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Broad Spectrum. Although its political sympathies have traditionally reflected Scotland's left-of-center focus, the S.N.P. is now drawing support from a broad spectrum of voters. Conservative business executives, middle-class professionals and merchant bankers are joining with farmers and urban laborers to fill party ranks. Says Robert Wood, past president of Perth's Conservative Club: "We have a party that wants to apply the whole of Scottish energy to Scottish industry to Scottish benefit." Pat Stewart-Blacker, a heraldist who describes himself as a right-wing Tory, shares Wood's vision of a unified Scotland: "If we can say to the militant in the Clyde Valley and the right-wing estate owners, 'Look here, we established this government together,' why can't we also sit down and get on without all this class crap they have in England? Well, that's Utopian, but there is a lot more confidence that we can come closer to it on our own up here.People no longer feel self-sufficiency is just a dream. This isn't a warning. The chips are down."
The dream of an autonomous and self-sufficient Scotland is, of course, still only that. Scots have just begun to measure the problems and costs of independence—like establishing their own army and defining a separate foreign policy.But in the meantime, amid the turbulence and violence of 20th century rebellion, Scottish nationalism remains that almost unheard-of phenomenon: revolution with manners.