolute dedication to pacific, civic nationalism.

This is a new age of nationalism, however, and from what I have seen I can attempt some general observations, and more particularly look at the ways and means by which other peoples have gained self- determination, and what they hope to do with it when they've got it.

There's a steady trickle, and the occasional substantial article, in the European press on Scotland and the British Dilemma. Wherever possible, therefore, I shall try to present us as ithers see us.

So where to begin? Let's start ten years ago this week.

So Long as 100 of Us

September 1985, and I'm in Kassala in South East Sudan. A few kilometres away, over the Ethiopian border, the airforce and army of Colonel Mengistu are trying to burn and bomb, napalm and mortar, the Eritrean nationalists into submission.
Paint the Forth Valley beige and brown and take away the trees, turn up the heat, and you'll get the picture. A flat plain which is Sudan, and the Ochil Hills which are Eritrea-Ethiopia. The top of Dumyat is the Eritreans' last toehold in this corner of the country, and all day the fighting is heavy.

Eight o'clock and I decide to turn in. A young Eritrean is at the gate: "Hello, Mr George, you talk now?" I'm anxious to avoid entanglements, so I make my excuses and say: "I'll see you tomorrow." Five o'clock the next morning, and he's still there: "Hello, Mr. George, today's tomorrow...''

How can anyone resist that charm? So we talk about his raggle-taggle troops, and how they have taken on the biggest and best armed forces on the continent.
I give him the received wisdom: African states will never allow Ethiopia to come to bits because, if they do, the lines drawn on the map by the colonial powers are no longer sacrosanct and the whole of Africa will come apart. Surely the Eritreans should settle for some form of devolution, or better, a federal solution? He listened, then spoke:

Mr George, if only 100 of us are left, we fight. Not to be rich Mr George, but for the people.[3]

He had never heard of Arbroath, or Robert the Bruce. He had only the haziest idea of Scotland. But there, down the centuries, came a universal idea - the inalienable right of a people to be free.

Today Eritrea is free, an independent sovereign state. But Scotland stays a country in waiting.

A changed world.

When I arrived in Geneva, the flags of 136 countries flew outside the UN Palais des Nations. Today the number has increased to 186 - 50 new, independent countries in little more than a decade.

Some are from Africa - the Eritreas and Namibias. A considerable number are from the island states of the Caribbean and the Pacific. Many are tiny, but sovereign - Vanuatu, with about the same population as Wick; Liechtenstein, with a smaller electorate than Linlithgow; Andorra, with fewer people than Airdrie. The greatest single number, however, have been born out of the collapse of Communism: Armenia, Georgia, Khazakstan, Kirghizia, Tajikstan...What is significant for Scotland is the number of states in Europe which have either regained their sovereignty - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland; or have emerged from a long hibernation - Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania; or have gained independence for the first time - Belorus, Macedonia, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia.

The same process has been seen at subsidiary level over these ten years in the old states of Western Europe. I have already touched on the transfer of powers, undreamed of by Labour, to the Flemish and Walloon communities in Belgium. In Spain, the nationalist CiU and PNV parties have formed the government at every election in Catalonia and the Basque Country. The same is true of the Sudtiroler Volkspartie (STVP) in South Tyrol and the Union Valdotain of Aosta in Italy. Given the chance to vote nationalists into office in their own parliaments, and to select nationalist European MPs, they have done so.

The process has perhaps best been described by Jacques Parizeau, the nationalist Prime Minister of Quebec. Writing in le Devoir, he has said that social, economic and cultural freedom can be gained only through national struggle. And in recommending a yes vote in the forthcoming referendum on independence, he has defined self-governrnent as "the supreme form of democracy and liberty".[4]

The Renaissance of Nationalism

This is an age of Nationalism, of power to the people. It is not an age of nineteenth century state sovereignty, of 100% control within the frontiers of a country. From Barcelona to Bratislava, from Liege to Ljubljana, there is a recognition that the state is simultaneously too big and too small, and that power must be shared.

The state today is too big to address the needs of minorities like the Catalans and Scots. It is too small, in an age of global macro-economics, to operate the old econornic particularism. In that sense - as Tom Nairn has made abundantly clear [5] - the new nationalism is a response to globalisation, both reacting against it and feeding on it.

The European Union and the looser reintegration of former Soviet republics into the Commonwealth of Independent States are a natural response to globalisation too. But they are so large, they produce a grass- roots feeling of alienation unless real power is simultaneously returned to their component parts. In this process - the particular problem of the Unionist Parties - Britain is out of step with Europe, and London is caught in a pincer movement between Brussels and Edinburgh.

In the 15th century, John Major (I'm speaking of the Scots philosopher from North Berwick) saw the problem: unjust kings, he said, could be overthrown by the people. In the 20th century, the contemporary John Major can speak only of the absolute sovereignty of Crown in Parliament, immutable and unchangeable. It is significant for every Scot that when he tries to justify this and say what he stands for, he does so in the language of middle England:

"...long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, inviolable green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers."[6]

If anyone in this hall today can identify emotionally with that, I can only suggest that they are not in the right country. There's nothing wrong with the sentiment - applied to middle England. But for a Prime Minister to cite the words in defence of "Britain" merely serves to illustrate what an artificial creation our multinational state is. Nonetheless, come the next election, expect to see the same Mr Major wrapped in the Union Jack defending Britain against the "encroachment" of the Europeans and the "separatism" of the Scots.

He will do so, in a throw back to the imperial age, by ignoring the fact that part sovereignty has already been given away to the European Union. And though he will justify his stand in terms of subsidiarity, he will refuse to accept that the principle is best applied to Scotland, not to Britain as a whole.

