IT was in the face of several reservations that I finally became a supporter of the campaign for an independent Scotland around three and a half years ago. Not the least of these were qualms stemming from my understanding of what the role of a journalist ought to be when writing about politics, culture and current affairs. Of course a degree of licence is extended to those of us whose work appears in the opinion sections of newspapers.

Most of our national titles have well-defined political philosophies and beliefs rooted in the preferences and vested interests of their owners and also in what they deem to be the instincts of their readers. Our newspapers are privately-run enterprises and thus the prospect of any of them ever becoming mere instruments of the state is, thankfully, a remote one. It takes very deep pockets to run a newspaper and so our biggest and best UK titles are inevitably dipped in the whims of wealth, privilege and silent influence.

To expect these titles to provide entirely objective coverage of politics is as naïve as it is unrealistic, though even those who possess the most Conservative instincts will give significant space to the opinions of those who inveigh for the other side. Even so, it was only with considerable misgivings that I let it be known in print that I was becoming daily more convinced by the case for an independent Scotland. I assuaged my lingering disquiet with the thought that I wasn’t backing a specific political party. Thus my support for independence could be like a football writer who weekly tries to avoid displaying a preference for a specific club but is open about his support for the national team. This analogy, though an imperfect one, is the best one I’ve got.

There were other reasons why I considered myself an unlikely if not downright reluctant convert to the cause of an independent Scotland. I had a lifelong reluctance to the notion that patriotism could ever be considered a virtue. To me, it seemed to convey a sense of cultural, moral and ethnic superiority that rested on nothing more than emotion. Thus it was always liable to be manipulated by governments who would deploy it in the gaps where jobs, decent housing and common humanity ought to have been. I have since observed it being deployed remorselessly by a British Tory Government to avert their eyes from the theft of their jobs; their traditional homelands; their historic assets and their natural resources.

I had never voted SNP and, despite being increasingly persuaded of the case for independence, would be unlikely to ever again. In my family and in the families of many other Labour migrants, the roots of our devotion to a party that gave us hope and self-respect ran deep. As a Catholic of Irish heritage I’d added another band of suspicion and resentment at the notion of Scotland above all others. A childhood spent hearing sullen tales of discrimination in the workplace and the deep-rooted suspicion of fellow Scottish citizens had bred an innate resentment of anything that came wrapped in a saltire or a lion rampant. This gradually gave way to an acknowledgment that within less than a handful of generations this had blown itself out so that only echoes of it now remain and only then after you strain your ears to hear it carried on the distant timpani of an Orange band. As the memories of old Ireland and ancient struggles have retreated, we Catholics have never been more comfortable and at ease defining ourselves as Scottish first.

Having come lately to the Nationalist cause I suppose like those many thousands of others who had been left disillusioned by the acquiescence of Labour in the larceny of the British elite, I hadn’t initially understood the psyche of those whose entire adult lives had been spent arguing for Scottish self-determination. This would have been a journey laced with disappointment and self-doubt; of being to the tops of hills only to find that another jagged peak lay in the distance wreathed in clouds. We newcomers, buoyed by the zeal of converts, had arrived when Scottish nationalism, it seemed, had never had it so good.

In 2014 the British state had been impelled to use every means at its disposal; to strain every last sinew of its inherited wealth and influence to repel the greatest challenge it had ever encountered to its power and pedigree. In the three years since rather than recede the nationalist surge had annexed almost every constituency in Scotland save a handful reserved for Tory and Labour losers who would be redeemed by the Holyrood list system of election. Almost five years of unbroken nationalist supremacy across Holyrood, Westminster and the dominions of local government had bred a feeling of invincibility. The inevitability of independence was being accepted even by the most implacable of Unionism’s tribunes … until last Thursday.

In any other circumstances, the election of an overwhelming majority of nationalist MPs to Westminster for the second time in three years would have been a cause for celebration in the pro-independence ranks. But when the main party of independence loses 21 of its MPs in a single day it’s impossible to put a gloss on it. To those of us who only recently desired to see Scotland stand on its own two feet this was our first taste of what many older and wiser Scottish nationalists had been accustomed to for generations.

There will be plenty of time for recriminations and analysis of what went wrong; this is not it. Instead we need to reflect on the nature of our opponents’ conduct in their tainted triumphs. Watching the events of last Friday morning was like watching a re-run of the morning of September 19, 2014. On that occasion a Tory Prime Minister who had spent the previous two years telling Scots we were an equal and valued part of the United Kingdom moved quickly to put us back in our place beneath the stairs by appealing to the base instincts of his Ukip fringe with English Votes for English Laws.

Almost three years later his wretched and discredited successor could be observed threatening peace in Northern Ireland and alienating large swathes of the UK population by seeking a back-door deal with Ulster Unionists. Those who had sincerely voted to preserve the British state had thus discovered, yet again, that the Conservative and Unionist Party simply scoff at the idea of loyalty to the Union. Following the independence referendum and the EU referendum and a disastrous General Election it was, as it always has been, solely about preserving the narrow self-interest of this power-crazed elite.

They talk endlessly of the nastiness and divisiveness of Scottish independence yet they are prepared to risk peace, jobs and economic prosperity to ensure that they and their richest supporters remain at the top of British society. In apparent adversity Scottish independence has never looked so attractive.