I was struck by something an SNP activist told me earlier today, he said ‘I feel sorry for people in England, if I lived there I wouldn’t know who to vote for.’ He, knowing I am a member of the Labour party, was probably trying to get a rise out of me. An attempt at fishing to try and get into the debate SNP supporters love so much about whether any of the three ‘London parties’ are in fact different at all. Rather than go down this tedious route I told him ‘That is because your social cleavage is your nationality.’ He decided not to continue talking about that and instead canvassed me about the renewal of Trident.
It made me think though, about how SNP voters view politics. I believe that supporters of the three main UK parties look at politics based on an ideology of sorts. Be it conservative, liberal, social liberal, libertarian, socialist or otherwise. Based on that ideology we perhaps find the party we feel best fits that ideology or the one which has the most policies that fall into our chosen category. I am unsure if this is the way the Nats view their political beliefs. The nationalist who spoke to me this morning was wearing a Scotland soccer shirt for instance, and spoke in a very broad Scottish accent (one I cynically felt he was over-emphasising for effect). Although he spoke to me about policy I felt it was his Scottishness that defined his politics, something so alien to me. This man was a Scottish person therefore his politics needed to be Scottish. I am a social democrat, therefore my politics need to be social democratic. I am also Scottish and happy to be so, but mixing national pride with politics is something frightening to me but I am beginning to think that is perhaps how the Nationalists view the political landscape.
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