The United Kingdom Is My Country

The United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me.

1. Westminster politicians, not to say Scottish Unionist ones, have no principled objection to the Scottish Parliament's holding a consultative referendum on independence for precisely so long as it never actually attempts to do so, at which point the whole thing would be ruled ultra vires by the courts;

2. No British Government would ever introduce the legislation necessary either for independence or for a referendum on the subject, the House of Commons would probably throw out the latter and would certainly throw out the former, and the House of Lords would certainly throw out either;

3. The continued existence of the United Kingdom is a matter for the whole United Kingdom, and it is at least arguable that it could not morally be dissolved for so long as even one adult, non-insane, non-imprisoned British Citizen objected to that abolition of his or her country;

4. There is even less chance of any such legislation under a Scottish Prime Minister than under and English one, and there will be a Scottish Prime Minister very soon;

5. The view that much of the oil is in fact in English territorial waters has increasing currency in England, and talk of pressing this case militarily if necessary (after the manner of the Cod Wars with Iceland) cannot be dismissed as saloon-bar nonsense, so that part of any independence deal would have to be a split (probably 50/50) in oil revenue such as to demolish the SNP's economic argument;

6. An independent Scotland has absolutely no hope of admission to the EU, since, even if the remnant UK did not veto its application (which it would), then Spain or Belgium would certainly do so;

7. In view of all of the above, nothing could be more guaranteed to destroy the SNP than victory on Thursday, since no two members of it seem to agree about anything except independence, and since it is certainly so riven between a neoliberal intelligentsia and a Hard Left activist base that it could not possibly construct a programme for government, quite apart from the fact that it only contains one serious politician;

8. An SNP victory is psephologically impossible anyway; and

9. After independence, are war memorials going to be demolished as in Estonia (one of the SNP's many models), and if not, why not?

The United Kingdom is my country, and no one has the right to take it away from me.