We’ve chosen to be Scottish AND British. Now we must choose again: Are we also Europeans?

ONCE again we return to the polling booths to cast votes that will echo down through history and affect generations of Scots yet unborn. We did so in September 2014, when by a considerable majority we rejected the SNP’s prospectus for independence. Yet the long shadows of that divisive campaign hang over us even now.

Today, the Nationalists are oblivious to the dichotomy of arguing that Scottish sovereignty should be wrested from Westminster but ceded to Brussels. They maintain a Remain vote in Scotland which is outmuscled by Brexit elsewhere would inevitably trigger another independence referendum.

All they would shed on Friday if the vote is for Out would be crocodile tears. The separatists would be delighted to have Nicola Sturgeon on a shuttle diplomacy mission around Europe’s capitals. There would be domestic filibustering and obfuscation to delay the rest of the UK extricating itself from the EU.

And as the First Minister cosied up with friendly EU leaders, there would be a desperate drive to push the independence vote from its current limp 45 per cent to the dizzy heights of 60-plus, which the Nationalists know they need before they dare risk another vote.

It is hard to overstate the importance of the SNP’s naked opportunism, casting around for an excuse to traduce the referendum result and pursue its eternal quest for separation. It revels in constitutional turmoil, as the Prime Minister warns today. ‘The SNP has already said it will use a Brexit vote to kick- start i ts independence plans. So, just at the point when doubts over Scotland’s constitutional future were being erased, a Leave vote tomorrow would take Scotland back to square one.’

How the hearts of more than two million Scots who voted No in 2014 will sink at that prospect.

This latest vote has been triggered not by some great yearning cry from the public, but by a Conservative party that has always been riven along one huge fault-line – in or out of Europe?

Let us be clear. Mr Cameron promised a referendum on the EU as a sop to elements within his own party, and to see off Nigel Farage’s Ukip, not because the entire country was crying out to slip the fetters of Strasbourg and Brussels.

In 2014, this newspaper never argued that Scotland was ‘too poor and too stupid’ to go it alone. Rather, we accepted that independence could be made to work. The real question was about whether it offered such spectacular advantages to this and future generations that it was essential; about whether we could be Scottish and British. The majority of us decided it was a leap in the dark more likely to lead to ruin than riches.

Alone

Today, we accept that Britain could go it alone. The country is full to the brim with talent. Even much of the success we have enjoyed economically since joining what was the EEC in 1973 was the result of – sometimes painful – internal reform, breaking the union stranglehold on business.

The question we face tomorrow is should Britain go it alone? Can we be both Britons and Europeans?

For answers, we must consider the arguments on both sides, shrouded though they are in clouds of scaremongering, supposition and outright myth-making.

The Brexit argument is, at its core, about sovereignty and the idea that Britain should govern itself and be free to make and apply its own rules. Brexit supporters point to the waste within the EU, portraying Brussels/Strasbourg as a byword for profligacy.

A pivotal issue for Brexit supporters is – and we cannot shy away from it – free movement of workers within Europe and consequent mass immigration to Britain. Across the country, millions of low and modestly-paid jobs are held by immigrants, many from the new-accession Eastern European countries.

The Scottish and English experiences of this immigration are different, and that has to be acknowledged, too. Scotland has simply not seen the same numbers and we have few examples of the ‘ghetto-isation’ seen in many English towns where sizeable enclaves of incomers have transplanted their native culture, with all the tensions that brings. England has seen serious pressure on public services including schools, GPs and the wider NHS.

Turkey has never, historically, been part of Europe, yet is keen to press ahead with EU membership and a potential wave of Turkish migration has been ruthlessly deployed as a weapon by Brexiters. They dismiss Mr Cameron’s deal to limit new arrivals’ access to benefits as a straw in the path of a tornado.

On the other hand, Scotland’s ageing population means, like it or not, that we need fresh blood if we are to keep our economy booming.

The economic argument over tomorrow’s vote is the most opaque, most susceptible to manipulation by either side. The Remain camp says scrapping and renegotiating a trade deal with the EU could take years. Canada is seven years into such a process, with still no sign of a deal.

Economists and the Bank of England warn that an Out vote could trigger a recession – ominous news for businesses still in a fragile state after the horrors of the 2008 global crash.

The pro-Brexit faction counters by promising that millions in cash no longer being sent over the Channel will cushion us in the short term and that, in the long run, trade will recover. Yes, the European single market is big at 500million people but beyond its borders lie some six billion potential customers. The proponents of Brexit maintain that exiting the EU is thinking big.

Once again, Scotland needs to look to its own needs. After Brexit, London – gravitational centre of the country – will continue as a key financial services sector. With the long decline of UK manufacturing, the service sector is perhaps the single most important element of our economy.

How would Edinburgh – currently trading smoothly across the European single market – fare if it were to become a northern outpost of a stand-alone Britain?

The manufacturing sector is troubled by a possible Brexit, too. Trade deals aside, the EU offers continent-wide standardisation. From simple widgets to complex aeroplanes, firms can operate to EU standards and so sell and buy with confidence from Ireland to Cyprus.

No one really knows what might happen if we left the EU, but the risk to jobs is not something we dare dismiss airily. The 2014 SNP independence prospectus did just that – its economic underpinnings were anchored in sand and with a ludicrous assumption that oil wealth would be the panacea.

Tomorrow’s poll is about tangible things but there are indefinable issues and they matter, too.

The first is what sort of country we want to be. In the fight to save the Union, we recognised Britain as a beacon in the world, a place of democracy, tolerance, freedom, that has thrived over centuries. We innovate, we excel in every walk of life.

Nowhere is perfect, of course, and the referendum was a chance to reflect that Britain works best when its constituent parts all have a say in the overall project.

So it is with Europe and, for all the talk of how many UK laws are handed down by European edict, we hear little about how much influence we have ‘over there’.

Spirit

Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe but its fears concerning Brexit are about more than fretting over selling us cars. The Germans genuinely admire the British spirit. Our questioning way of operating and our innate sense of fair play do have an effect at Brussels.

Britain could stand alone. There would be a period of real uncertainty, there could be deeply painful consequences – many of which are unknowable from where we are today. Yet the country has faced worse and, in the end, prevailed.

The real question – and we make no apology for repeating it – is not could we break away. It is should we break away?

There are few certainties here. We have been told Brexit would lead to less security, and to more. We have been told it will unleash both a boom and a bust. We have been told it will isolate us globally and that we will make new friends among the broader brotherhood of nations.

We can but vote with our conscience, picking out those we trust from the maelstrom of competing voices.

And foremost in our minds must be the knowledge that we vote, not just for ourselves, but for future generations.

We must consider which course will give them the best prospects of peace and prosperity.