The SNP and ‘Five Continuing Unions’

Abstract

This chapter flips the book’s analysis and looks at the ‘unionism’ of the Scottish National Party, which after 1942 supported the secession of Scotland from the UK. A speech made by Alex Salmond in 2013 is used as a means of examining different strands of the party’s unionism following its formation in 1934. First was the SNP’s attachment to some form of supra-national authority, initially the British Empire and later the European Union; second was defence co-operation via NATO; third was a form of monetary union as advocated by the Scottish Government during the 2012-14 referendum campaign; fourth was a long-standing SNP commitment to the 1603 Union of the Crowns, or retention of the Queen as head of state in an independent Scotland; and fifth was what Alex Salmond called a ‘social union’ between the ‘peoples of these islands’.