SOMETHING broke in me the other day. Ping! I could hear it snap. It took me a while to work out it was a sense of hope shattering. Not generic ‘hope’, about life and the world, in a Dante’s Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here type of way. But hope about this country. And when I say this country, I mean the United Kingdom.

I now simply feel a sad sense of resignation that Britain is irredeemably ruined as a project. And that’s what the UK has always been – a project, an idea, a bit like a cut-price America, attempting to bring disparate groups of people together under one unifying concept of ‘Britishness’. But Britishness is done – Britain can’t be fixed – and it’s Westminster which killed it.

For years, I’ve been what I termed a ‘moderate, pragmatic’ supporter of independence. Moderate in that I hate flags, I detest nationalism of all stripes, and I’ve no time for exceptionalism. Scotland isn’t special to me. Nowhere is special. We’re all just people. It’s political systems which are problematic. And pragmatic in the sense that the pros of splitting with England have to outweigh the cons – that the Yes movement, and the SNP in particular, must make cast iron the case for separation.

However, I now see independence as a necessity. I maintain my moderation – I still detest flags and nationalism, and all that ‘wha’s like us’ nonsense. But I struggle to find pragmatic conditions any more which militate against independence.

Unionists claim voters like me risk making Scotland poorer with our Yes votes. That’s important to me as, really, the only issue that’s ever motivated me politically is the desire to make life fairer and more equal for the weakest in society. But economically, the UK is now ruined. Why should I wish to be part of a nation which can no longer feed its citizens, or keep its children warm?

Westminster, with its suicidal adherence to Brexit, has slit the UK’s throat. Labour, so thoroughly coopted by the right, fears even to say the B word. In fact, Brexit is the new political correctness: question this form of English nationalism, English separatism, and you’re heretical. Why would I wish to stick around for the final act of Britain dying alone on the stage?

So I ask myself: might currency, borders, and trade with England hurt Scotland after a Yes vote? Well, perhaps, maybe even very likely. But will remaining in the UK be any better? I don’t believe so. In truth, I believe that remaining in the UK will make life worse for Scottish people. Perhaps – and there’s no guarantees – re-entry into Europe would actually improve life for Scotland in comparison to the rest of the UK. Some may accuse me of jumping from a sinking ship into a leaking lifeboat. Fair enough. Who wouldn’t?

What Westminster offers today is life under the hard right. So I’m being asked to support the impoverishment of myself, and the rest of Britain, under a system which I consider morally abhorrent. I’d prefer to be poor and keep some decency alive, than be poor and suffer the destruction of my values under an extremist political system.

The sense of hope which snapped in me was really the last remaining vestiges of belief that Westminster could be reformed. As I’m neither a nationalist nor someone who thinks Scotland is special nor wraps themselves in the Saltire, why would I wish unnecessarily to break the union if I believed Westminster could be fixed and made to work for the people rather than the powerful? If Westminster was fixable, I may even find myself capable of supporting the Union. But Westminster is far past redemption.

The unbelievable is happening: Tories are shaping up to give us a worse Prime Minister than Boris Johnson. The feather on the scale for me – the events which tipped me from moderate pragmatism, towards the belief that independence is a necessity – has been the conduct of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

When Sunak boasted that he’d deliberately moved money from the poorest to the richest – like some ghastly Sheriff of Nottingham; when Truss sneered that she’d give no ‘handouts’ to the poor (this from a woman who takes monthly handouts from British taxpayers in the form of her enormous salary), I just gave up any hope that Britain can be made better. The words of the old song will now play forever in Westminster: ‘One thing’s sure and nothing’s surer, the rich get rich and the poor get poorer’.

Sunak says he'll target people as extremists if they dare ‘vilify' Britain; Truss vows to clamp down on the right to protest – even more than Conservatives have already clamped down. Tories plan to destroy trade unions. While Britain collapses, Johnson holidays. We’ve no effective government any more. This isn’t lazy, it’s criminal.

If my views on independence have hardened, that doesn’t mean I’ll go soft on the Scottish Government. I’ll remain the harshest possible critic of a weak, ineffectual, overweening, arrogant and hypocritical SNP, and the Greens they’ve coopted.

In fact, I’ll be harsher than before as neither party has put a convincing case to undecideds that independence will work for Scotland. The only way to convince undecideds is to govern Scotland well – something the SNP and Greens have failed at spectacularly. So there’ll be no disgraceful ‘wheest for indy’ from me. In truth, though, Holyrood’s sins are gnats compared to the monsters of Westminster.

My hope is that if – when – Scotland ever leaves the Union (and that’s obviously a big ‘if’ currently) the SNP and Greens will be booted from power, and the nation can vote for genuine, transformative social democracy.

It’s Tory corruption and extremism, together with Labour’s sheer bloody uselessness, which makes the case for independence – not the SNP. If even a scintilla of hope remained that unionists wanted to reform Britain, then I wouldn’t be where I am now politically. But we all know reform won’t happen, so why pretend? Thus I’m left here at this juncture: with all belief in Britain gone, yet enough hope lingering – just – that perhaps, Scotland can set a better course on her own.