This Sceptred Isle

Britain has always been a bizarre hybrid. It is clearly a multinational state: Ireland and Wales conquered by force of arms, Scotland and England entering - in theory - into an all-incorporating voluntary union. Generations of constitutional lawyers have depicted the result as a sceptred isle, Crown in Parliament representing the most perfect form of governance yet given to man.

Part of the problem is that Scottish and English nationalism developed centuries ahead of their European equivalents. The English at Agincourt, the Scots with Wallace, were well down the road to national consciousness in the late Middle Ages, whereas for most of Europe the transition from regal to popular sovereignty had to await the appeal of the French Revolution.

The Divine Right of Kings, having failed in Scotland, was exported to England by James VI and, after the Civil War, adopted by the English Parliament. Remember James in London:
This I may say for Scotland, and I may truly vaunt it. Here I sit and govern with my pen. I write it and it is done. With time [Scotland shall] become but as Cumberland and Northumberland and those other remote and distant shires [7]

So the attempt at assimilation was begun. A process in which successive Secretaries of State may boast at home that they are Scotland's man in London, whereas in reality they are always London's man in Scotland, governing by stroke of their pen.

Even in centralist France, powers are divided between President, Pr¡me Minister, National Assembly and the Assemblies of the regions like Rhone-Alps and Corsica. Everywhere, as in the United States, there are checks and balances. But not in Britain. "There," said le Monde a couple of years ago "the absolutism of the Ancien Regime runs on." If you doubt it, consider the classic work on the constitution, Blackstone's Commentaries:

Parliament has sovereign and uncontrollable authority in the making, confirming, enlarging, restraining, abrogating, repealing, reviving and expounding of laws...this being the place where that absolute, despotic power, which must in all governments reside somewhere, is entrusted by the constitution of these kingdoms.[8]

This is the totality of power to which New Labour now aspires. As we shall shortly see, that power was captured first by the Cabinet and, thereafter by the Prime Minister to such an extent that even Lord Hailsham could refer to the office as an "elective dictatorship". Under Mrs Thatcher, that power was carried to its absolute limit.

The Multinational State

Up to the end of the First World War, the world was full of multinational states: the British Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Romanov Empire. Out of the Romanov Empire was born another multinational state, the USSR, which in 1945 was to stretch its tentacles over the central European countries that had emerged from the Habsburg Empire.

What is significant is the extent to which the language of all these failed empires matches the language of the British state today. There was constant reiteration by the Habsburgs in Vienna that all was well, that minor adjustments might be made, and warnings that separation would ruin everybody. There were soothing statements from the Romanovs to their suppressed peoples to the effect that, no matter what the difficulties, the Tsar was on their side. The same system was adopted by the Communists: Stalin "the father of the peoples", the nationalities allowed folk music and folk dance but no power, the nomenklatura - as faithful servants of the central state - in place everywhere. Even in little, multinational Belgium, children in every school were forced to sing:

Flamand, Wallon ne sont que de pr noms, Belge est notre nom de famille.[*]
[*]Flemish and Walloon are only our first names. Belgian is our family name.

No one sings that any more, except perhaps the Royal Family in Brussels.
In Britain, however, the coterie of Crown in Parliament, Court and City continues. The flummery of flunkies still endures, the unity of the realm blessed and proclaimed by an English Archbishop and Earl Marshal - both of whose writs stop at the Scottish border.The language of power is still that of the mystical multinational state, Britain. It is, as the Germans say, titel ohne mittel, people pretending to be far grander than they actually are. In any case, it is the language only of the southern heartlands.

In this sense it is not England that is the problem, since virtually everyone north of Watford experiences a similar sense of alienation.Yet beneath the pomp and circumstance, the pretence of world greatness, the straightjacket of being British, there is - and should be - a decent English nationalism. What self- respecting Englishman would ever say: "Oh to be in Britain, now that April's here...?" They, too, are victims of power for the powerful, not power for the people. But they are unsure of who they are. As the historian Elizabeth Colley puts it:
God has ceased to be British, and Providence no longer smiles on the sceptred isle.[9]

During the imperial age, there might have been a confluence of interest between Scotland and England. These days, however, identity implies a return to separate, national roots. That is not to deny several hundred years of common history. There is absolutely no reason why Scots, English, Irish and Welsh should not - as with the Danes, Finns, Norwegians and Swedes in the Nordic Union - continue their specific relationship in some form of Anglo-Celtic confederation.

Thank you, Mrs Thatcher

It was the excesses of Mrs Thatcher which brought the contradictions of the British state to a head. I was in Edirlburgh when she insisted on addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. As did the majority of ministers and elders, I found it a deeply disturbing moment. To deny the existence of society, to preach loads of money to be gained by rampant individualism is, frankly, morally offensive.

It is a direct negation of the whole Scottish tradition: a tradition built on the commonweal of the Celts, the moral responsibility of the Calvinists, the social concern of the Catholics, the humanity of the Labour movement and the civic nationalism of today.

Yet this was the Iron Lady who set out to liberate Britain. Hectoring the Czechs the Latvians, the Russians and the Scots on the evils of socialism and the magic of the market economy, while squandering Scotland's oil, happy for the City to export the wealth rather than using it to create jobs at home. Refusing, absolutely, any change to the British constitution - and why should she, since it was from that constitution she derived her power to impose the poll tax, reform the trade unions by fiat, abolish whole layers of local government by diktat, bring the police and the universities under central control, impose her will on Scotland without mandate and allow unelected quangos to spread like Quatermass? The political observer, Simon Jenkins, has summed up the process:

The Conservatives have concentrated power on the central institutions of Downing Street as never before in peacetime. [10]

Michael Gorbachev tried the same thing: pushing through economic reform, while still maintaining the control mechanisms of the multinational state. He quickly learned that freedom is indivisible . So did his satraps in Slovenia, Slovakia and the other client states. The whole structure came tumbling down.

