A thought that has occured to me recently.Is the existence of the UK political union is the only conduit which British identity hinges upon?
If the Scottish identity, or Catalan identity, or English identity can manage without a political state of its own, why can't the British one? Could one be a Scot and a Brit in a Scotland that was not part of the United Kingdom? In other words could a British identity sustain itself outside its life support mechanism that is the UK political union?
I don't see why the answer to any of those questions should be in the negative. I've blogged before on how independence is primarily a function of the changing governance of Scotland as opposed to anything else. Personally, I don't believe governance should be the sticking plaster that needs to make a national identity cohesive - where a national identity exists.
In reality I'm not comfortable using identity as a mechanism to argue a particular viewpoint with regards to the constitutional question. It doesn't add anything to the flavour of the debate only laying bare the subjective opinions on how they view themselves. And it is a complex area.
But, there is no question that the idea of "nationalism" plays a part in how we argue our standpoints on this issue. One of the (many) myths of British Unionism is that it is above all that nationalist rhetoric and nonsense of those separatists. That Britishness is seen, not a nationalism, it is a civilisation - a refined, liberal, suave and sophisticated viewpoint. This is a ridiculous and intellectually dishonest proposition to hold, let alone expound upon. Unionism is a branch of nationalism, where the United Kingdom is held as the primary nation state to attach itself to. It clearly is a nationalism that is expressed differently to the variant that exists in Scotland. But then that could be said about Australian nationalism, Quebec nationalism, American nationalism or Italian nationalism.
