By PETER HITCHENS FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY
Quite soon we will have to redesign the Union Jack. I can see no way of stopping Scotland from leaving the Union, so there goes St Andrew’s Cross.
At least that will give us a chance to right a historic wrong and include some symbol of Wales on the national flag, provided they don’t declare independence too.
Did you know that the Royal Arms of England used to feature a lion for England and a dragon for Wales? The dragon was dropped, in favour of a unicorn, when the English and Scottish crowns were united in 1603.
I find this a useful way to think about it. We have in recent years seen major nations, including Yugoslavia, Germany and the USSR, change shape utterly. Perhaps we should get used to the idea we are about to undergo the same thing.
When the Blair Government began its revolution in 1997, I thought there might be some chance of saving the United Kingdom. But when the Tory Party adopted Blairism under David Cameron, the last hopes of that faded. Not that they were very strong by then. I don’t see how anybody can stop it now.
Nationalism makes many people in Scotland feel good about themselves, and anyone who supports British independence from Brussels can’t really argue against it. I suspect that, against all logic, if I were Scottish, I would favour it for the sheer exhilaration of it.
And I now think that our only hope of reunifying Scotland and England is to say: ‘We will be sorry to see you go, and continue to regard you as friends and allies, closer to us in all ways than anyone else on Earth. But if you must go, you should know that you will always be welcome back if you change your minds. We’ll leave a light burning.’
The last thing we should do is behave as Spain has towards Catalonia. Heavy-handed rigidity will only make the divorce worse when it comes. It really is going to be very hard to prevent another vote, and we shouldn’t try.
Attempts to argue about finances, or defence, or currency just won’t work. Younger people in Scotland are used to the idea. Many don’t share the English view of the EU – not surprising, as Scotland’s law and politics are much closer to the continental model than ours. Why cover ourselves in bruises in a vain effort to keep hold of people who – for now at least – prefer to leave? Far better to stay on the best terms with them once they go.
Let us, for a while, think rather harder about whether we can save England, our beautiful, free prosperous country, its unique liberty, its limited government, its literature, music, architecture and landscape, its inventiveness and its courage, the things that made us great in the first place and which – if we take the trouble to preserve them – might keep us in being in the future when others fail.