Scottish nationalists aren’t all separatists

THE FIRST-PLACE FINISH of a pro-independence party in elections for the Scottish Parliament doesn’t mean that the northernmost nation of the United Kingdom is about to break away, any more than the triumph of French separatists in Quebec’s elections 31 years ago led to the crack-up of Canada.

Some of the defections from the Labor Party to the Scottish Nationalist Party probably reflect disaffection with lame-duck Prime Minister Tony Blair more than any endorsement of independence.

Still, the strong showing of the SNP — which won 47 seats in the 129-member Scottish Parliament, compared to 46 for Labor — puts the issue of independence front and center in political discourse 300 years after England and Scotland joined in an Act of Union. The great irony is that independence might not make that much difference.

One reason is that, to an extent that surprises many Americans, Scotland already goes its own way. It has its own flag, its own legal and education systems and its own established church (Presbyterian, not Anglican). Since the opening (or, as nationalists see it, reopening) of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Scots also have had a regional form of government that Englishmen lack, along with representation in the British Parliament in London. Indeed, when Blair steps down soon, he is expected to be succeeded by a Scot, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

What Scotland doesn’t have, of course, is its own foreign policy. But neither, according to Scottish nationalists, does Great Britain. Alex Salmond, the SNP leader who hopes to become Scotland’s “first minister,” or chief executive, has described Blair as an “unquestioning client of the United States.” Fair or not, that criticism highlights the view, not confined to Scots, that Britain is tethered to American interests.

Aside from Blair’s support for President Bush’s Iraq policy, Britain is part of both the NATO military alliance and the European Union. It also has an intimate relationship with the Republic of Ireland, whose separation from the British crown is a storied part of 20th century history. So close are Britain and the Irish Republic that successive prime ministers of both nations have formed a political tag-team to pressure Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland to share power. When both Britain and Ireland are fellow members of the EU, the question of whether the North is “British” or “Irish” loses a lot of its urgency.

An independent Scotland might disdain membership in NATO, as the Republic of Ireland does, but it’s hard to imagine it opting out of a united Europe, or the global economy for that matter. (The website of the Scottish Parliament contains a welcome not only in Gaelic and the Scots’ dialect of English but also in European and Asian languages.) That’s the second reason why separation for Scotland might be more symbolic than real. In an interdependent age, independence ain’t what it used to be.