Michael Kelly: Is this how a separate Scotland would behave?

IN THE last few days those of us intellectually and emotionally against Scottish nationalism got what we fear is a flavour of the nature of that beast. It is shows itself as narrow, parochial and chauvinistic.

Nationalism as a political philosophy has too many overtones of authoritarianism and discrimination to sound attractive to anyone who has studied the history of Europe in the 20th century. Supporters of the SNP would, no doubt, point to the number of legitimate struggles for independence from overbearing colonial power waged on other continents during the latter part of that period. But in those countries there were deep, just grievances as indigenous peoples saw their resources exploited for the benefit of the foreign conquerors.

Scotland is suffering no such enslavement, ill-treatment or bleeding dry. Here, nationalist complaints are of the "Murray is British when he wins, Scottish when he loses" variety. They are petty and immature imagined slights. Although he disguised it as an attempt to protect tourism, it was to these grass-roots moaners that Alex Salmond was playing when he complained that the recent urban disturbances were being wrongly described as "British".

If the social networking media are anything to go by, he got from his supporters the reaction he wanted. He gave them a platform to stoke their rage against national broadcasters in particular and anything British in general. The vitriol was embarrassing. So much so that the outraged sensitivity to criticism of Salmond's remarks by his followers suggests that he may have gone just a bit too far for the more thoughtful SNP adherents.

It was pathetic that, after the threats to life and the damage to communities, the First Minister of Scotland should restrict his response to a complaint about adjectives. The fact that some of the looted goods were for sale in Glasgow's Possilpark and that there was a serious shooting at the other end of the city, in Castlemilk, suggest we may have similar social problems here. But from Bute House there was no empathy, no sympathy.

Is this the caring separate Scotland we are promised?

The same indifference to the problems of our fellow citizens is shown in the Scottish Government's renewed attempts to introduce a lower rate of corporation tax north of the Border. If implemented, apart from leaving Scotland chronically short of funds for many years, a major effect would be to displace firms and jobs from England, particularly those regions that border Scotland. Is "beggar my neighbour" to be the marketing slogan of a separate Scotland? The whole concept goes against thinking in Europe which is to harmonise tax rates in order to stop this kind of competitive lowering of taxes. Power over business taxes is going up not down. How does SNP policy now square with the "Scotland in Europe" posturing? Or has that gone the same way as the "Arc of Prosperity"?The corporation tax proposals are supported by Salmond's business pals, who, with their businesses based here, would certainly benefit selfishly. And it would only work in the UK context if the English regions and Wales were denied equivalent powers. But that's what the SNP expects - preferential treatment.

Finance secretary John Swinney refuses to acknowledge the big picture. He does so, too, in his personal, political behaviour. The thinness of the argument that it is all right to do something if it is within the letter of the law was derided when MPs used it to justify their excessive expenses. Yet this is the only argument Swinney has used to defend his decision to retain the 60,000 capital gain he made from selling a property whose purchase was subsidised by the British taxpayer. But he's freezing the pay of public sector workers.

Is this the sharing separate Scotland we are promised?

The other straw in the wind that indicates how an all-powerful SNP government might behave is the almost sinister silence of Scottish ministers over the serious oil leaks in the North Sea. Normally such a high-profile issue attracts the pompous pontificating of the First Minister. Yet, there has been hardly a word.

Compare the constructive outrage of the governors of the American Gulf states following the BP oil disaster. The cynical would argue that this is part of the pay-off (reduction in corporation tax being the other) after the strong support Salmond received from big business in the May election. Just as significant is the how dependent an independent Scotland would be on these multinationals. Push them around and they simply move elsewhere in the world for a few years.

Is this the environmentally concerned Scotland we are promised?

Events in the UK - MPs' expenses, phone hacking, the looting and rioting, the breakdown of social and family discipline - show how tenuous the influence of the state can be in constraining human beings whose nature is to resist control of their basic selfish instincts. In all of these areas society is gradually reimposing itself with the issues being exposed and the malefactors held to account. It takes a modern, sophisticated, civilised society to do that without swinging to the other extreme of overbearing government, penal actions and the inhibition of human rights. The overreaction of the courts to some of the hooligans brought before them shows how easily, in a less balanced society that could happen.

Optimists imagine that none of these checks and balances would be threatened by independence. But institutions and constitutional conventions take years, if not centuries, to perfect. The UK has achieved that. It is something of which Britons should be proud and be prepared to defend.

Why start the process again when separation is not about righting manifest injustice, not about promoting any revolutionary social change, but is about one political party acquiring power simply for the sake of exercising it in an insular and nationalistic way?