LAST week, while skiing in the French Alps, I shared a chairlift with a Scotsman wearing a kilt.

Later, I saw him skiing together with two others. It was a very cold day and their knees must have felt it. I was filled with pride to be British, and to be able to boast of sharing our island of Great Britain with such a hardy nation.

That won’t change even if Scotland votes for independence in the referendum to be held later this year on September 18: the geographic name of our island, Great Britain will remain, and Scotland will still occupy the northern part of it.

It would be the political description that would have to change: currently, we are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; if Scotland votes to leave the union, however, we’d have to call ourselves something else; perhaps just the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland? Would we have to abandon the Union Flag? I am very attached to it, it too fills me with pride wherever I see it flying and I can’t see any good reason for giving it up.

The flag predates the union with Scotland and represents the union of the Scottish and English Crowns under James I of England and VI of Scotland, who succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603.

The nation states of Scotland and England and their governments remained separate and it wasn’t until more than a century later, in 1706 under James’ greatgranddaughter Queen Anne, that the Treaty of Union was signed, followed by the Act of Union in the Scottish Parliament later that year and, in 1707, by the Act of Union in the English Parliament. It was this treaty and these acts that created one Parliament where previously there had been two.

Notwithstanding the union, Scotland retained its own distinct legal system and its own constitutional arrangements, for example in the Church of Scotland.

Clearly, however, if it is Scotland’s wish to leave the union, that wish must be respected. I firmly believe that no parliament can bind its successor and that it is open to us to repeal the European Communities Act 1972 and leave the European Union when we have had enough of it. In the same way I would respect the wishes of Scotland if it decided that it was done with the United Kingdom.

One of the things that weakened opposition in Scotland to the Treaty of Union with England in 1706 was the prospect of financial disaster consequent upon a scheme known as the “Darien disaster”, in which almost a quarter of Scotland’s currency had been invested in a colony called Caledonia on the Isthmus of Panama in the Gulf of Darien, in the Caribbean. The venture was a failure and threatened Scotland with calamity.

Much of the current debate about Scotland’s future has also concentrated on its viability as an economic unit.

However, I think there are much stronger arguments.

Those Scotsmen who wear kilts on freezing ski slopes will not be impressed by being told that their country is too small to make its way in the world (anymore than I’d be impressed by being told that we are too small to leave the EU), and they would probably reply by telling us that there are no small nations, only small minds.

I think it is much smarter to remind them of what we have achieved jointly since the Act of Union, in giving this small island a truly global reach, and in standing together in the world’s darkest hour in defence of liberty, against appalling tyranny.

Perhaps even more importantly, we need to find the confidence to persuade them that our greatest days together are still ahead of us.