Bernard Ingham: At last, the Scots face their day of reckoning

I write as one who fully accepts that if a nation clearly wishes to be independent, it is entitled to go its own way.

I also recognise that nationalist feeling in Scotland long pre-dates the formation of the Scottish National Party in 1934. But it has never got more of the Scottish vote in a general election than in 1974 – 30 per cent – when the North Sea was about to gush.

Five years later, its support in Scotland was down to 17 per cent and it has never done better since in a general election than its 22 per cent in 1992. But before the 1970s it could command only an average 1.4 per cent of the Scottish vote. I think this shows I was in on the rise of Scottish Nationalism.

The Scots smelled black gold under the briny. Having failed to snaffle it, they are only now, with oil and gas production declining fast, actually getting round to seeking the independence it was supposed to fuel.

What is more, they are able to do so only because corrupt and complacent Labour rule in Scotland gave them the opening. Labour has been replaced by a more dynamic but still essentially spendthrift socialist government, now swathed in tartan and marinated in Bannockburn nostalgia.

In this light, Alex Salmond, far from being a political genius, looks as though he may have missed the bus, to the distress of many English weary of Scots’ whingeing.

This should not come as a surprise when it is only now that some serious questions are being asked about the implications of independence. You might reasonably have thought that a party dedicated to it would by now have worked out how it was going to achieve it.

That it has not done so – or, if it has, is not prepared to vouchsafe its thinking to fellow Britons – suggests to me that, especially now the euro is toxic, it is far from confident of ever breaking away. Independence seems just to be a stalking horse for securing a free hand to govern Scotland through “devo-max” – maximum devolution, undefined.

Either way, we need answers to a host of questions and this is where Salmond is dicing with death. Independence is a double edged sword. It might be fine for Scots if they got it – though that is far from certain – but they could be carved up in the process.

Already, it seems to me that a less generously-provided future beckons Scotland.

Whatever the outcome of the talks beginning this week, the English are not going to tolerate for much longer subsidising 5.2 million Scots north of the border to the tune of £1,624 each while they run an incomparably more generous welfare state than is available down south.

If there is one thing calculated to sling David Cameron out on his ear with Nick Clegg in 2015 – apart from failing to sort out the economy – it is missing the opportunity to put the Anglo-Scottish relationship on a fairer basis.

From now on, Salmond is going to be battered on his Scargillesque ego-trip by serious questions about the options. It’s not just the position of the Queen in the hands of an essentially Republican SNP. It is not whether they ditch sterling for the euro. They would have no option if they wanted to join the EU. Nor is it the uncertain fate of NATO in a unilateralist Scotland.

Given that devo-max may be Salmond’s real objective, it is how Scotland would finance itself whether independent or not. He is going to be confronted with calculations of his share of UK liabilities, including RBS and HBOS rescues. What then would be Scotland’s credit rating? And how is he going to ensure Scotland can power itself in view of the “green” SNP’s total reliance on renewables? It all looks rather dodgy.

As for North Sea oil and gas, will the Orcadians and Shetlanders hand over their riches to Edinburgh quietly?

Over and above that, there is a question of international law. The border from Carlisle to Berwick runs steeply north-easterly. In 1975, we were told that the North Sea demarcation line would follow that direction. If so, just how much depleted oil would Salmond have to play with?

The day of reckoning is at hand.