The positive case for an answer in the negative

Though impoverished by my own lack of Gaelic, I'm sure that its native speakers nonetheless have rich ways of expressing the sentiment, just as English speakers can respond to the question with "Nae fear", "I'd rather have my teeth drilled" and "Better not". Or, in the case of today's campaign launch: "Better Together".

A problem for the No campaign is that the word has, well, negative connotations. And, because of the considerable skill with which the SNP has built its support, advanced its agenda, disciplined its elected representatives, managed its administrative responsibilities and determined the political weather, saying that it is negative is no longer a grammatical truism, but an active indictment. Thirty years ago, dismissing independence as an impractical pipe dream was an option, even if it wasn't much of an argument. Now it would be obviously counter-productive.

Fortunately, those opposed to breaking up the United Kingdom, as the name they have adopted suggests, realise that what we might call the Nancy Reagan and Zammo approach will not wash. They can't "Just Say No" without being labelled scaremongers, or the side which is offering nothing. The positive case needs to be made.

Before doing that, however, there is another question anyone saying no to anything has to get resolved: what is it that I'm saying no to? No matter how simple the question on the ballot paper, that is nowhere near as simple as the Nationalists themselves would have presented it a couple of decades ago.

It never was that simple, of course, but the current confusion about it is a result of the SNP's redefinition of independence as a process rather than a choice. This process, in terms of strategy, began with the policy of Independence in Europe, much stressed during the Govan by-election which Jim Sillars won in 1988, and the following year's Glasgow Central by-election contested by Alex Neil.

A good number of the party's leading activists, advisers and MSPs cut their teeth on these campaigns (Nicola Sturgeon was, if I remember correctly, still an undergraduate). Amidst all the abstruse arguments about Greenland's constitutional arrangements vis-à-vis Denmark and the EU, however, I don't remember anyone then arguing that the natural conclusion of independence within a federal superstate would be to extend the same logic to the UK. Independence in the UK, however, is what the Scottish Government now seems to be presenting as a possible option, in order not to scare off the crucial section of the electorate which will decide the referendum – those prepared to vote SNP, but not prepared to vote for independence.

John Swinney seems to imagine the Bank of England will be happy to offer a say in its fiscal policy to a foreign government minister, the way it doesn't at the moment for, say, Eire. It's not negative for Unionists to point out that this is total fantasy, nor to draw the obvious lesson that Ireland's independence in Europe (not to mention Greece's, Spain's and Italy's) amounts, in a fiscal union, to the freedom to have domestic policy imposed by foreign central banks. That can be avoided by not making the rest of the United Kingdom foreigners.

Similarly, Better Together's supporters should point out that if you want to keep the monarchy, the armed forces, shared borders, welfare entitlement, pension provision, and all manner of other things the majority of Scots favour, it is easy to do it by voting no.

To manage it while voting yes involves such fiendishly complicated hypothetical arrangements and mind-boggling doublethink that only the leadership of the SNP seems capable of doing it, or wanting to. Rank-and-file Nationalists are more honest – they don't want to do it – but, unfortunately for them, they are in the minority, and know it.

The "settled will of the Scottish people" – a handy little phrase Mr Darling might usefully employ – has changed a bit, as political opinions do. And, in large part, because the SNP has driven that change. But it is not currently settled on the Nationalists' ultimate aim, but on some as-yet-undefined form of increased power for Holyrood. The Better Together campaign can cheerfully concede that, though its exact nature will need to be hammered out, and the question of whether to break up the UK must be answered first.

But there is little danger of it failing to materialise, as was the case when Margaret Thatcher reversed Tory policy despite Lord Home's promises before the 1979 referendum. All the Unionist parties have now expressed support for further powers. Indeed, David Cameron has a reasonable case for saying the Tories got there first, since devolution to the most local level possible is a stated manifesto commitment, even if not much has yet been done about it. And Scotland controlling both its income and expenditure would certainly be popular with many English Conservatives.

Mr Darling and his supporters should draw attention to the inconsistency of the SNP equivocation on such matters. If independence is not frightening, because so many social, economic and strategic ties will remain the same (why, you can even still be British, though there will be no political entity called Britain), the Better Together campaign can reasonably ask why you would vote for an uncertain version negotiated by two governments which have become foreign powers, rather than sort it out within the Union, where Scotland's politicians, and people, would have automatic entitlement to a say.

If independence is a process, that's what Mr Salmond himself should want at this stage. At some point, perhaps people will be happy to have a different passport from their relatives who live over the Border, and to abandon all control over the currency. Until they do, the Better Together campaign is actually the one with the clearer options and the better case.