Seen from Europe,Tony Blair shows some understanding of the problem. Reform of the Lords, yes. A Scottish Parliament of sorts, yes. A referendum on PR, perhaps. A Bill of Rights, probably. But this process of mild reform is coupled with an almost obsessive desire to get his hands on the levers of the British state. After years of watching other peoples set out to gain their freedom, I cannot believe that any reform of the system by the Ancien Regime will produce meaningful, systematic change.

It's a very southern heartland viewpoint. Put off change as long as possible and then - if it absolutely must be introduced because the Scots are turning awkward - a tweak here and a tweak there, and isn't it better that change is kept in the hands of decent chaps like Tony? The sort of fellow who understands that everything can be flexibly adjusted, provided the power structures aren't really altered. Hasn't it occurred to Labour that by simply abolishing the right of hereditary peers to vote, the House of Lords will be turned into the biggest quango of them all? If we must have a Second Chamber, why should it be appointed? Why not elected by the people?

I much prefer the analysis of Neal Ascherson:

It is not possible to build democratic socialism by using the institutions of the Ancient British State. It is not possible, in the way that it is not possible to induce a vulture to give milk. [11]

Stands Scotland Where it Did?

For the past ten years, I've been back in Scotland every three or four months, sometimes with foreign journalists and friends. Inevitably, we've made comparisons with what we know elsewhere.

The first impression, on the surface, is that Scotland is doing rather well. The centres of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Aberdeen show a bustle and sense of renewal which you find in French provincial cities. Dig a little deeper, however, and go to the satellite estates built by Labour to house the workers. Here's what one Bulgarian journalist, Toma Tomov, wrote:

Edinburgh is a capital in waiting. The Parliament Building and Regalia of Scotland are ready...But Easterhouse is waiting too - for jobs, health, social services, medical care. On the surface, a delicious North European country. Underneath, after decades of socialist rule, an East European experience.[12]

How is it, he asked, that a people who have 70% of the European Union's energy reserves are content to see them go to the British Treasury and not use them to relieve poverty and to create jobs at home?

Strange, too, for the foreigner, has been the obsession with privatisation. Phones, water, electricity, gas, railways, buses - even in Zurich, home of the gnomes, these remain in public hands.Yet the Tories have pressed ahead with the Americanisation of Britain, while admitting no constitutional change. Marcel Fortier, a French writer, gives one explanation of what he calls "the English sickness":

If Britain had been defeated in 1940, it would have had to face reality. Instead, the imperial dream lives on: an island state at the centre of three interlocking circles - the Commonwealth, the United States, and Europe. In this dream, the ruling classes have an enormous sense of their own dignity and solemnity. Mrs Thatcher has decided to wake them up by turning Britain into America. [13]

Against this background, I find Scotland much more nationalist than in the 1970s. Mrs Thatcher and Europe have changed the way Scots see things. Thanks to Mrs T. and her Poll Tax, there was cross-party outrage at Scotland being used to test a feudal impost, and the people said No. As Jordi Pujol, the President of Catalonia, has said: "A bit of persecution helps wonderfully to clarify national attitudes."[14] The cross-party outrage about the poll tax brought Dick Douglas MP into the SNP in a brave act where he put principle before party position. As an old sparring partner of Dick's, I want to say that I am proud to stand beside him today in the cause of the sovereignty of the Scottish people.

The European Dimension

The second engine of change has been Europe. Like every other small nation in our continent - independent or self-governing - the European Union offers the opportunity to kill separatism once and for all, and to share sovereignty in a wider entity. In Neil MacCormick's memorable phrase, sovereignty these days is not somethinq like property which, given away, belongs to someone else.
(Sovereignty today) is more like virginity, that can be lost by one without another's gaining it - and whose loss, in apt circumstances, is even a matter for celebration.[15]

The Irish, living for centuries in the shadow of a powerful English neighbour, have discovered that. Today Dublin is a vibrant, European capital. There are Irish pubs with ceilidh bands in almost every continental city. Young Irishmen and Irishwomen, secure in their identity, are to be found everywhere - even running the shops in Moscow airport. As the former Irish Prime Minister, Dr Garret Fitzgerald, has made clear, it was Irish independence in Europe which made the difference:

I have come to the paradoxical conclusion that it is in the process of merging its sovereignty with other member states in the Community that Ireland has found the clearest ex post facto justification for its long struggle to achieve sovereign independence from the United Kingdom. [16]

It has not been easy for Nationalists, or Socialists, or even members of the Scots bourgeoisie, to come to terms with such concepts. There are still some in the SNP who speak the language of the l9th century nation state. There are certainly many in the Labour Party who still hanker after the good old days when the workers of the world would unite. There are Tories who are distinctly puzzled that their party has set itself against the natural patriotism of the Scottish people.

