The celebration yesterday of the 300th anniversary of the Scottish passing of the Act of Union was distinctly muted. Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), suggested, with some cause, that this may have been because few would have bothered to turn up. In the event the occasion was marked by the launch of a new £2 coin and a strident defence of the union by prime minister Tony Blair who insisted that both countries benefit "enormously" in terms of jobs and security, and it would be "crazy for Scotland to be wrenched out of the United Kingdom."
The Acts of Union, passed separately by the Parliaments of England and Scotland, forged a new state, the Kingdom of Great Britain. The two countries had shared a monarch since 1603, but had retained sovereign parliaments that were now dissolved into one, an occasion summed up pithily by the Earl of Seafield, Chancellor of Scotland: "There's ane end of ane auld sang."
For England the imperative was a desire to prevent Scotland aligning itself with such as France, while the Scottish parliamentarians were more interested in the compensation they had been promised by London for the financially disastrous Darien fiasco, an attempt to establish a Scottish colony in Panama. It was not popular in the streets of Scotland and the establishment of a devolved assembly in 1999 has made little difference.
Polls suggest the SNP and Labour are neck and neck ahead of May assembly elections. If the SNP is able to put together a government with the Liberals and Greens it is determined to put independence to a referendum. And, while a BBC Newsnight poll on Monday found only 32 per cent Scottish support for secession, several recent surveys have recorded majority support for it.
The BBC poll also found majorities in England and Scotland in favour of an English parliament, and the Scottish debate has undoubtedly injected a new dynamic into English nationalism which the Tories have made much of. The West Lothian question - the incongruity in having Scottish MPs in Westminster voting on English issues when their counterparts are denied the same right on issues devolved to Scotland - has acquired a salience in British politics that is seriously embarrassing Labour.
Gordon Brown has a particular problem as the first putative Scottish prime minister since Harold Macmillan. On Sunday he warned of a "balkanised Britain" fractured by the twin forces of nationalism and multiculturalism. Such hyperbole, conjuring up visions of sectarian war, do little for the case for the union. Nor indeed do Labour's prophets of economic doom - the EU has demonstrated that still smaller states can prosper happily within its ambit, yet preserving the key elements of sovereignty.
The independence case will not perhaps be won this May, but it is stronger, more persistent, and more popular than ever. Devolution has only reawakened the appetite for the argument. Its time will come.