Scots Nationalism Part 2

Scots Nationalism Part 2 by Vic Vanni (continued from here )

The incredible hotchpotch of ideas contained in the new organisation soon became a cause for alarm among the more sensible members and drove one, Lewis Spence, to complain that the party was… a maelstrom boiling and bubbling with the cross- currents of rival and frequently fantastic theories, schemes and. notions we have people who wanted all Scotland to speak the Gaelic….
some hark back to the hope of a sixteenth-century Scotland regained still others a Jacobite
restoration. A certain group sees in the expulsion of all the English and Irish in- Scotland the country's only chance of survival . All is hubbub, outcry, chaos. There is no plan,Nothing approaching a serious, practical Scotsman-like policy in -either art or politics. (H. J. Hanham, Scottish Nationalism. p. 154)

Poor- Spence, but he should have known. With the loss of interest in Home Rule of the Scottish ruling class-and their political sidekicks, the nationalist cause had fallen into the hands of all sorts of cranks, literary and otherwise, who were more concerned with ,,culture" than economics or social matters. Certainly they had little idea of the history of the toilers' conditions as could be seen by their constant harking back to a mythical time when ,our people were prosperous and contented" before the Union.

Anyway, the- party was established and membership was open to all. Tories and Liberals as well as Labourites flocked in and even Lord Beaverbrook showed interest. Inevitably, some of the more opportunist leaders wished to "broaden the base of the-party" and after an internal battle the party merged with a Tory splinter group to become the Scottish National party (SNP) in 1934. ...More >