But there are others who have broken out of the old statist, British way of thinking. There are members of both the Labour and Conservative Parties who have urged that a Scots Parliament (like the Basque Parliament) should collect all taxes north of the border, paying only for remaining common services. Dennis Canavan MP has rightly noted that the 1978 Scotland Act was determined by the simple British consideration of the extent to which devolution threatened the United Kingdom. Within the European dimension, he argues, a better question would be:

To what degree do we want to share that sovereignty with any other nation or group of nations, whether in the United Kingdom or the European Community or both? [17]

Do the majority of Scots MPs, and the representatives of the great and the good, who have signed the Claim of Right really know what they have done? Do they really know what a revolutionary act it is to deny the sovereignty of Crown in Parliament, and accept only the sovereignty of the people of Scotland? Or are their eyes so much on the prize of power, that it is something they will worry about later? Deep in their private thoughts, like their constitutional spokesman Kim Howells, many of them remain British to the core, latter day Habsburgs - determined, like Howells, never to preside over "the balkanisation of Britain".[18]

Yet the ground is shifting beneath them. Today the first choice of one Scot in three is Independence, significantly a larger number than will yet vote for the SNP.[19] Yes, 46% want a Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom, but this figure is soft round the edges. Poll after poll shows that between 40% and 50% of the total electorate believe that a devolved parliament will ultimately lead to Independence.

It is folly to antagonise the people who hold such beliefs. They are well down the same road as the SNP. Independence holds no fears for them.They are mostly decent men and women, deeply concerned about Scotland. To blacken them as Uncle Toms or Tartan Traitors, as some have done, simply sets up unnecessary barriers and diminishes the chance of our country becoming free.

In the past decade I have been privileged to see many peoples find their freedom. But even as the crowds spilled into the streets of Barcelona, Bilbao, Ljubljana, Riga and Tallin, I could not but be struck by a major difference with Scotland. There, in the run in to self-government, all parties - Socialists, Nationalists, far right, far left - normally made common cause, setting aside their party differences for the moment in the cause of national unity. The route was nearly always the same: a constituent assembly, a referendum, proportional representation, an election, a people's parliament.

Here, sectarianism still endures. As that great Nationalist of the early years, Roland Muirhead, wrote despairingly almost on his deathbed:
The longer I live the more I feel that the lack of ability to cooperate is the weakest spot of us Scots.[20]

We had better learn. Because proportional representation in a Scots Parliament - independent, or devolved - will force us to cooperate whether we like it or not.

Where Stands the SNP?

There is a curious view, propagated by the London media, that contemporary European nationalism was conceived and born fast only because of the collapse of communism or, in Spain, the death of Franco. Occasionally, similar views are expressed in nationalist circles in Scotland - that Independence could have come with one big shove in the 70s, but for the "devolution debacle".

In fact, the gestation period for nations is usually long. Armenia, Georgia and the Ukraine all attempted independence after the collapse of the Tsarist Empire, but had to wait another 80 years before they achieved it. The Baltic States gained their independence in 1919, only to lose it again in 1941. Catalonia and the Basque country had brief self-government under the Spanish Republic, only to see their leaders shot or gaoled. Jordi Pujol, the current Catalan President, was himself imprisoned by Franco for singing the Catalan anthem, Els Segadors. The Aostans were similarly oppressed by Mussolini. The Flemings began their "long march" only in the First World War, when their troops were ordered into battle by French-speaking officers whom they could not understand.

Why should Scotland be different? I ask this because the devolution years, 1914-19, are so often portrayed as an unmitigated disaster when a hardline - Independence, Nothing Less - policy might have done the trick. Certainly, there were mistakes. The party was sucked into devolution, rather than keeping a decent distance. The party foolishly took the blame for the defeat of Jim Callaqhan's government, whereas as Jim Sillars has made abundantly clear:
The real question at the end of the day...was whether Labour MPs would put the life of their government before their hatred of the Scotland Act. (Labour Whips) thought their MPs would bring down their own government rather than concede an Assembly [21]

The real tragedy of these years is that we lacked the skills (or were too exhausted) to put responsibility for Labour's downfall firrnly on Labour's own shoulders. From the European perspective, however, 1974-79 may be more generously seen as part of the ebb and flow of nationalism - and crucially a learning experience which the SNP need never learn again.

Speaking of these years is still, for me, a painful experience, and I have no intention of opening old wounds. I simply make three points:

First, there was no theoretical structure - what a parliament actually was for- behind our efforts. Instead, there was a constant left/right, urban/rural struggle. Today I see a united, radical, left-of- centre party, not frightened of the mixed economy and devoted to a community of equal citizens.

Second, there was no common strategy on self-government. The SNP either had to get an Assembly established and take it from there. Or it had to proclaim Independence, Nothing Less, and stand apart. We tried to do both simultaneously. Today I see a party united round Independence. The defining moment was the question from Lorraine Mann during the Great Debate. Alex Salmond gave his first choice as Independence, and his second choice (very much a second choice) as devolution. George Robertson opted for devolution full stop, nothing else, thereby marking New Labour as the party of the ongoing British state.

Third, there was a constant struggle between the party establishment in Edinburgh and the Parliamentary Group in London. It was a sign of a party which had not yet grown up. Today I see a party much more at ease with itself. A party which still has the occasional problem about High Roads and Low Roads to Independence. But a united party which, under the leadership of Alex Salmond, has produced a clear theoretical structure and common strategy.
Post 1979, I went - perhaps mercifully, in view of the internecine stri8fe - into what might be termed two 'reserved occupations': the BBC and the International Red Cross, where the quid pro quo for working was public silence on political issues. I watched, though. And I can only say that it was to the SNP's advantage that we do not have PR yet.

The Proportional Puzzle

The SNP, Labour and Liberals are now committed to single Member constituencies for elections to a Scottish Parliament, plus an Additional Member system of proportionality based on the German system. I am convinced this will transform and open out Scottish politics. To date, however, the debate - in both nationalist and socialist circles - has been conducted in the old Yah-Boo methods of what Raymond Williams calls the Yookay. It has been a very British debate, with little appreciation of the opportunities for cross-party alliances and dangers of party splits.

