Scottish Nationalism is still Nationalism : Why is the left silent on this bit of Xenophobia?

 Hi All,

For the better part of six years anyone who agreed with brexit was deemed by the left to be a 'xenophobe' and exit from the EU akin to the kinds of catastrophes written in disaster movies.  The left at very turn throughout it's history has emphasised inter-nationalism, rather than what they see as crude and vulgar nationalism of nation-states (even something as mild as waving a flag around). Yet we are now facing in the next year the very real possibility of another Scottish Independence referendum and 'Scotxit' from the UK.  Yet we never hear or read of the same condemnation used towards Scottish Nationalists as 'xenophobic' from the mainstream left. In fact Scottish Nationalism seems to have been given a pass, on the following grounds :

1) It's civic and not religious or racial nationalism, so that's ok.

2) The majority of Scottish Nationalists are left wing, so that's ok.

3) We need the Scottish Nationalists to get power, so that's ok we need a 'progressive coalition' to put Labour into power. 

Dealing with these in turn: 

1) There's another country continually panned by the left that has a form of civic nationalism and it's called the USA: from flag waving patriotism to the swearing the pledge of allegiance every morning at school or treating the US constitution as akin to a holy book, these are all parts of American civic nationalism. Yet the left distains America and sees it as a racist country and the constitution as a racist conservative document, written by slaveholders. In any case, whenever you begin to debate with Scottish Nationalists you see that there is zero civic nationalism in their creed and worldview and it increasingly becomes hostile along  ethnic grounds, especially if you are English. Treated even worse- treated as traitors- are those Scots who are Unionists (i.e. at least half the population)  and those Scots who lived outside of Scotland and are also in favour of the Union. 

2) The Scottish Nationalists as left wing is somewhat of a misnomer. They are Nationalists first, but what better way to be popular than have a set of policies that require government spending on the Nordic model (which while a related topic is why the 'Sovereign Wealth Fund' akin to Norway would never actually have been built up, because they'd have spent it all) ? Just because you are into leftist welfarism and state intervention doesn't mean you are 'left wing': for example, Spanish and Italian Nationalists /Fascists  Franco and Mussolini operated from the right, but used the power of the state in economic and social policy. Zionism has many different aspects to it, but its roots  lie the ideal of an independent  Jewish State , i.e. Jewish nationalism, but also what kind of Jewish state it was going to be, i.e. a left wing social democratic and not a theocratic  one. Indeed from the beginning of the Jewish state to the 1980s, the politics was dominated by the centre left and the Israeli Labour Party, with most industry nationalised. Yet the left today cannot stand Zionism and use it as an insult.

3) The problem with this argument is that it forgets the point above : Scottish Nationalists are Nationalists and don't actually care about putting a Labour government into power, except to give themselves independence, in which case the whole thing is self -defeating, because as soon as that happens, Labour looses its majority and credibility with English voters.