MUCH of the debate over the last months has centred on economic issues.

currency, revenues, costs and so on. That is of course understandable - but I firmly believe that we can only get to the real central question at stake, if we understand the story of how Scotland's relationships with the British Government have changed and developed over the years. Whether the answer on Thursday is Yes or No, we need to see this as an important step in a dynamic historical process, not just as a one-off political event.

The Longer history -Scotland's Right

When the Constitutional Convention that planned the Scottish Parliament met for the first time in 1989, it started significantly, not with a political goal, but with a solemn declaration called "A Claim of Right for Scotland", that recognised the sovereignty of the people. I have often wondered how many of those who signed that Claim really understood they were rejecting the absolute sovereignty of the "Crown in Parliament". Either Parliament in Westminster has the final say, or the people of Scotland do. It cannot be both.

The Convention thus began by consciously and deliberately placing ourselves in Scotland's historical constitutional tradition recalling the two previous "Claims of Right" in our history; that of 1689 which deposed King James VII, and that of 1842 which resisted Westminster's attempt to impose patronage on the Kirk.

All three Claims had two things in common. First, they were not humble requests for those in power to change their minds; they were Claims based on Scotland's Right.

Second, they all denied the right of the Crown or the Crown in Parliament in London to impose policies on Scotland without consent.

The dramatic change of the last 60 years

So much for the longer perspective, but the dramatic change in Scotland's relationship with UK as a whole has been in the last 60 years or so, with the gradual - but persistent - divergence of Scottish and British political and community self-understanding. After the war, there was a broad consensus which might be described as "social democratic" and which was the foundation of the welfare state and the NHS. Scottish and English politics were broadly in harmony, but the ending of that consensus was not due so much to change in Scotland, as to the UK's increasing move to the right, towards a government, authoritarian, centralised, ruled by market forces and out of touch with an increasingly alienated society. Scotland stood by different values, and a better understanding of European democracy.

The dramatic nature of that change can be illustrated by the fact that in 1955, the Conservatives amazingly polled over 50% of the vote in Scotland and took half of the seats. By 1997, not a single Tory MP was left - there is now one, leading to the frequent taunt that Scotland has more pandas than Tory MPs - and neither shows any sign of replicating.

There are of course, Tory members of the Scottish Parliament who play a valuable part in its work, but that is largely owing to the carefully planned proportional electoral system.

Scotland, then, has been on a long historic journey to the crossroads of destiny at which we now stand. It was a gradual awakening to what was being done to Scotland against her will - but I believe there were three decisive points which confirmed that direction.

The first was Mrs Thatcher's attempt to impose on Scotland, not just hated policies such as the Poll Tax, but what was seen as an alien ideology. Her great contribution was to confirm finally and irreversibly, that Scotland's problem was not political but constitutional; not who happened to govern but how: not policies but power.

I wrote at the time "All this made us see with a clarity we had never had before, that we could never again rely on the British state or live comfortably with its constitutional doctrines of the absolute authority of the crown in parliament."

A Church of Scotland Report put it succinctly: "The English constitutional tradition of state absolutism has always been unacceptable in theory. It is now intolerable in practice."

Scotland's leading historian, Sir Tom Devine wrote: "The problem of governance in Scotland was seen not simply as being rooted in Thatcherism, but instead derived from the very nature of the British constitutional system itself."

It was this conviction, combined with the growing confidence of the nation, that enabled the Constitutional Convention to succeed where so many had failed, and deliver a Scottish Parliament.

The second decisive point was the creation of that Parliament in 1999 - a great step forward, but still giving no answer to Scotland's central dilemma, since it remained "devolved"- a gift (or more accurately a loan), rather than a secure right and, as Tony Blair reminded us, subject to the sovereignty of Westminster.

The third moment of truth is of course with us now. Be it Yes or No, one battle has been fought and won. Scotland has become universally and almost miraculously energised, self-confident, politicised and passionately concerned.

That is not going to dissipate. Sooner (if Yes) or later (if No) constitutional change which recognises Scotland's secure autonomy as the basis for better and more just governance in a remodelled democracy, is inevitable.

But why wait? Our time has come now.

The case for independence in a nutshell

1. The central issue is power. Should the final say in Scotland remain with Westminster, or be with the Scottish people and Parliament? That is the key question we must answer on Thursday. A Yes vote is for power in Scotland. A No vote is to sustain a system that claims all power, and has used it against us.

2. Independence is a means not an end - the way to begin the building of a better , fairer, more participative society, protected from the market policies that could be imposed on our social and health services, and in which power is not centralised, but shared by local government and by the people.

I have one question, not for the rich and powerful, or for the politicians, but for the ordinary people of Scotland.

You have lived with the effect of policies made in London.

Has it been better together?