Consider proportionality in elections to the Catalan Corts, Pujol stands for the sovereignty of the Catalan people, [22] but has to take with him the 2.2 million Catalan voters who are Castillian speakers and emigrants from other regions of Spain. He is therefore looking to the next generation, who will speak Catalan. This softly, softly approach has infuriated the independistas, now grouped in the Esquerra Republicana - where they take both a much harder Left line, and pur et dur position on Independence. But the Esquerra has only 11 seats to Pujol's 70, and no possibility of actually gaining office.

There has been similar fragmentation of the nationalist vote elsewhere. In the Landtag of South Tyrol, two deputies split away from the STVP and seek either independence in Europe or reunification with Austria. Under the British first-past-the-post system, they would have got nowhere; under proportionality, they got enough votes to retain their seats. Translated to Scotland, in a PR parliament, it should give hope to a "bloc" composed, say, of Militant, the Communist Party of Scotland, and perhaps the nationalist Liberation group, allowing them to pick up one or two seats. [23]

In the Basque Country (prone to personality disputes like Scotland), the PNV did not prove big enough to contain both the President of the Government, Carlos Garaikoetxea, and the president of the Party. It split, though in policy terms the two resulting parties are virtually identical. Off to the far left of both - making three nationalist parties in total - are the very hard men and women of Herri Batasuna, the Sinn Fein of the Basque country.

The Basque Socialists, however (like certain sections of the Labour Party in Scotland) have become so nationalist that there has been no problem about their entering a coalition government as junior partners to the PNV. Interestingly too, as in Scotland, the right wing Partido Popular has struggled as the representative of those committed to the Spanish state - though some younger members are arguing that to succeed electorally, it must present itself as both Basque and conservative.

Finally, in Scottish terms, it is prudent to look at the situation in Quebec. There the nationalist Parti Quebecois (PQ) is the government at provincial level. It has, however, no deputies in the federal Parliament, where Members who believe in Quebec sovereignty are grouped in the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) . All PQ supporters vote BQ, but not all BQ members - among whom are former francophone Liberals - necessarily belong to the PQ. A recipe for a future Bloc Ecossais of nationalists and fellow travellers at Westminster, if Scotland goes down the Low Road of a devolved Parliament en route to Independence?

A Changed Dynamic

Let us now, as the spin doctors say, try to put things in perspective. Throughout the 1970s, the SNP was ahead of the voters on the independence issue.Today the electorate is, interestingly, ahead of the SNP. Even among Conservative voters, 7% favour independence. At least two-thirds of the voters feel themselves more Scottish than British, with only 3% feeling more British than Scottish.[24]

Significantly too, if we go down the devolved parliament route, only one Scot in four wants Labour to rule on its own. By far the biggest group, one person in two, wants a coalition - and, of these, the largest number by far want a joint SNP/Labour administration.

Within the confrontational framework of British politics, this seems absurd. But in a European context, it is perfectly normal. I have already mentioned examples of cross-party collaboration in Aosta, the Basque Country, Flanders and Wallonia. It is also worth noting that in my time in Geneva - not, incidentally, some sort of Swiss county council, but an independent Republic and Canton - the bourgeois parties have been perfectly happy to see the city headed by a Communist mayor.

There is a very real difference from Scotland here. Anyone in Barcelona at the time of the referendum on autonomy, watching the hundreds of thousands of people parading up the Ramblas, could not but be struck by Communists, Liberals, Nationalists, Radicals and Trotskyites linked arm to arm. The same was true in Lubljana, Prague, Riga, Tallinn, and even in Ajaccio when the Corsican Assembly was established. No one compromised on their own position, but all made common cause against the alien state.

What is also interesting - in Slovenia, for example - is how those who roared loudest for Independence have now, in large part, given up politics in favour of a quiet life or making money. As the writer Tadej Tomazic put it:

It is almost as though those hard-line nationalists, genuinely committed to giving even their life for freedom, don't know what to do with it now they've got it.[24]

In Scotland - apart from a few individual commitments to Scotland United, to Scottish Labour Action and to the Constitutional Convention - the general pattern on all sides has seemed to be "include me out". I make no judgement on this. I know the difficulty of the SNP sitting in a convention where Independence in Europe was ruled out as an option. I can see the benefit of Labour MPs having accepted a Scottish mandate without SNP pressure. And in the last British Constitutional Conventions in 1917 and 1975, though in very different circumstances on Ireland, I note that it was the abstentionist parties - Sinn Fein and the Unionists - which ultimately won.
Generally, however, it is the gradualists who have carried the day. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela slapped down those like Seperepere Marupeng who wanted "instant freedom". Such statements, he said, were "dramatic, naive and overambitious, making dangerous promises which could not be met".[25] Instead, he counselled:

Relatively few people are ready straightaway for freedom. We should meet them on their own terms, even if we are accused of collaboration. My idea is that our movement should be a great tent that includes as many people as possible.

By building cross-party trust in this way, bridges built on the road to self-government have stayed up once a parliament is established.And purely personally, like Lyndon Johnson, I find it more congenial to be inside the tent peeing out, than outside the tent peeing in.

Not One, But Two Elections

Sometime in the next 18 months, there will be a General Election. It is far too early to assume, as the chattering classes do, that Labour will walk it.

