Tom Peterkin: Language of politics evolving as independence issue proves

STUDENTS of semantics would have been interested in discussions held in the House of Lords this week, which illustrated how the independence debate generates battles over language as well as the constitution.

Examining the Scotland Bill, Lord Michael Forsyth objected strenuously to the use of the phrase “Scottish Crown Estate Commissioner”.

“This is deeply worrying,” Forsyth exclaimed, getting in a lather when the rest of us could be forgiven for scratching our heads and murmuring: “Eh?”

“I do not know what is going on in the Scotland Office,” Forsyth continued. “This sloppy attention to language is creeping in. It has a sort of nationalist feel to it.”

Forsyth felt a more accurate title for the landowning body would be the Crown Estate in Scotland. He argued that the use of the phrase Scottish Crown Estate Commissioner would appeal to the SNP because it implied that there was still a Scottish Crown.

Forsyth added: “Since then we have had the union of the Crowns and the union of the Parliaments. When the Scottish Crown Estate came into that union, it became part of the United Kingdom with a single monarch, and it is the Crown Estate in Scotland.”

His point led to an historical dispute with the Earl of Mar and Kellie, a Lib Dem peer of noble stock who felt the form of words used in the Scotland Bill was in order.

“The Scottish Crown Estate is a pre-union institution,” he argued. “It was put together over many hundreds of years, developed particularly by King James IV, and (was) one of the things that Scotland brought to the union. Therefore the reference to a Scottish Crown Estate commissioner sounds wholly correct.”

So there… But whatever the rights and wrongs of this argument, the exchange illustrated how the use of language becomes an incredibly sensitive issue when constitutional politics dominate.

This sensitivity has a more obvious form in the SNP’s objections to the pro-Union camp using the word “separatism” to describe independence. While Alex Salmond appears hardly able to bring himself to use the word Britain, using the phrase “these islands” instead. “These islands” is commonly used by Irish Nationalists, who also dislike the term British Isles.

Of course, one only has to look over the Irish Sea to see how division infects language. The city on the River Foyle is Londonderry to Unionists and Derry for Nationalists. While many Nationalists don’t recognise Northern Ireland preferring to refer to the Province as “The North” or the more extreme “Occupied Six Counties”.

In a similar fashion, one can now detect both sides of the Scottish independence debate promoting their own political lexicon. This devisive trend fuels the tribal nature of Scottish politics and, in a word, that is a bit of a shame.