Who can believe it? For Nicola, nationalism is now the hardest word

The SNP leader said she would like a different name for her party. That’s a bit rich, given its policies

Every now and then, someone in politics commits such an outrageous act of selfdeception, the casual reader has to double-take to ensure they’ve fully understood. Not just spin or nuance, chutzpah or guile, but a proper, all-out piece of perfidy of the black-is-white variety that would make even Pinnochio blush.

This week we had the finest example I can remember in my adult life. Nicola Sturgeon – First Minister of Scotland, leader of the Scottish National Party, director of the SNP’S separatist campaign to break up Britain – appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival to offer the world this:

“The word [nationalism] is difficult. If I could turn the clock back, what, 90 years, to the establishment of my party, and chose its name all over again, I wouldn’t choose the name it has got just now. I would call it something other than the Scottish National Party.”

That doesn’t sound so bad, does it? She fancies a name change. No harm, no foul. But it was Ms Sturgeon’s reasons for a shift in moniker that caught the breath.

The reason the woman who addresses delegates at her own party conference as “fellow nationalists” and appeared in a party election broadcast based on contributors saying “I’m a Nat” suddenly decided she didn’t like the description ran thus: “What those of us who do support Scottish independence are all about could not be further removed from some of what you would recognise as nationalism in other parts of the world.”

Ah, there’s the rub. Her nationalism is better than all the other types of nationalism. Hers is unique and good and people would understand it better if all these foreigners weren’t polluting the term by practising the wrong type.

The failure to recognise that “my nationalism is better than yours” is the cry of every nationalist, everywhere, for all time, is a stunning oversight.

But this has been a fractious summer for Scotland’s leading nationalist party. After losing 21 of their 56 seats in the snap general election there is a sudden, dawning realisation that independence is not inevitable, that “one more heave”, while failures in governance and public services are airily dismissed, simply won’t cut it.

This destabilisation has led to an increase in the already well-developed sense of grievance and victimhood.

During the recent demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia, the BBC’S North America Correspondent, James Cook, referred to the protesters in one report as “white nationalists”.

The opprobrium was swift and unrelenting. Cook, a Scot himself, and former Scotland correspondent, was attacked for supposedly using his report on Charlottesville to make a political point back home.

A number of former and current SNP MPS took to Twitter to engage – including Peter Grant, telling Cook that “UK parties falsely equate nationalism with racism to discredit the SNP.”

Following the criticism, Cook took to social media to explain: “US readers may be startled to learn that some Scottish nationalists say our use of “white nationalist” is designed to discredit the SNP.” And continued: “Should we stop using ‘white nationalists’ in US because a tiny number of folk are offended? No, that would be absurd and Orwellian.”

Orwell is one of the great anatomists of nationalism. His scalpel pen flayed its cadaver, leaving all the working parts bare, more than seven decades ago. His definition, and the questions he poses, are as exacting today – and challenge all sides of political debate, especially those in established parties.

In giving the annual Orwell Lecture in May, I sought to dissect the author’s treatise on nationalism and patriotism. While also looking around the world, I found context at home, and didn’t have to look far to find recent examples illustrating Orwell’s argument that all nationalisms display obsession, instability and indifference to reality.

It was easy to tick the boxes he sets out regarding the size of headlines or placement of flags, of the obsession remaining while the circumstances change – Nationalist MPS complaining about UK bias in the size of the BBC weather map or SNP leaders joining the party when it was anti-eu, now saying Brexit is the reason to secede.

Another of Orwell’s symptoms is the idea that every single issue is deemed less important than the cause, and that support of nationalism excuses all other. After a massive rise in Scotland’s drugs deaths, the SNP’S former Justice secretary, Kenny Macaskill, claimed this week that a proper debate around a new drugs strategy was urgently needed – “That silence may have been understandable when the referendum was ongoing, now it’s simply cowardly as tragedy unfolds.” In other words, it’s OK not to talk about stopping people dying when there’s a referendum to win, but now the fight is suspended, maybe we should do something about all those deaths.

For me, the biggest signifier of nationalist parties everywhere, is their attempt to equate party with country. For the political cause to define the national identity – therefore “othering” everyone else as either alien or traitor.

Yet another example arrived this week. Not from Ms Sturgeon, but from her predecessor and mentor, Alex Salmond. Joining the Trumps of this world, the former SNP leader claimed in his Edinburgh Fringe show that the press was “despised”, and used an interview to demand Scottish political journalists become more patriotic.

“Everyone has to earn a crust, I get that, but there are some things you just shouldn’t do and running down your country is one of them. I don’t know how they live with themselves.”

Critiquing the Scottish Government’s performance had morphed into running down the country.

After greeting her “fellow nationalists” at conference, Nicola Sturgeon has decided that she doesn’t like the word. In the same few days, she says her nationalism is so much better than everyone else’s nationalism. Her adherents are claiming victimhood and grievance. Her elected (and formerly elected) members are attacking the press. Her ministers are explaining why they didn’t want to tackle fatal issues in case it damaged the central cause. Those critiquing her performance are accused of doing the country down.

If you talk like a nationalist and act like a nationalist then, I’m sorry, Nicola, but nationalism is the only word.