Migration Latest news, analysis and comment on migration in Europe and beyond.ĭefense Latest news, analysis and comment on defense in Europe and beyond.Ĭontinent Latest news, analysis and comment from POLITICO’s editors and guest writers on the continent.Home / Orwell / Essays and other works / Notes on Nationalism Notes on Nationalism Germany Latest news, analysis and comment on German politics and beyond.įrance Latest news, analysis and comment on French politics and beyond.Įlections in Europe Latest news, analysis and comment on elections in Europe and beyond.Ĭoronavirus in Europe The latest news, data and analysis on the world’s pandemic response. The trouble with Orwell’s distinction is that it’s almost impossible to figure out where patriotism ends and nationalism begins.Īs the writer also observed in his 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” nationalists tend not to see “resemblances between similar sets of facts.” Post-war British Tories defended “self-determination in Europe” while opposing it in India, for example.Īnd indeed Scottish Nationalists are now complaining about being “dragged out” of the European Union while campaigning to quit the much older Anglo-Scottish Union (While British conservatives make the same mistake in reverse).īrussels Latest news, analysis and comment from POLITICO’s editors and guest writers in Europe. In response, Scottish Brexit minister Mike Russell tweeted that her remarks were “as precise a definition of the Tory approach to #Brexit as you could get” - it was “British nationalism distilled to its disastrous essence.”īoth Davidson and Russell were right. In a recent speech in London, Scottish Tory leader Davidson drew on this definition to lay claim to what she called a “pluralistic” Scottish and British “patriotism.” The SNP, she said, was guilty of conforming to Orwell’s three markers of the nationalist “mindset:” obsession, instability and indifference to reality. government soundbites.īritish author George Orwell made a distinction between “patriotism” and “nationalism.” The former he defined as devotion to a particular place “which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people.” The latter he called the habit of assuming that human beings “can be classified like insects” and that whole blocks of people can be labeled “good” or “bad.” Since last June’s Brexit referendum, a hitherto rather harmless British nationalism has gone from “banal” to sub-UKIP mainstream, the “red, white and blue Brexit” of a thousand U.K. This makes sense in the larger British context. She now depicts her party’s sense of nationalism as superior to the Tories’ appeals to national sentiment, accusing Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson of leading her party down a “ hard-line, UKIP-style” path. Most likely, they are conscious that the term - certainly in a European context - has negative connotations.ĭuring the last Scottish referendum campaign, Sturgeon, not yet first minister, argued that independence wasn’t really about national identity, but achieving “social justice” for Scotland. Naturally, both Scottish and British nationalists go to great lengths to deny that they are (undesirable) nationalists and each would shudder at being lumped in with the other. Where Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, has claimed to be “standing up for Scotland” in the face of Westminster, May portrays herself as “standing up for Britain” - presumably against the necessary “other” of Brussels and assorted European bullies. Similarly, May has railed against Scottish nationalism - speaking of taking action against “extremists” and “separatists” who want to “break up our country” - even as her party’s election slogans echo those of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon | Jeff J.
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