THIS week Ruth Davidson created a PR disaster by taking a PR job. We shouldn’t have been surprised. PR disasters by self-professed Unionists is what has got all of us into this mess in the first place. That’s what counts as getting on with the day job for them.

So can we stop pretending now, please? Or rather, can those who claim to support a strong place for Scotland within the UK stop pretending? The rest of us have already long since been seeing things clearly. What the entire past three years of the Brexit process ought to have taught anyone who has been paying attention is that the British Government has precisely zero interest in listening to Scotland. And if you have been paying attention and haven’t learned that lesson, then do us all a favour and stop telling people that you’re a Unionist, because that creature is every bit as mythical as a unicorn. But rarely as cute and never as appealing. According to legend, unicorns have the magical powers of healing any wound. The only magic power that Scottish Unionism possesses is creating open wounds. They possess the powers of disappointment and charmlessness.

If you oppose Scottish independence and support this Conservative government, you are not a Unionist. What you really are is an incorporationist, you’re a Greater England nationalist, you’re someone who denies that Scotland has a right to have its say as a distinctive entity within this supposed United Kingdom. When you argue that every individual each gets one vote and it’s merely unfortunate that England has 10 times Scotland’s population so we need to suck up whatever is decided south of the Border, you’re not arguing for a union, you’re arguing for Scotland to be nothing more than a glorified English county council. That means you’re failing as a Unionist. You’re failing Scotland. You’re failing as a self-professed opponent of nationalism, because you’re merely opposing Scottish nationalism in order to facilitate English nationalism. You can continue to fool yourself if you want. The rest of us are increasingly no longer listening. Scottish independence is going to happen because Scottish Unionists are not capable of being honest with themselves or with the people of Scotland.

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This week we are approaching the end of the beginning for Brexit. We’ve seen a Scotland that has been marginalised and ignored, treated with contempt and disdain. In the past week the Prime Minister announced loud and clear that there is no role for Scotland’s Parliament in decisions about Brexit. How dare we stand in his way. Holyrood’s consent is neither to be sought nor to be welcomed. Yet according to the Scotland Act, the UK Government must seek the consent of Holyrood for any provision that affects devolved matters, but that doesn’t matter to this UK Government. They could simply rule, as they previously did, that express consent from Holyrood counts as consent, that saying nothing counts as consent, or that saying no counts as consent. Holyrood’s consent doesn’t matter to Westminster. What mattered was the contempt that oozed out of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson for anyone or anything that might try to interpose itself between him and his blind blond ambition.

We saw that same contempt in the deliberately orchestrated walk-out of Tory MPs as the SNP’s Westminster leader Ian Blackford rose to stand and speak in the Commons. It’s not just that the Conservatives are not listening to Scotland – they want us to know that they are ostentatiously not listening, that they are doing it deliberately. They want Scotland to understand that its place is silence, obedience and the tugging of the tartan forelock. They want us to understand that they can do whatever they like, and Scotland counts for nothing. Then they tell us how precious the Union is to them, but what they mean is that they value what Scotland gives them: a site to park missiles, all that oil, the grouse shooting and the territory that makes little England that much larger. They don’t value any sense that they could possibly owe Scotland anything in return. Worse than that, they have no concept at all that Scotland might be owed a hearing. This is the Empire 2.0, and the imperial possessions will do as they are told. Alister Jack will be along shortly to tell us how lucky we are.

The National: Tories regularly leave during Ian Blackford's speechesTories regularly leave during Ian Blackford's speeches

There’s been a distinct change in the air in Scotland over the past couple of months. There’s been a shifting, a slippage, a sense that things have changed. The old certainties of Britishness have proven themselves to be a sea of quicksand, and the Empire’s castle is sinking. We haven’t yet achieved a new firm surface, but we can never return to the days of the 1980s or 90s when it was unthinkable that Scotland’s future could be anything but British. The good old days that the Labour Party in Scotland longs for have gone and will never return. Irn-Bru can bring back the old recipe, but the UK will never be palatable again to hundreds of thousands of Scots no matter how much Westminster tries to sweeten it.

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People who previously would never have considered independence as a serious possibility are now looking to it as the sole escape route from the madness of a senile Britannia. Brexit is going to continue to deform and debilitate Britain for decades to come, even if by some miracle it can be avoided this time. We are at the tipping point for independence now. There’s no going back.

This coming weekend Glasgow will host an independence rally organised by The National newspaper. The rally in George Square will be addressed by Nicola Sturgeon, who will most likely use the occasion to renew her call for an independence referendum in 2020.

It is vital that we fill the streets of Glasgow, that we take advantage of this opportunity offered to the people of Scotland by The National and send a message to Westminster that they can’t ignore. Scotland has had enough of being treated with contempt. Scotland has had its fill of Conservative disdain and marginalisation. The people of this country are going to decide their own future, and we will do so with or without permission from a Conservative PM.