Scots and English are the same people, with different accents. Why pretend otherwise?

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[/audioplayer]Sometimes it is easy to understand why countries break up. Some founder on the rocks of their internal contradictions. Others are historical conveniences that have simply run their course. Czechoslovakia was an artificial construct, a country with two languages and cultures, which split soon after the Iron Curtain fell. The division of Cyprus in 1974 marked the end of the fraternity between the island’s Turks and Greeks. The partition of India was driven by trouble between its Hindus and Muslims. It’s a constant, often tragic theme in history — people decide that what divides them is stronger than what unites them. So they split, often at great cost.

Until recently, the United Kingdom would have been seen as a safe bet for the long haul: a wealthy, law-based, highly integrated, mature democracy, the kind of country others aspire to be. Our component nations share the planet’s most influential language and its dominant culture, and provided the intellectual soil out of which the enlightened West grew.

Yet in a referendum on 18 September, Britain’s northern quarter may decide that its differences with the south have become irreconcilable, and choose to walk away. The days of double-digit opinion poll leads for the ‘Better Together’ campaign are long gone, and Alex Salmond has enough momentum to further close the gap. Those seeking to save the UK have spent too much time pointing out the pitfalls of independence, and not enough creating a compelling, optimistic case for staying in the Union. As a result, they now stand a very real chance of losing the argument.

The Scottish National Party has been in government in Edinburgh for the past seven years and, in that time, has used every lever at its disposal to emphasise the difference between Scotland and England — real or imagined.