European

I am, always have been, and always will be a European, and no one can take that away from me. And to those saying either 'we're leaving the EU not Europe', and 'now it's happened we need to pull together', well I'm sorry neither of those sentiments work. I won't help to pull something into a bog where we become a rule taker from the USA. And the fact is that interdependence in Europe has been dominated by the EU over the last 60 years, so if we refuse to be members of the EU we should at least have at least as close a relationship as countries like Norway and Switzerland. Plus, there's an inevitable difference between changing the status quo and building interdependence from scratch. The fact of the matter is that there is no consensus in the UK about what we want in the future, and no way of building it now. Those mechanisms are smashed. It is not going to be good for the UK. It is much more likely to precipitate its break up.

I've worked a lot on South East Europe in the last 10-15 years. I think some of the feelings I have about a sense of 'my country' leaving me (as expressed by a friend on twitter a few days ago) are those also experienced by many people in Yugoslavia, who were not amongst the flag waving national patriots who welcomed 'independence', but rather amongst those who feared the flare up of small state nationalisms. And so it came to pass. I envy now my friends in that region from Slovenia and Croatia who are content and secure (for now) in their European citizenship. The UK - as someone said - has just become an awful lot more like Serbia. The parallels are legion.

Enough for now. We were a bit late for the rally and missed the speeches, but Scotland being Scotland we saw Alyn Smith walking up the Canongait, and then saw Tommy Sheppard and Val McDermid having a blether on the margins of the rally. It was good to spend a good part of the evening with Meles, DaveH, Shandonner and of course Mr A (my very own EU citizen). The fleeting passing by of WhiskyFoxtrot, plus the visibility of many photographs of the events down at Holyrood on Blip as well as on other social media reinforced the sense of another type of countercultural community, which now offers the coatstand on which I must hang my hat. I remain profoundly unconvinced by Scottish independence, but I'm completely convinced by the argument that Scotland deserves the right to determine its own future.

Two other views in the extras - some lights floating in the water features outside the Parliament to symbolise #leavealighton and a carefully argued view of the UK's Prime Minister.