A disunited Kingdom: expressions of Scottish nationalism in the twentieth-century regional press

A disunited Kingdom: expressions of Scottish nationalism in the twentieth-century regional press

This article situates expressions of Scottish nationalism in a dialectic between a regional origin and a wider internationalist set of parameters. We will demonstrate that perspectives originating from regional settings interacted with wider international horizons. The principal source base for this study is the reports on Scottish nationalist activity in the regional press at key moments in twentieth century history. These are: the 1907 anniversary of the Act of Union; the reforms to the House of Lords and concurrent Welsh and Irish nationalist pressures before World War One; the establishment of the Scottish Nationalist Party in the early 1930s (later to be renamed the Scottish National Party); the theft from Westminster Abbey of the Stone of Scone in 1950; the failed 1978 devolution referendum; and the passing of the Scotland Act in 1998 followed by the emergence of the ‘new politics’ in Scottish political and public life.4 These contextualise the still potent constitutional uncertainty in Scotland following a further referendum on independence and the United Kingdom’s Brexit negotiations. Doing so presents a century-long study of nationalist impulses, with a focus sharpened by specific flashpoints of nationalist yearning and agitation. This article considers the insights gained from regional journalism, whereby Scottish nationalism could be encouraged, shown up by, or contrasted with wider political activity in London, Ireland and further afield from New York to Scandinavia.

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