The more New Labour is seen as a machine British party...the more Tonyism is seen as just a nicer form of Toryism...the more Mr Blair portrays Labour Members who are strong on socialism (most of whom are also strong on Scottish rights) as in need of psychotherapy, the better the odds in Scotland for the SNP. Can't you just see a re-run of the old Thatcher graffiti: "We voted Labour.We got Blair"?
In this situation, the two-track approach advocated by Alex Salmond makes absolute common sense. Quite clearly, the SNP stands for Independence in Europe. But the party should also address those l0% to 20% of voters who are strongly committed to both a powerful Scots parliament and to an egalitarian society of opportunity. The SNP should not be frightened to say: we know you are not with us all the way yet, but you know the best guarantee of a strong commitment to Scotland is an SNP vote...

It should be an enjoyable election. If the SNP wins, then as Alex Salmond says: "Great!" If the Tories win again, surely Scotland must unite around Independence? If Labour wins, this time they must stand and deliver - which takes us to the second election, the Assembly election.

Labour promises a Scotland Act inside one year of government. GeorgeRobertson says that a semi- detached Scots Parliament will "kill dead the rump separatist desire''.[27]

Ho, ho, ho. That's what they said in Brussels, Madrid, Moscow and Prague when new national parliaments were established. The assumption was that the people would keep a hold of nurse for fear of finding something worse. The clear intention was to deliver these parliaments into the hands of regional branches of their own nomenklatura They misunderstood both the spirit of the age and the commonsense of the people.

The Rump Separatist Desire

It is a curious phrase, "the rump separatist desire", sounding like a bad translation of something dreamed up in a Central Committee in Eastern Europe around 1989, when the state started fragmenting.

The reality is that every duly elected parliament at regional level has sought substantially greater powers. Bratislava broke with Prague on both national and economic issues because it had its own forum. Given the ossification of Yugoslavia, Slovenia quickly turned its Assembly into a full parliament - the sovereign people endorsing civic nationalism, with infinite checks and balances and absolute guarantees for every minority.

Consider also the Flemish and Walloon Assemblies. In 1970, culture and language were devolved ("Well, that should keep them happy"). In 1980, environment, housing, health, part employment and economy were devolved ("Well, they should be happy now"). In 1983 came further economic powers including foreign trade ("We can't really give much more"). And in 1993, they received certain international powers, including the right to make treaties and send delegations abroad ("We're now at the absolute limit, after which Belgium breaks"). But for the specific problem of the Brussels region, the remaining powers in the fields of foreign affairs and social security would now be under discussion as well. Worryingly, in this situation, the moderate nationalist party Volksunie now finds itself outstripped by the much more strident Vlams Blok, some of whose supporters have shown distinct racist overtones. In these circumstances, convinced that nationalist voters will return to the middle ground, VolksuIue preaches civic nationalism in a European context:

Vlaanderen heeft als vorwaardige natie het recht op volledig edig zelfbestuur om vrij zijn samenleving te ordenen en zjin toekomst te vrijwaren...Als volwaardig lid van de Europese Unie heft Vlaanderen zijn plaats in Raad en Commissie.[*][28]
[*]Flanders as a nation has the right to total independence in order to set its affairs in order and to safeguard its future.. As a full member of the European Union, Flanders has to take its place in the Council and the Commission.

Consider Canada also, where the Parti Quebecois has come back from rejection every bit as bruising as was, for all Home Rulers in Scotland, the referendum of 1979. In 1980, the PQ government announced an Independence referendum. A massive, well funded No campaign proclaimed that Quebec would be turned into Cuba and industry would quit. The Referendum was lost by 60:40. The statists in Ottowa proclaimed that the PQ had been "reduced to a rump" and that "separatism was for ever dead".

Instead, the Parti Quebecois accepted the will of the people and pledged - nous devons recommencer- to start all over again. Now it is back in power once more. Despite the threats that industry would move out en masse, Canadian companies like Alcan Aluminium, BCE, Canadian Pacific and the Royal Bank of Canada still maintain their headquarters in Montreal. And now there is another Referendum on 30 October l995 on Souverainete - Partenariat, in which the people are invited to proclaim themselves sovereign while simultaneously indicating their willingness to enter into a renewed partnership with the rest of North America.

London journalists with whom I try to discuss such matters usually stifle a yawn or - if they deem themselves part of the British caste system- inevitably pronounce the concepts to be "queer" and "foreign". Their attitude reminds me of the response of George III when Dundas tried to tell him that his Coronation Oath made a distinction between his powers to administer laws and to give his assent to them:

None of your Scotch metaphysics with Me, sir. None of your Scotch metaphysics with Me.[29]

Seen through the eyes of the rest of the world, such distinctions are not metaphysical but common sense. They are also part of the Scots constitutional tradition, going all the way back to the Declaration of Arbroath. At times, Buckingham Palace would do well to remind itself that while Queen Elizabeth is undoubtedly Queen of England - a territorial ruler - north of the Border she is Queen of Scots - a monarch, by consent of the people.

Imagine, for a moment, that the Scotland Act passes through Parliament. Elections to Edinburgh should then be mid-term for a Labour Government. With the usual swings and roundabouts (and remember that the real failure of the first Scotland Act was that it came in Jim Callaghan's winter of discontent), Labour will not be too popular. And the election to the Scottish Parliament will be partly by proportional representation, benefiting a party like the SNP whose vote - unlike that of Labour or the Tories - is spread evenly around the country.

The SNP wants a parliament of 200 members, to allow the greatest possible proportionality. Labour has stuck at 129, assuming that this might guarantee them a majority. Mid-term, however, it might just be small enough to allow the SNP to emerge as the single biggest party.

