On a wall on the old railway line—now a bike path—near my house in Leith someone has splashed “SNLA” in primrose paint. The acronym is that of the Scottish National Liberation Army, a small organisation that grabbed headlines in the 1990s, when several SNLA men were jailed for acts of minor and incompetent terrorism. Its last recorded coup was in 2002 when a teenager sent a bottle of drain cleaner to Cherie Blair at 10 Downing Street, relabelled “Aromatherapy Massage Oil.”
The graffiti is old and dead and buried— fingers crossed—along with any notion that violence might liberate Scotland. But what tool might do that job? Today the Scottish National Party (SNP) is the most successful political party in Britain in terms of both popularity and longevity in power. But it is harder than ever to see how it can gain the independent nation that is its brand promise.