Reasons for the Union have always been economic - now indy's time has come

Everything he said made sense to me. It was good background material, raising many questions about how best to ensure that 2.5 million people will vote Yes at in independence referendum.

I am very happy to churn out, week after week, articles about the minutiae of economic policy. I find almost anything to do with economics intrinsically interesting. But no matter how good they are, they won’t win a referendum.

Even were I to pull together some grand economic narrative, perhaps about how Scotland will be able to join the Nordic countries and become healthier, wealthier, and happier, it would have next to no effect on the outcome.

That’s not to say debate about policy is unimportant. It was very interesting to hear Michelle Thomson (above), seemingly a free-thinking SNP MSP, arguing that there isn’t going to be a referendum before the next UK General Election. And that there shouldn’t be one because the hard work hasn’t been done yet.

When the hard work has been done, and those 2.5m people cast their votes, they will have little in common, perhaps nothing more than that they think people in Scotland should be able to decide political disputes for themselves.

Some will be idealistic, considering independence as an end in itself; others will be pragmatic, looking for practical advantages. Some will cast their votes joyfully; others will have their hearts in their mouths. Even as they leave the polling station, they will fear they have done the wrong thing. And some will expect Scotland to pursue political priorities which have long been suppressed within the Union.

From centuries of history, there are good reasons to think that Scotland has a distinct political identity. We all live in the long shadow of political conflicts which are largely forgotten.

For example, the Scottish Reformation led to a Presbyterian national church, suspicious of concentration of authority in charismatic leaders. In a deeply religious society, much of the work of the Enlightenment was taken on by liberal ministers, who combined church management with political influence – most clearly in the career of William Robertson, who became the principal of Edinburgh University in 1762.

The Disruption of 1843 split the Church of Scotland. Throughout the remainder of the 19th Century, political liberalism flourished in Scotland, strongly associated with the Free and the United Presbyterian Churches.

AFTER all men were able to vote, and organised labour came to play an increasingly important political role, especially in towns and cities. Liberalism shrank away into rural strongholds, while urban Scotland voted solidly for the Labour Party for much of the last 80 years.

Throughout this time, there have been tensions in Scotland’s relationship with the Union.

Sir Walter Scott, perhaps Scotland’s best-known Tory, demonstrated these beautifully, when he organised the visit of George IV, re-imagining Scottish tradition, and emphasising the distinctiveness of the country and the people. In one of the most complete histories of the Scottish churches, Drummond and Bulloch tell the story of a public meeting in Langholm, just before the Disruption. A member of the audience asked what would happen if the government failed to engage with the planned Free Church. The speaker, thinking on his feet, effectively said that Scotland would have to declare itself independent.

Immediately, the audience was on its feet, cheering. But when that was all reported back to the leaders of the church reform movement in Edinburgh, they took cold feet. This was to be a purely religious, and not a political, movement.

Scotland did not settle easily into the Union. For two centuries, the Union became the gateway to empire, and to opportunity around the world. I remember the journalist Alex Massie, claiming that there is no utilitarian case for nationalism, only a romantic one.

That puzzled me. The whole of the Union project, for Scotland, has been economic, and therefore utilitarian. If being tied to England no longer gives Scotland the best access to trading relationships, it’s time to cast off, and find new, more reliable partners.

I wrote most of that in a few minutes after reading Dr Hassan’s article. Then I realised that I hadn’t addressed his concerns that the campaign for independence should be open, welcoming, and courteous, drawing in those alienated from ordinary politics, and dissolving anxieties about the risks of choosing independence.

READ MORE: Here are 10 things to think about before another independence referendum

This insidious idea, that somehow all thinking about independence has stalled, just doesn’t make sense. There’s no shortage of organisations which are working on plans for what Scotland could do after independence.

Perhaps the concern is that there is no controlling mind. But that cannot be right, either. Dr Hassan wants substantial popular engagement with the process, rather than the plan for independence descending from on high.

It must be that the concern is not that there is plenty of effort going on just now, it is not being brought together. There might be good ideas, supported by small groups, and bad ideas disseminated widely through social media.

So, was Dr Hassan asking for some infrastructure for testing plans, for exploring their plausibility, and for finding out whether they re-assure, and attract, potential voters? A crowdfunded Cambridge Analytica, crunching data for Yes?