In these circumstances, will the SNP, like Pujol, accept office in an institution which is far short of the sovereignty which it seeks for the people of Scotland? Is it conceivable, in a hung parliament, that it would go into coalition with either Labour or the Liberals (because on purely domestic legislation, seen from Europe, the differences between the three parties are small). If it took office, like the Parti Quebecois in Quebec, would it govern prudently, in the hope that good government would encourage people to vote yes in an Independence Referendum? Or, against all these blandishments, would the SNP steer clear of office, occupying only the high ground of independence?

I don't know the answer to these questions. I suspect that the party doesn't know either. I can only suggest, on European experience, that they require long, quiet, internal analysis.

Talking to Ourselves

All nationalist parties are bottom-up, not top-down affairs. As I have already explained, the Basques have two nationalist parties preaching much the same thing because the president of the party could not agree with his parliamentary president. There are plenty of other examples where personalities, or a relatively small number of activists turning up at the equivalent of the SNP's National Councils, have exercised authority out of all proportion to their numbers.
Such parties sometimes, to their cost, end up talking to themselves - not to the voters on whom their existence ultimately depends.

"Free by 93". "The Independence Election" .Yes, I can see the attraction of these slogans to a nationalist, where they represent both an aspiration and an inspiration. They amounted, though, to a classic, internal message. They spoke to the faithful, not the voters. They were not calculated to attract the 15% to 20% of Scots who are ahead of Labour on such issues as using part of Scotland's energy wealth to redress poverty and to fuel industry, but behind the SNP in one lowp to freedom. Aren't these the key people the SNP should be targeting: people for whom independence holds no great fears, but who may wish to suck it and see before moving on from a devolved parliament?

Remember the great Turnbull cartoon in the The Herald the week before the referendum?: a battered rampant lion, tail between his legs, saying "I'm feart". It is probably Alex Salmond's greatest responsibility to use his undoubted skills to ensure that such a loss of confidence never happens again.

Good for Scotland

Twenty years ago Jordi Pujol, not long out of a Franco prison, came to Bannockburn to see what he could learn for hirnself about, as the SNP billed itself at the time, "Europe's fastest growing political party".The rally was fine.The dance in Stirling's Albert Hall at night, when the band - in a singularly inept attempt to be helpful - struck up Viva Espana, was not. Pujol was backed into a corner, advised to follow Scotland's lead, and told that Independence was just round the corner.

Twenty years later, Pujol has won every election he has contested. He has played kingmaker to Felipe Gonzales in Madrid, whose socialists (strange echoes of 1974) have been dependent on Catalan votes in the Cortes. The country of Catalonia has been genuinely transformed econornically and culturally, with Barcelona again a great European city. Asked about his unparalleled electoral success, Pujol says that it is because the people accept nationalist government as being "good for Catalonia".

We too have people who regard themselves as guardians of the sacred flame of Independence. But genuine self-government will come only at the speed of the greatest possible majority. It will come only through the practice of power and the trust of the people.[30]

It's a long game by Scottish standards. But, as we all know, our national team plays best in the long game. As in football, it is all ultimately a matter of self-confidence, team spirit and the will to win.

"Good for Catalonia": a non-aggressive, reassuring message carried assiduously by CiU members to the newest Andalucian immigrant as well as to the remotest farmer in the Pyrenees. It is a message whose impact is carefully monitored through opinion polls and attitudinal surveys, and given clear central direction from Pujol's office. "Good for Catalonia" is more than a nice double-entendre. It is a total thematic approach, from a disciplined party, with specially commissioned pop songs and superbly cut PPBs reinforcing the same message: building workers in hard hats, thumbs up; Barcelona FC winning the cup; the King of Spain, standing to attention as the Olympics opened with the Catalan national anthem; Gerona spick and span after a clean up; slick city workers and grizzled peasants, all thumbs up; new motorways expanding north into the European Union; the Pyrenees ablaze with spring flowers; all, good for Catalonia...

The SNP should look at this feelgood factor - the fact that the great majority of Scots, regardless of their party allegiance, feel that the SNP has been good for Scotland. As Dr Allan Macartney has said, more Scots have voted SNP, in one election or another, than for any other party. A harridan approach to politics - demanding this, proclaiming that - does little to solidify such temporary support into a permanent attachment.

I believe that Independence in Europe is good for Scotland. And there are signs that the real debate is just beginning, as witness a Scotsman leading article during this year's annual conference:

The SNP leadership has a strong and sophisticated vision: independence in Europe as a means of participating more fully in the international community, as a moral as well as an economic device for the regaininq of dignity.[31]

The spirit of that leader is close to words chosen by the first leader of the Parti Quebecois, Rene Levesque, when he addressed the French National Assembly. Modern nationalism was natural and normal, he said It was not "separation", but:

...tres clairement inscrite dans un mouvement universel. Contre les risques des nouvelles h g monies, contre les dangers de domestication des esprits, de folldorisation des cultures, la v ritable chance d'un nouvel humanisme mondiale doit passer par l'apport original et constructif des personnes nationales dont nous sommes.[*][32]
[*]...very clearly enrolled in a universal movement. Against the risks of new hegemonies, agamst the dangers of our spirit becoming homespun, of the folklorisation of our culture...the real chance for a new world humanism must come through the original and constructive support of the national peoples we are.

If the SNP is to carry the people of Scotland into new life in Europe, then it must shed its British baggage. If it proclairns, like Levesque, that the new nationalism is firmly internationalist, then it must be ready to learn from others outside the Yookay. Whether we take the High Road or the Low Road to independence, there is much we can learn from other small nations in Europe that is good for Scotland.

