It’s a long story, but I’ll keep it short.

An ancestor of mine called John Milroy – from the family of Scotland rugby captain and war hero Eric Milroy who I’ve written about in this column before – was once the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in my home town of Stranraer.

The present holder of that office visited me today. And as we drank coffee and pored over family archives he told me this.

In 1707 the Reformed Presbyterian Church issued ‘A Protestation and Testimony against the Incorporating Union with England’. Here’s summary and some quotes from it:

• The Treaty was contrary to the fundamental constitutions, laws and liberties of the Kingdom of Scotland ‘which we, as a free people, have enjoyed for the space of about two thousand years without ever being fully conquered’.

• The terms of the Treaty of Union with England meant that the nation of Scotland became ‘debased and enslaved…its ancient independency lost and gone…the parliamentary power dissolved which was the bulwark and basis of all (Scotland’s) liberties’.

• Furthermore, ‘the surrender of Parliament and Sovereignty deprive the people of all security (a security which is) daily in danger of being encroached upon, altered or subverted by the said British Parliament, managed entirely by the English, who seldom have consulted our welfare…and poor people made liable to taxes, levies and unsupportable burdens, and many other imminent hazards and impositions, all which we here protest against’.

• The kind of union agreed upon, with the loss of sovereignty entailed, was one which would inevitably yoke the nation of Scotland into ventures and wars at home and abroad which might be in the interests of England but not in the interests of Scotland”.

As we continue our journey towards the normality of self-governance, we must never forget just how unpopular the Union was.

Daniel Defoe, working as a spy for the English at the time, reported to his London bosses that “for every Scot supporting the union, a hundred more are agin’ it”. It really was a rough wooing and the union remained deeply unpopular for decades afterwards – hence the army posts in every part of Scotland.

And being dragged into wars we wish no part of? The Kirk was prescient, spot on. And there were echoes of this admirable pacifism in Steven Flynn’s comments in chamber last week.

Robert Burns once wrote: “Lay your schemes alone / adore the rising sun / and leave a man alone to his fate”.

There’s always been a healthy culture of pacifism within the movement, It’s something we should be really proud of. And there’s another useful Burnism – “the heart aye’s the part aye that mak’s us richt or wrang”. in other words, if we don’t stand up for folk, what, pray, is the point of us? As Muhammad Ali liked to say, helping others is the rent we pay for our room on earth. High time we squared our account. And it gars me greet that we cannae fully dae that within the narrow parameters of a political philosophy we’ve rejected since 1955 and the damage of which a limited devolution settlement barely begins to mitigate.

They really were – and are – a parcel of rogues in a nation. Never, ever, forget that we are a movement on the right side of history. And never for one second allow yourself to believe that what passes for democracy in our name is normal. We knew that long before last week. When people show you what they are, believe them the first time. Let Scotland be normal.

Let Scotland be Scotland. Because it’s later than you think.

And I’ll meet you further on up the road.

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