Do you realise just how foolish the UK looks?

The people of Scotland aren't fighting for a political cause — they're fighting for national existence, and against Britain's ruling elite

Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling taking part in a live television debate in Glasgow on Monday (Getty Images)

Those who watched two politicians arguing on telly about my country’s future will have got it all wrong. They made it look like a party-political brawl. It’s not.

We Scots who fight for Yes are fighting for our national existence. It has little to do with politics. Hardly any of us belong to the Scottish National Party. From the nooks and glens of my country has emerged a storm corps whose members have never taken part in politics. They are not the SNP. They are the people of Scotland.

You will find us fighting on the web in numbers unimaginable to the pollsters. Canvassers are knocking at the doors in the housing schemes. The rustle in the heather which was the SNP has become the soaring anthem of a people awakening from a long sleep. When we awake we will walk away from you.

You may wonder why. I will tell you: we are repeatedly ruled by governments we do not elect. We currently have more pandas than Tory MPs. Ordinary English people will be on our side. It’s the toffs who make the UK look so silly.

Do you realise just how foolish the UK looks? You strut like a world power and have a navy with a huge aircraft carrier and no planes to land on it. We laugh at you with the rest of the world, but at the same time we remember that a quarter of our population lives in poverty; and all you can promise us if we vote for you is more poverty for this rich country of Scotland.

Your leaders are not even good at government. In my lifetime you have bankrupted the UK three times and had to beg for help. You didn’t beg from us. You just took.

Now these days are over. The pound has started to slide even at the threat of Scotland leaving.

But although we are leaving you we will remain your friends. Most of England is in the same state as us Scots. We are the lucky ones. We have a parachute. Watch this space.

Ian Hamilton QC is a lawyer and prominent Scottish nationalist