IN LONDON, my favourite other city, my simple pleasure is to walk for a mile or so along the South Bank of the Thames and feel the breath of that mighty river on my neck. All life and many nations you will encounter along this stretch: acrobats performing impossible tricks on stilts; contortionists and clowns and occasionally a diaphanous young Mary Hopkin singing her own songs, waiting for her moment. Young mothers in Roberto Cavalli sunglasses amuse their babies effortlessly and the jaikies, many of whom curiously sport a fresh flower on their ragged coats, mix freely with Japanese tourists wielding selfie sticks.

Like many other Scots a little bit of London rests in me and something of me will always feel at home there. Scots like to believe our country is a diverse and inclusive nation that welcomes all colours, creeds and nations but London, above all other cities, thrums with difference and diversity.

It stopped being exclusively English a long time ago and its citizens have never seemed since to resent ceding ownership. I was delighted when it wholeheartedly rejected the false creed of Brexit.

On Wednesday afternoon, I was a guest of BBC Scotland at their Pacific Quay headquarters on the banks of another great river preparing to contribute some dubious wisdom about the debate on an independence referendum set to get under way at Holyrood.

Within a few minutes it became clear that a serious incident was unfolding in London. In Holyrood they could have chosen to continue their debate but by then no-one outside that chamber was listening. Instead, we focused our attention on Britain’s capital city and I like a million other Scots began to think of friends, colleagues and family living there and of the unknown citizens of that city who have always reached out to them.

In the heat of the moment after Wednesday’s attack on Westminster it was understandable that some reactions seemed indecorous and clumsy. I’ve since heard it said that previous attacks on London were greeted in a more refined way but they weren’t really. All that’s changed is that social media today offers an immediate vent to convey a sense of anger and bewilderment. Thus we can surely forgive Andrew Neil, a fine Scottish broadcaster whom London now claims as its own, for criticising MSPs at Holyrood for not immediately suspending their debate. And we can forgive too Roseanna Cunningham who – eager to continue the debate – was surely espousing what many have since said; that democracy must not be silenced by an attack such as this.

And, in the circumstances, can we not also forgive poor, disorientated Katie Hopkins for blundering around incoherently seeking someone, anyone, to blame?

Perhaps the only distressing aspect of the reaction to the London attack was the way in which many people with singular agendas seemed desperate to crane their necks to monitor the reaction of “the other lot”.

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Thus, it’s now deemed insufficient merely to react to the event itself but to ensure that all others are reacting in the proper manner. And so, as a policeman and members of the public were dying, one of our first instincts was to scan our electronic devices for evidence of scruffiness and impropriety in the reactions of political foes. Again though; it’s not the worst thing to be accused of and in the circumstances forgivable.

I also heard it stated that the entire matter of a second referendum on Scottish independence ought now to be scrapped out of respect for the victims of the London attack.

This, though, is an unsustainable and tawdry concept. If what happened at Westminster on Wednesday was an attack on democracy then it will have succeeded if the referendum is cancelled.

Instead there is now an opportunity to re-calibrate the nature of the constitutional debate in Scotland and to alter its timbre.

The London attack and the memory of its victims will now indelibly be etched into the DNA of the second independence referendum.

Perhaps it’s still too early and the pain is still too raw to be talking about something good emerging from the evil that visited London.

It may yet stand, though, as a reminder that when the heat of constitutional battle is at its most intense in the years ahead that there are some things more important than whether Scotland gains its independence or not.

For many like me, whose preference is for an independent Scotland steering its own ship no matter what troubles may lie ahead, the London attack is a reminder that independence isn’t everything.

After all, Scotland is not occupied by a brutal foreign foe trampling our civil and human rights under a jackboot.

If a majority of Scots vote to maintain the status quo once more then so be it; there are a lot worse fates than being wedded to England, a country to which we have always given some of our brightest and our best and from whom we receive much in return.

We may not like what we see when we peer into the UK’s future and see nought but Little England, Brexit and the sound of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove gloating, but we’ve endured worse and in time they will be long gone.

For pro-UK campaigners, London on Wednesday should act as an indication, an honorific even, that most of their opponents on the constitutional question retain a great deal of affection for our great southern neighbour.

They really must avoid the tiresome exercise by which each and every scrofulous sentiment appearing on social media is deployed to indicate something rotten at the heart of an entire movement.

If Scotland does choose independence, England will be our closest ally and we will still always reach out to her and offer her our help in times of peril.

Family, faith, community and friendship will endure beyond the second independence referendum no matter its outcome. All of these endured during and after the first independence campaign and no amount of foolish campaigning around the word “divisive” will alter that reality.

I believe the time will come when Scotland regains its historic independence even though that time may not yet be nigh.

Equally, I believe that when it does, many of the shared values with England that were evident following the attack on our shared capital will remain intact.