EJEXIT – ejection of Scotland from the EU – cannot happen for reasons not yet clearly recognised. A referendum decision in favour of the status quo can be binding. It is clear what the electorate have voted for. A referendum decision for change, before the terms for that change have been negotiated, can only be advisory. No-one yet knows what the result might produce. Some of the negotiated package of terms might be unacceptable to many of those who voted in principle for change.

The 1979 and 1997 referendums on devolution addressed known packages of terms, in the first case legislation already on the statute book, and in the second a promise in the election manifesto of the party in power at Westminster, thus deliverable, and followed by a detailed white paper. Those and the 2014 referendum established Scotland’s right to self-determination in matters constitutional. But the 2014 and 2016 referendums preceded any negotiation of terms for implementation. An option on a house plot is not a commitment to as-yet unknown plans and price.

A major flaw for many of us in 2014 was lack of commitment to put the actual terms for independence, once negotiated, to the electorate. One doubts whether a majority of the Scottish electorate would ever vote for a “pig in a poke”.

Another flaw in 2014 was failure to dispel the Big Lie – the Big Lie that the UK and England & Wales are one, and Scotland a subsidiary dependency. The Big Lie is still reflected daily in failure to distinguish that which is England & Wales only from that which is UK – in the media, in names of official bodies, charities and sporting bodies, in titles of legislation, in endless ways. The Big Lie disregards what happened in 1707. Two sovereign states merged to create the UK. Ireland joined subsequently, then all but the north left. Attributes such as the UK currency and EU membership are not the property of part only of the UK. If one of the original parties had dissolved the UK in 2014, with sovereignty returning to the constituent nations, one might argue that both parts, or neither, would have retained EU membership. There was no basis for the discriminatory assertion that membership would pass to one but not the other. Yet even on that precedent, if England and Wales were to secede, EU membership would remain with the rest of the UK.

If our bungling politicians can at last get their act together, they need to realise the main issue, if the UK is to be kept together, lies not with the constituent nations of the UK which opted for the status quo, but with England & Wales having narrowly expressed a desire to leave – albeit by a majority deemed too small in the 1979 referendum to justify change. It is in England and Wales, not in Scotland, that a second referendum may be required. Will the result there be the same as that obtained by deceit in June 2016, once the terms have been negotiated and are “on the table”? If secession by England & Wales has to apply to both unions – both the EU and the UK – or neither, which of those options will a majority in England & Wales favour? At present, no-one knows. The UK Government has no mandate to make assumptions about such unknowns.

A further factor is that our UK passports have “European Union” at the top, and our citizenship of both EU and UK stated in every official EU language. That is because our citizenship rights derived from the EU – including to travel and work – are significant for many of us. The European Court of Human Rights has held that refusal to grant citizenship rights, with significant impact on the individual, can be a breach of human rights. All the more would deprivation of such rights be a breach; something which the Scottish Parliament not only cannot be any party to, but must actively prevent. In practical terms, will 62 per cent of Scots meekly surrender their existing passports?

The rest of the UK, apart from England and Wales, did not vote to retain some attributes of EU membership. It did not vote to leave and rejoin. It voted to retain membership. That must be the starting-point for all negotiations. It is in that sense that, decisively, Remain means Remain.

Adrian Ward is an award-winning Scottish solicitor.