I DECIDED to stick this new intro on to this column because, having read back what follows, I felt that parts of it seemed like that which you might tell a psychotherapist in a bid to unravel some unresolved issues.

In the years that have elapsed since we had our independence referendum I’ve attempted to rationalise what happened in the year or so prior to September 18, 2014. I found also that I’d created a rather illusory narrative as a means of denying what I really felt in the early hours of September 19 when we first began to realise that the referendum was lost.

I recall sharing a cigarette with my fellow National columnist Andrew Tickell outside the BBC’s Pacific Quay headquarters: him all clever and loquacious and witty (as usual) as he sought to take refuge in that big brain of his; me effing and blinding to fuck. Observing one of Scottish Labour’s big chiefs cheering as if her horse had just won the Grand National didn’t help matters either. And I swore that I’d never be like this again; never let my guard down and admit to myself and my smart, political friends and foes that it had ever really got to me in the first place.

Perhaps I ought to shed some light on the dilemma faced by journalists when they are expected to report or comment on events in which they might have an emotional stake. In normal circumstances this is not difficult to resolve. Until the independence referendum, and the Brexit one that followed it two years later, the only political contests that you ever encountered were the Westminster elections and latterly the handful of Holyrood ones that had occurred since devolution.

The task of concealing your preferences wasn’t difficult simply because the outcomes were never really life-changing. No-one was talking about regime change here; to choose between fascism and communism.

And anyway, if you worked on an English newspaper or on the Scottish edition of one of these you were permitted a certain degree of indulgence. Most of these were Conservative-supporting titles anyway, owned and directed by billionaires who had a stake in ensuring that their writ would always run in the country. Even so, many would still give the Tories a kicking from time to time if they smelled incompetence or corruption.

A prime example of this was the Telegraph’s work on the MPs’ expenses scandal which they must have known would have exposed the Tories to a much greater extent than any of the other major political parties. And yes, I know that some of them turned towards New Labour under Tony Blair but that was a bit like trying out vegetarianism while still eating fish and chicken.

The Scottish independence referendum was something very different. I’d say that the majority of my fellow journalists were much more emotionally engaged in this campaign than many of them would admit. As such, the normal rules of reporting and comment were silently suspended. Very quickly, we had all worked out which of our colleagues were Yes and which were No.

After that it was merely expected that you didn’t, you know, make it too obvious or get too carried away. Us journalists like to maintain an air of aloof detachment, as if we are above all the biting and scratching in the cheap seats. But it’s all bullshit and it all comes out in the wash after a few salvadors in the taverns where we congregate during party conferences.

My coping mechanism following September 18, 2014, was to insist that while I had eventually become persuaded by the case for independence this was merely a preference and not my heart’s desire. I mean it wasn’t as if Scotland was about to become occupied by the forces of a totalitarian state.

It was only jolly old England whose stalwart citizens we had worked alongside and occasionally loved. And in any case what was Scottish independence when compared with my faith, my family and my relationships? It was a beguiling dream while it lasted but this was never going to change my life, I tried to convince myself.

Occasionally, I would wind up my Unionist chums who wondered why I had lately become an independence supporter. “For the sheer hell of it,” I would reply and they would recoil at such feckless irresponsibility. Yet, there was some truth in that too.

An independent Scotland would keep the media industry engaged for the next couple of decades and a time when it is facing its biggest existential threat. The media thrives on chaos and upheaval even as it gets all sanctimonious at manifestations of it among the idiot punters.

Yet, with each passing week of Brexit those old unkempt and beguiling thoughts of an independent Scotland have begun to emerge.

I’ve sometimes wondered what it must feel like to belong to a country at war and knowing that it’s getting its arse skelped regularly on the front-line and that your government must soon surrender and that afterwards there will only be the hope that the casualties will be minimal and that your loved ones will not be among them.

It seems in these last few weeks that Britain has been put on a war footing and that we are entering it in the knowledge that we will eventually lose.

Of course, the chief Brexiteers won’t feel any losses. Jacob Rees-Mogg and his hedge-fund billionaire backers who all shorted on the UK economy and who have the resources to remain impervious to its final outcome won’t lose.

They are like First World War generals remaining miles behind the lines after sending millions to their pointless deaths. Crucial to the long-term dominance of the UK’s ruling elites is perpetual chaos among those whom they consider to be inferior. When a cause that commands the support of half the country is being led by Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, the DUP; all of them marching to the pipes and drums of a Livingston flute band, the UK establishment will sleep easy, knowing that they can feed off the mayhem for generations to come.

This has now gone beyond arguments about Britain’s future economic prosperity outside of the EU and our ability to set our own tariffs and build lucrative new markets. Even if all this were to come to pass it wouldn’t now matter.

The UK has begun to destroy itself from the inside. Right-wing extremism has become normalised by the patronage of Westminster Tories and mainstream broadcast media outlets. Hatred of immigrants and refugees has been legitimised and Britain has been annexed by those who think this is acceptable.

The second referendum on Scottish independence will not really be about self-governance and directing our own affairs. It will offer the choice of either sinking into this swamp with England or rescuing ourselves from it.