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Abstract

The reactions of metropolitan political elites to the recent electoral successes of Scottish Nationalists have been broadly negative; arguments for independence have been characterised in domestic United Kingdom terms and thereafter dismissed as voluntaristic, atavistic and indulgent. This is an error: the end of the comfortable certainties of the cold war has revealed a complex pattern of ever-changing structural relationships within which discrete polities must make their way; these changes have given us the European Union, an unfolding project, and as structural change in Europe runs through Scotland local agents must read and react with an eye to the future. Arguments for independence are rational; critics may disagree with such proposals, but it would be sensible to consider them directly. Those inclined to dismissal may neglect good argument today and store up unpleasant surprises for themselves tomorrow.

Keywords

Scotland identity Europe Britain

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Cutting Scotland Loose: Soft Nationalism and Independence-in-Europe

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