Norway and the United Kingdom/Scotland after the Second World War

Type:

Book Chapter

Author:

Tore T. Petersen

Published:

2015

Publisher:

Edinburgh University Press

This chapter examines events following, the Second World War, and argues that Norway and the United Kingdom have not had as close a relationship as the official rhetoric suggests. Although the countries do share common interests, Petersen argues that they lack “real-life alliance politics and relations”, using as material the details of state visit by Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen and his wife Werna to Britain in 1956. The major issues discussed in the press at the time dealt largely with simple matters of protocol, and the visit did not even include discussion of the imminent Suez conflict, in which many Norwegian owned cargo ships were involved. Like Scotland, Norway was a small client state and although World War II presented the countries with a common enemy, and Norway’s king governed in exile from London during the Nazi occupation of his country, Petersen argues that the difference in size, power and influence between the British Empire and Norway overshadowed bilateral relations between Britain and Norway, as well as those between Scotland and Norway.

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