For the English like me who know Scotland well the prospect of an independent Scotland in the EU is very appealing.

Brexit is and was an English Nationalist project. Many Brexiteers are viscerally anti-Scots and openly contemptuous of the distinctive nation north of the border. Whilst they wave the Union Flag at every opportunity they forget that the flag of St Andrew is a part of it. They laud Britishness when it suits them but in reality what they actually mean is little old England.

To leave Europe was in essence driven by Little Englanders. The Scots mostly wanted none of it and are understandably aggrieved that they are being taken out of the European Union against their will. Meanwhile most countries in the EU see Scotland as they see themselves – historic nations with the same right to self determination that they have. The exception is Spain where the Catalans have as strong a case as the Scots for an independence that their central Government is unwilling to concede them.

The combination of a majority for independence north of the border and a sympathetic EU should settle the matter. The case for the Union is rarely made as a patriotic case for Britain but usually as an accountants’ case for the financial benefits that it brings to Scotland. The EU knows this and can comfortably underwrite financial subsidies to support the Scots breakaway from England. They will delight in doing it as well ! They’ll find a way to placate the Spanish and bring them on board I expect.

For the English like me who know Scotland well (I lived there for many years) the prospect of an independent Scotland in the EU is very appealing. Scotland has a far stronger unitary culture than England without the regional divides and metropolitan domination that characterise England. Whereas xenophobia is rife south of the border Scotland has never struck me as being anti other nationalities, except the English of course.

The United Kingdom is a relatively modern concept but it has outlived its usefulness in a post Brexit world. Whereas the myth of membership of the EU being a threat to British Sovereignty was bunkum the fact of the U.K. denying Scotland sovereignty is very real. As, of course, is the fact of the Union standing in the way of the inescapable and righteous logic of a reunited Ireland. I doubt that the Welsh will be far behind in going for independence either. Wales is a perfectly credible independent state in the EU which comfortably includes nations as small as Malta or Cyprus. Even, effectively, Gibraltar!

The break up of the United Kingdom may be an unintended consequence of Brexit, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I doubt that Scottish and Welsh independence, and Irish reunification, would have happened without Brexit but they now seem inevitable. Whoever is Prime Minister when all this happens better make sure that they have enough flags of St George in stock to put behind the podium when the make the announcements,