Paper short abstract:

Throughout the Brexit process Scottish Nationalists have begun re-imagining Scotland's future as an independent country, offering a utopian vision of a European nation. These visions of the future often appear in multiple contesting forms, various temporal lines coexisting simultaneously.

Paper long abstract:

Caught up in the chaotic Brexit negotiations playing out in the UK, Scotland is having to re-negotiate its political positioning in an uncertain and ever-changing landscape, forcing it to re-orientate itself simultaneously to a number of possible political futures. As the Scottish National Party prepare to call a new independence referendum, the UK's uncertain political landscape fuels the imagination of contesting narratives of the country's future 'post-Brexit'. These imaginations of potential futures permeate present political rhetoric and campaigning, influencing both activists and voters alike into multiple and unexpected political orientations.

In this paper I explore the multiple utopian imaginations of Scotland's post-Brexit future by the Scottish National Party, and the teleological implications these imaginations have on Scottish nationalists. These imagined narratives of Scotland's future independence present a utopian vision of Scotland and permeate the everyday lives of Scottish nationalists. Following months of ethnographic work with the Scottish National Party I show how the Brexit referendum, coupled with the futural orientations of Scottish nationalists is allowing various possible futural timelines to emerge simultaneously, working alongside each other, allowing contesting temporalities to coexists in the imaginations of SNP activists. Insight into these utopian imaginations of Scotland as an independent country in the future allow us to better understand how seemingly irrational or disparate positions taken up by SNP activists are resolved in the present, and the teleological implications these various temporalities have.