A Future for our Past

We can take strength from the fact that around the world there has been a renaissance of nationalism, a process in which Scotland must play its part. We can commit ourselves to shared sovereignty in the European Union, confident that Brussels and Edinburgh will put the squeeze on London. And we can see that it is not England which is the problem, but the British state and its protagonists - throwbacks to an imperial age, long since gone.

In doing so, we must question the British attitudes which dominate so much of the Scottish debate. Instead of the confrontational politics which are the peculiar mark of Westminster - Government and Opposition braying abuse at each other across the Chamber - we must come to terms with the fact that, in the Scottish parliament as in its European equivalents, no single party is likely to have an absolute majority. That implies a willingness to make common cause with others who go at least part of the way with us. We should not be frightened, therefore, to remind Scots socialists that their forefathers featured William Wallace on their banners alongside Marx and Lenin, or that the STUC called for separate Scots representation at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference. It is the 15% to 20% of canny Scots radicals who find themselves somewhere between the Labour Party and the SNP who hold the key to our country's future.

A European perspective also sheds new light on routes to independence. Much of the early thinking of the SNP was conditioned by the abstentionism - no truck with devolved institutions - of hard line republicans in the establishment of an Irish state. In continental Europe, however, there has been much greater willingness to participate in whatever assemblies have been conceded, and to work constructively to increase their authority. If Scotland does get a devolved parliament, can the SNP really say that it is not interested in taking office? The lesson from Europe is that those nationalists who prefer girning to governing are cast into darkness by the voters.

This is the major challenge of Alex Salmond's leadership - to change the frame of reference, the way we see things. Independence by itself is far less important than what Independence is actually for.

This age of nationalism has not come about because of the myths of the past. It has been born because peoples have clearly understood that the nation is the natural community in which to work out their social and economic future. For the SNP, this means again laying primary stress on the connection between our natural resources and social justice: using our wealth at home for the relief of poverty and the creation of jobs, and sharing it - like our Norwegian neighbours across the North Sea - in programmes to aid the vulnerable in developing countries. It means opposing the obscene Trident things placed in our waters byLondon, and telling Labour - if it wants them - to try putting them in the Thames.

For such a programme to succeed means going at the speed of the greatest possible majority. It means building on the feel-good factor of being the only party which, always, can put Scottish interests first. It means, frankly, building enough belief in the SNP that the people of Scotland are confident of entrusting their government to it.

Our future cannot be a continuation of our past. Too often, we Scots are concerned about the day before yesterday. Far better, like my young Eritrean friend, to say with a sense of purpose:"Today is tomorrow".

And in that tomorrow, who will sigh: "Oh, to be in Britain...?"

References

[1] HAVEL,Vaclav, quoted in The Rebirth of History by Misha Glenny, l991.
[2] GOL, Jean: obituary, quoted in le Soir, 19 September 1995.
[3] REID, George: Caught in the Crossfire, 1985.
[4] PARIZEAU, Jacques: le Devoir, Montreal, 10 August 1995.
[5] NAlRN, Tom: The Break-Up of Britain, 1982 and The Enchanted Glass, 1994.
[6] MAJOR, John: quoted in The Enchanted Glass by Tom Nairn, 1994.
[7] JAMES Vl: quoted in The Growth of Nationalism in Scotland by Keith Webb, 1971.
[8] BLACKSTONE: Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69).
[9] COLLEY, Linda: Britons: Forging the Nation.
[10] JENKINS, Simon: Accountable to None: The Tory Nationalisation of Britain, 1995.
[11] ASCHERSON, Neal: The Mackintosh Memorial Lecture.
[12] TOMOV, Toma: Bulgarian documentary on nationalism, 1978.
[13] FORTIER, Marcel: b'Europe, Ma Patrie, 1988.
[14] PUJOL, Jordi: on the proscription of the Catalan language by General Franco, September 1984.
[15] MacCORMlCK, Neil: Sovereignty Myth and Reality in Scottish Affairs, Spring 1995.
[16] FITZGERALD, Garret: Williamson Memorial Lecture, University of Stirling 1989.
[17] CANAVAN, Denis: Sovereignty of the People, in A Claim of Right for Scotland, 1989.
[18] HOWELLS, Kim: quoted in The Scotsman, 12 September l995.
[19] Sunday Times poll, 27 August 1995.
[20] MUIRHEAD, Roland: quoted in The Growth of Nationalism in Scotland by Keith Webb, 1977.
[21] SILLARS, Jim: Scotland: the Case for Optimism, 1986.
[22] During the 1992 Olympics, the Catalan government infuriated traditionalists in Madrid by buying full page adverts in the European press. The headline read: Catalonia -A Country inside Spain.
[23] DAWSON, Tim: report in Sunday Times of 27 August 1979, covering discussions between Militant, the Communist Party of Scotland, the Socialist Movement and Liberation about forming a bloc similar to Izquierdo Unida in Spain (which has 18 seats in the Cortes in Madrid).
[24] TOMAZIK, Tadej: interviewed in Ljubljana, March l99S.
[25] MANDELA, Nelson: Long Walk to Freedom 1995.
[26] ibid.
[27] ROBERTSON, George: signed article in The Scotsman, 11 September 1995.
[28] Volksunie, Resolution of Party Congress, 11 March 1995.
[29] GEORGE III: quoted in The English King by Michael MacDonagh.
[30] PUJOL, Jordi: interviewed for BBC series, The Stateless Nations, 1981.
[31] The Scotsman, 21 September 1995.
[32] LEVESQUE, Ren : address to French National Assembly, 2 November 1977.

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