Does Scotland really needs a referendum to get its independence? After all, they didn't need a referendum to join the union? (Quora)

Our island history is of a long series of ‘Unions’.

When Dalriada was united with Pictland to form Alba, was Alba one country or a union? When Alba was united with northern Northumbria to form Scotland, was Scotland one country or a union? When Northern Strathclyde was incorporated into Scotland, was the resulting country then a union? Likewise, when the Western and Northern Isles were incorporated into Scotland? Did each and every one of these former countries retain a right to secede?

Meanwhile further unions were taking place in the south to form a country called England out of countries called Wessex, Cornwall, Kent, Essex, Mercia, Northumbria, Rheged etc. Wales was the last piece to be fitted into this jigsaw.

I think it is quite important to mention these earlier amalgamations, because current discussions seem to take for granted that all of England is culturally the same, or that there is only one historic culture in Scotland.

Eventually the island consisted of only two kingdoms, each of which came first under the same rule, (effectively putting an end to border reiving, because malefactors could no longer flee from one king’s jurisdiction to the other’s), and then the two of them united together into one country called Great Britain.

What exactly is supposed to make the union, in 1707, of these two remaining kingdoms somehow different from all the unions between then-existing countries on this island that went before?

And incidentally, since both the formerly-divided former kingdoms of Northumbria and Strathclyde were at long last actually reunited in 1707, should we, as an alternative option, be offering a referendum to their residents to ascertain if they want to be split up again between their respective former owners?

Why has no-one mentioned the enormous benefits of EU membership?

One of the most disappointing things about the 2016 Referendum campaign was the failure of Remainers to enlarge upon the alleged benefits of EU membership. Instead, the whole thrust of their campaign was negative- threats of cataclysm should the British electorate be foolish enough to vote to leave. Most of these dire predictions were patently absurd, apparently leaving even the PM embarrassed. Where the harmful consequences were real, they were insufficiently widely applicable for most voters to care.

It may be of some interest that the term ‘Project Fear’, used to describe this negative campaigning, had actually been coined two years earlier by Scottish nationalists to describe the unionist campaign during the independence referendum. In both cases the campaign against change took a negative form, leaving optimism almost entirely to the advocates of breaking away. In both cases the response to expressions of aspiration was yet more negativism: you’re lying, you’ll never be able to do that, etc. In both cases, the reaction of floating voters who might have been persuaded either way was to swing away from the negative campaign and towards the positive one. Essentially, it seems, British voters really don’t take kindly to threats.

When I observed the line the establishment, who were almost all Remainers, were taking in 2016, I couldn’t believe they were doing it again. Had they learned nothing the first time? Had they perhaps not noticed that negativism and threats had gone over like a lead balloon in Scotland? If they’d set out to maximise the vote against the status quo, they couldn’t have picked a better tactic. Moreover, given that the status quo wasn’t really available in a rapidly-integrating Europe where the UK needed opt-out after opt-out, the plan was even less intelligible second time around.

I am driven to the conclusion that the establishment has so little practice in explaining themselves positively because political correctness blocks all discussion of alternative views. Bien-pensants regard their own way of thinking as so obviously correct that they think even the dimmest fellow-citizen must necessarily see it too. They take their self-righteousness so completely for granted that they never have to produce reasons why they are right and their opponents are wrong. As J S Mill predicted, they have lost the art of crafting rational arguments. When they do finally encounter opposition, all they can do is hurl ad hominem abuse.

In short, the reason no-one mentioned the alleged enormous benefits of EU membership was that no-one in a position to influence the debate could remember what they were.

Accepting democracy

Most remainers have accepted the result of the 2016 referendum. A smaller number are stuck in reinterpretative mode, finding ever more ingenious reasons to argue that the vote to ‘leave’ need not necessarily mean ‘leave’. Some are in a party-political opportunistic mode and a politically well-placed few are in an implacably-determined obstructive mode, discounting the danger to democracy this represents.

However, I think it’s unlikely they'll accept they made the wrong call on this question. Even years of successful trade outside the EU may not sway them.

I understand this since I should have been similarly appalled had the result of the Scottish referendum gone the other way. I should have conceded the right of the majority to take Scotland in the direction they chose. I should not have conceded their right to take me with them. I was born British and I shall die British. Although resident in Scotland, married to a Scot and possessed of a better knowledge of Scotland’s history and economy than most, I shall not give up British nationality and adopt Scottish. Nor can I be compelled to do so, even if my homeland is dragged out from under my feet and I unwillingly become a sojourner in a foreign country.

This implies no disrespect towards those of a contrary opinion. They have their view and I have mine. I trust they will respect my right to my judgement as I respect theirs. A minority won’t, of course. Fortunately, the Good Friday Agreement provides a precedent on the nationality issue.

I suspect many remainers feel similarly about the EU, though some, sadly, have shown disrespect towards Brexit voters they consider less wise than themselves. This is regrettable. Ordinary working people, the folk whence I came, are as competent as bankers and businessmen to judge the EU’s impact on their own lives.

In modern identity politics, fundamental principles of a democratic society such as freedom of speech are well on the way to being lost. We howl down opponents or endeavour to silence them with pejorative labels. We deny platforms to peaceful political nonconformists.

We should hardly be surprised therefore if some are unwilling to concede their fellow citizens the right to disagree on Brexit. From those who do accept that right, however, a little more overt respect for it would help towards the necessary national reconciliation.