JUST for once, I have no quarrel with eurosceptics.

People should always be allowed a vote on the future of their country. If it transpires that their choice is purblind, driven by witless prejudice, or actually catastrophic, that’s democracy.

People should be entitled, too, to expect representation. Part of that would involve parties keeping their promises. David Cameron did pledge – yes, he did – that Conservatives would be allowed to express a choice over that place called “Europe”. Nick Clegg said something similar, amid other cast-iron commitments, to Liberal Democrats.

All of it boiled down to something straightforward: if “the people of Britain” don’t want “Europe”, we should chuck it. “We” should then recover “our sovereignty” and resume this fabled old island story. There might even be a script for that, one Noel Coward prepared earlier.

But let me risk an old joke: who’s this “we”, then, Kemo Sabe?

Eighty-one Conservative MPs have just opposed their leader in a battle over the status of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland within the Europe thing. What passes for research tells me that my only Tory voice in the Palace of Westminster – David Mundell, well-regarded, in bits of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale – didn’t want that referendum.

He wasn’t stupid. All but the new intake of feral Tories remember what happened when William Hague last tried to play the eurosceptic card, and save the pound, and keep the foreigners out. Mr Hague was handed his jotters. He was taught that “the people” are not, in fact, obsessed with Europe.

I didn’t get a vote in the latest eurosceptic rebellion. The Tories will now rip themselves asunder: at sea, worse has happened. I’m interested, though, in 81 MPs fighting their hearts out for a country they call mine. Most of them would insist, I think, that it’s also, contiguously, my country, and never to be handed over to Europe, and never dissevered.

So what’s this “my country”, Kemo Sabe?

My colleague Michael Settle reported yesterday on the latest news from lawyers who explain the British constitution to those charged with the defence of Britain’s constitution. I thought: is this the best you’ve got? We’re doing this one? Again? Seriously?

Apparently so. While the Tory backbenches feign horror over sovereignty, the best legal minds of someone’s generation tell me that an independent Scotland would have to queue for recognition within the community of nations. We reported: “... official papers, seen by The Herald, even suggest that if ‘divorce’ proceedings did not go well following a yes vote in a referendum, the Government in London could veto Scotland’s membership of the EU”.

Let me labour a point. An administration falling apart over a relationship with Europe would block Scottish accession to that same set of treaties? Why would a friendly neighbour ever do such a thing? Doesn’t the sacred concept of sovereignty count for anything?

But hold on, Lone Ranger. Let’s do the tedious part. Why does the United Kingdom exist? That was because of a treaty between two sovereign nations. The English fiction of a London parliamentary supremacy is always over-ruled – hence the “Europe row” – by treaty obligations. In Scotland, we had a deal. This is – some time has passed – well known.

If Westminster is tooling up with top-sovereign lawyers for advice, there’s something else. When a union is dissolved, what remains? The constituonalist anoraks can check: “successor state”. We exist in a Union, not – Jeremey Paxman may have misunderstood this bit – an England with bits added. If the UK goes, England’s rights are in question, if anyone’s. The definition of a sucessor state might be complex for a nuclear power attempting to tell Nicolas Sarkozy how to run his currency.

Or utterly simple. In terms of international law, the problem lies to the south. England might veto us? Were you to base your successor state on a monarchical lineage – not my choice, but never mind – the crowns of these islands lie hereabouts. I throw that in for fun. And I look forward to hearing from those “UK lawyers”.

There is a preposterous determination amid a scarcely-legitimate coalition in London to dig up any old nonsense to scupper a Nationalist Government in Edinburgh. That’s fine: I don’t see why my vote on my country’s future should only be at the moment our Alex deems suitable. I also think, as mentioned, that people should make their own mistakes. But if history matters, it deserves serious treatment.

A great many English Tories have become upset over their country’s sovereign rights. I think they misunderstand a problem. Should they wish to begin the renegotiation of treaties, I have a couple of thoughts. In the name of equity, honesty, and decent feelings: nothing too complicated.

All of these tiffs and strategems return us to two simple questions: who are we, and who is allowed to pick our place in the world? In some parts of England, voters will be cheering on their MPs amongst the 81 who stood against “Europe”. In my part of the world, things work differently. But I’m just anyone

I have a niece whose French ancestry is medieval: she cooks. I have English nephews who would think my accent is comical, and who could kick me all over the park. I have one brother’s son whose shared lineage makes him a Barca fan, and another at a Midlands university who could tell me that everything I just said about the British constitution is dead wrong. These children are everywhere.

That’s how it should be, I hope. It strikes me as odd that those who speak on behalf of a nation would wish to stand apart from any culture. It strikes me as ugly – but no surprise – that they would wish to cripple a small neighbour.

My own child is among those children I mentioned. He’s more “European” than any. Yet Scottish, too: one of these days, his cousin will cook him a meal. One of these days, I’ll tell you what “sovereignty” means. Life, or close. But I think I just heard the Lone Ranger. He wonders who Kemo Sabe used to be.