Journal article
Tom Nairn and Scottish politics
- Abstract:
- This article examines a less familiar side of Tom Nairn's career: his role as a commentator-participant in Scottish politics. It argues that Nairn was not only a radical critic of the UK but also an exponent of feasible strategies to advance Scottish self-government. The article draws on Nairn’s journalistic writings for Scottish political magazines and the Scottish press to show that he combined a maximalist critique of the UK state with a pragmatic orientation to Scottish electoral politics. Nairn abjured the commitment to extra-parliamentary action favoured by his erstwhile colleagues in the metropolitan New Left and instead supported what was de facto a constitutionalist popular front strategy for Scotland.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 227.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1093/tcbh/hwag011
Authors
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Journal:
- Modern British History More from this journal
- Volume:
- 37
- Issue:
- 2
- Article number:
- hwag011
- Publication date:
- 2026-04-26
- Acceptance date:
- 2026-03-31
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2976-7024
- ISSN:
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2976-7016
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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2404078
- Local pid:
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pubs:2404078
- Deposit date:
-
2026-04-09
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Ben Jackson
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- ©The Author(s) [2026]. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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