This research examines the interacting role of processes of state transformation – namely, devolution and Europeanisation – in the development of Scottish nationalism. It draws on the concept of ‘member statehood’, examining how relationships within nation states have been transformed by the European dynamic. Superficially, Scotland seems to contradict central aspects of this theory: the main citizen mobilising response to Brexit has been in Scotland and aimed precisely at restoring a notional Scottish popular sovereignty by re- joining the EU. However, an analysis of Scottish political development reveals a more complex picture putting state transformation theories in a more sympathetic light. Scottish independence emerges as a complex, contradictory response to post-neoliberalism and the crisis of member-statehood. While Europeanism has proved a useful tool for competing forces in Scotland, it has been refracted through problems of a ‘democratic deficit’ and claims for the ‘restoration’ of sovereignty appealing to disenchanted voters.

This chapter addresses three cases where governments have adopted explicitly Euro-critical or anti-EU stances linked to migration. The primary aim was to understand how nations that reject the established European narrative of international protection have framed their obligations to alleviate the suffering of war and conflicts. This has been broken into three conceptual areas for comparative purposes: humanitarianism, solidarity, and sovereignty. While observing areas of distinction between these states and the EU, the analysis suggests the difficulties involved in hardened contrasts between a cosmopolitan-humanitarian EU and national-sovereigntist states. Instead, the chapter presents a more nuanced picture of how states have developed distinct accounts of humanitarianism and international order. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that narratives of Europeanness developing on the liminal periphery have been reshaping core notions of “European” identity embodied in the official pronouncements of the Commission.

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North Sea oil discoveries introduced a qualitative divide that gave rise to at least the prospect of an economically viable Scottish independence, insofar as it made the “Scottish economy” a legitimate point of contestation on constitutional lines. In turn, this problematised the nature of minority nationalism in advanced, developed, post‐imperial capitalist regional economies. The research assesses how economic factors – most notably oil – materially affected the prospects of asserting power, and thus the possibilities for imagining collective agency as a national (i.e. Scottish) project. Oil helped shift “New Left” thinking away from assimilationist and modernising projects of assimilating regional consciousness into “national” projects, while also inspiring outright nationalists to define their own project in relation to the earlier phases of nationalism. The study thus contributes to recentring the study of Scotland, with a smaller emphasis on the local dimension and identities, as against the role of national actors in untangling relationships with wider geopolitical and geo‐economic forces. The claim is not simply that global forces formed the qualitative divide that made nationalist action possible; but also that these were conscious considerations of actors in the aftermath of North Sea discoveries.