A Nordic solution to Scotland’s invisibility within the UK

The survey found 58% of Danes and 56% of Swedes think Scotland is similar to their own country, but the similarity rankings for England were higher: 62% and 61%. The UK also had higher similarity rankings than Scotland.

Meanwhile – and presumably with a different sample – SNP voters were found to believe that Scotland has more in common with the Nordic nations than England, while unionist voters felt precisely the other way around. Not many surprises there.

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But this poll combination is presumably intended to prove that the love affair between independence supporters and top-ranking Nordic nations is a forlorn, self-deluding one-way street. Yessers rate the Nordics, but they don’t rate us.

In fact, as the newspaper reports, they don’t even see us: “The discrepancy in Scandinavian attitudes may be due to [Scotland] being more unknown to the Nordic public – [not] because they see the country as dissimilar.”

And that is the size of it. Scotland within the union is invisible. Despite whisky, Outlander, the Brexit vote, Hogwarts Express, Nicola Sturgeon and devolution. Devolved Scotland may be more visible than we used to be.

But after 12 years as director of Nordic Horizons – a think tank that’s taken more than 60 experts from the Nordic nations to speak in the Scottish parliament – I’d agree that Scotland is virtually invisible across Northern Europe. And that lack of clear identity abroad is down to one thing: being part of the UK.

Consider. How much do any of us know about the different states or Lander within Germany, even though these federal states have more budgetary control than Holyrood? For them, like us, lack of sovereignty means lack of identity and visibility. A miss is as good as a mile.

Likewise, on trips abroad, how many people quiz the locals about their political outlook, taxation rules or constitutional history? There’s only so much “foreign” detail folk can take in. Even people in the Nordic nations know surprisingly little about one another. But personal and working ties plus a shared geography and history mean familiarity stays strong.

Professionals who’ve spent time in Scotland are aware of our political and cultural distinctiveness. Scotland adopted the Finnish community payback model for criminal justice after an impactful trip to Helsinki 16 years ago and a trip here by their top criminologist Tapio Lappi Seppala. As a result, Nordic penal experts are probably aware of Scotland’s distinctive policy position. But that’s a gey small group of people.

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Similarly, at a conference in Reykjavík, I was astonished to survey the bookshelf of a lecturer, packed to the gunnels with Scottish literature. She and two colleagues had taken degrees at Glasgow University.

Later, writer Halldór Guðmundsson – who curated the successful Icelandic and Norwegian guest country bids at the prestigious Frankfurt book fair, said Scotland’s unparalleled literary heritage made her an excellent future candidate and offered his support to any Scottish institutions ready to give it a go. I’ve no idea if anyone has bitten his arm off yet, but the volume of books published in translation after a Frankfurt Guest appearance is fairly mind blowing.

Granted though, this is specialist opinion. And that’s just a drop in the ocean. How do ideas of similarity and difference get formed amongst the wider Nordic public? Familiarity and visibility are prerequisites, but they often develop along decidedly apolitical desire lines.

One of my best Norwegian friends is an avid Liverpool FC supporter who knows Liverpool like the back of his hand – not closer Edinburgh. In fact, given the strange emotions generated by the beautiful game, it’s more accurate to say he worships Liverpool and thus England in a way nothing will ever dislodge. Less emotionally engaged trips to Scotland have only occurred because his wife works for a tidal energy company, active in the Pentland Firth.

Ditto, Norwegian academic Nik Brandal, a speaker at two Nordic Horizons events in Edinburgh. Nik knows his stuff about welfare systems, is a bit of a lefty and clearly enjoys his time in Scotland. But he is such a massive Everton supporter he speaks English with a strong Liverpudlian accent. Same story with a taxi driver in Iceland who’s only ever visited the UK twice to watch Norwich City in action. Yip. Weird.

This exceptional chap took a bunch of us on a free tour of the Reykjanes peninsula after our plane was delayed because one Scot had red hair so he thought she must be Irish. The Icelanders worship the Irish because 40% of their matrilineal DNA is Celtic – the result of Vikings abducting women to settle their new, uninhabited home.

But those women came from all the islands further south, including the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland. Icelanders are just as likely to be descended from Scots, and Scots just as likely to have distinctive ginger colourings. But we’ve been written out of history because we are not a country. Ireland is. Simple as that.

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I’d guess Norwegians, with shared oil, gas and fish resources, have more of an idea about Scots than the Danes and Swedes surveyed. But judgements of similarity rely on visibility.  Estonia was just a lost corner of the Soviet Empire. But 30-odd years after regaining independence, that same country is now highly visible – as the digital leader and Baltic Tiger economy of Europe.

If Scotland was familiar to our nearest neighbours, subsumed as we are within the UK, independence might seem unnecessary.

But clearly, out of sight is out of mind – until Scots are able to do what the bulk of those neighbours did: vote for independence, push ourselves beyond the cloak of ‘regional’ invisibility and throw six to become a distinctive new North Atlantic state.