It is probably not accidental that the two EU countries facing the most imminent challenge from separatists within their borders – the UK from the Scots, and Spain from the Catalans and Basques – are old, proud, post-imperial nations whose unionist integration was essentially the enterprise of monarchy. The eventual answer to this problem does not have to be either separatism or unionism (monarchy is a secondary issue). It could as well be a creative form of federalism, even though federalism as a word, let alone a formula, sends semantic shivers up the political spine of both countries.

Yet if the majority nationalists – also known as unionists – were to look more empathetically at their minority nationalists, they might detect the ambiguities and hesitancy behind much separatist discourse. Instead, Madrid uses Spain’s constitution as a tablet of stone to bludgeon Catalans and Basques, London threatens the Scots with being shut out of sterling, and both capitals – episodically echoed by Brussels – warn independence means probable banishment from the EU.

Surely it has occurred to all three capitals that these minority nations might settle for something short of secession; that, on close examination, there is something like a triangle at work here in which the Catalans are watching the Scots, who are watching the Basques, who are watching the Catalans, who are also looking at the Basques – all to see who can get more, and how.