Since the Brexit referendum it's been fashionable amongst Remainers to point out that those who loved the UK so much they wanted to wrest it from Brussels' sticky embrace might, by having voted to Leave, end up driving the Scots out of the Union.
Scottish adherents of this view - stand up Alex Massie of The Times - tend to imply that in voting the way it did, England should have spared a thought for the Scots, ignoring the fact that as we all trooped to the ballot box last June we had no idea how Scotland would vote, and that in any event not caring much either way was part of our democratic right.
I am however slowly coming round to the view that Brexit might actually make Scotland less likely to leave the UK than more.
It's all about the timing.
It now seems pretty certain that there won't be a referendum pre-Brexit. This drastically changes the nature of the offer the SNP can make. A referendum held while we are in the EU enabled the SNP to say, "Once we're independent we'll just carry on as before". This would probably not be true, because iScotland would probably be out of the EU; but it was a pitch that was made by the SNP in 2014 and it is not readily disprovable.
After Brexit this argument will no longer fly. Scotland would be out of the EU and would have to decide whether to reapply. If it applied it would have to join the Euro. I doubt whether this is a sellable proposition. Comically, the SNP had almost worked this out, which is why Nicola Sturgeon said before the weekend that Scotland might not reapply for EU membership, and might consider joining EFTA or the EEA instead. A handy way of parking the Euro issue, you might think.
However it was only a matter of hours before someone pointed out how strange it was that the SNP should cite Brexit as justification for a second referendum, but then say that Scotland might not rejoin after all.
At the time of writing the SNP's policy has veered back to renewed membership.
That might have changed by the time you read this.
If Theresa May holds her nerve (and whilst I'm sure Nicola Sturgeon is a "bloody difficult woman", Ms May is a bloody difficult woman with a lot more power) there will be no 2nd referendum until after Brexit, possibly not until after the Holyrood elections of 2021, and possibly not at all if the pressure of incumbency tells on the SNP and it cannot muster a majority.
Of course even if I'm right about this, it's arguable that without Brexit there would have been no pretext for another referendum, and that the Nationalists would have remained quiescent. That may be true. But don't forget that the SNP leadership are grievance-seekers and their members zealots. It's not hard to imagine that they would, as the crest of the Nationalist wave receded, clutch at some straw - perhaps a renewed Tory mandate in 2020 - as a pretext for another poll.
Whatever, it looks as if next time Independence is an option at the ballot box Scotland would face losing the Barnett subsidy, having to make EU financial contributions, having to make eye-watering spending cuts to reduce its deficit to an acceptable level, joining the Euro, losing free movement of its citizens to the rest of the UK and losing free access to its largest export market in order to be able to trade freely with a smaller one across the North Sea.
All that because of Brexit. I'm waiting for Alex Massie to say thank you.
