THERESA May met with the leaders of the devolved administrations on Monday. The purpose was to tell them that they’re the Theresas to her Trump, although any hand-holding was notable by its absence and there was likewise a distinct lack of grovelling.

Theresa would certainly have liked there to be a lot of grovelling as she laid down the law that the Supreme Court had so recently ruled upon. We discovered that the Sewel Convention has all the legal authority of an online petition, and like an online petition its sole purpose is to provide a facsimile of democracy, but none of the substance. Although to be fair with an online petition you can actually get to decide which simple-minded ditty is going to represent the UK in Eurovision. Sewel means we get no say at all about the UK Government’s simple-minded European ditty.

We are living in a Scotland which has less power to influence events that affect us than clicking a like button on a Facebook page does.Legally, Theresa in her clown suit is perfectly entitled to stick her fingers in her ears, sing Rule Britannia and ignore everything and anything said to her by representatives of Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales.

The difference between her grovelling obsequiousness before Trump and her meeting with representatives of the non-Ukippy parts of the UK is that while a Brexit Britain is feeble, friendless, failing, and other adjectives starting with “f”, there’s plenty that Scotland and Northern Ireland can do if they don’t agree with Theresa’s approach to bankrupting the UK. The British Government is about to discover this, to its cost.

The talks in Cardiff were scheduled to be the last with representatives from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland before she presses the big red, white and blue button to activate Article 50 and start the countdown to the end of the UK. The talks were also the last chance for Theresa to pretend she actually gives a toss what Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland think about her English nationalist Brexit. Although, to be fair, she doesn’t do much pretending. She just rejects them out of hand. You’d think that a Prime Minister who is constantly going on about her precioussss Union might realise that by rejecting the views of three out of the four members of that Union, she’s not representing the best interests of the Union at all. She’s demonstrating that the Union is just England and its quasi-colonial possessions. This isn’t a great advertisement for persuading wavering No voters and undecideds that Scotland is best served by remaining a part of the UK. However, we should be kind, because, after all, Theresa doesn’t get much of an opportunity to lord it over anyone, since even tiny Malta can bully the British Government and tell it that whatever deal Britain gets from Brexit is going to be a whole lot worse than what it’s got just now. Malta is one of those tiny little countries whose ranks Unionists are always warning that an independent Scotland is going to join. A tiny little country that can still lay down the law to Britain. Scotland has just been told that as part of the UK its role as an equal member of this most perfect family of nations is to have the law laid down to it.

Theresa’s hardline approach is determined in no small measure by the unfortunate circumstance that she’s relying on press releases from Ruth Davidson for her news on what’s going on in Scotland, and whatever guff that has most recently been spouted in the right-wing English press and a Scottish Unionist media which consistently refers to the possibility of a second independence referendum as a threat. It’s not a threat. It’s an opportunity. It’s understandable that she’s got a tin ear to Scottish concerns when her ear is only open to the nonsense spouted by the British tabloid press and people who describe themselves as alt-rightists-cum-Brexiteers, presumably because they believe in the withdrawal method.

Theresa not at all helped by a Scotland Office which tweets that Scotland’s utility exports to the rest of the UK total more than £5.8 billion, as though that was a reason for not being independent. It means that if the rest of the UK, whose electricity grid is hard pressed as it is, won’t trade with an independent Scotland then Theresa will be sitting in the dark as she sings Rule Britannia. They can’t keep the lights on without us. What’s left of the UK will be a global leader in the candle trade. Scotland will get a far better deal than we currently do because, at the moment, our energy producers are penalised by the UK national grid. After independence they’ll have to be paid the international market price.

But you can understand why Theresa might think that she has a stronger hand than she really does if she listens to Ruthie’s fake news releases, like the one she put out over the weekend insisting that support for a second referendum was only at 27 per cent, when in fact that figure refers to the support for a second referendum right away. Total support for a second referendum is at 50 per cent and support for independence is at 46 per cent. Compare that to the 28 or 29 per cent support that independence enjoyed at the start of the 2014 referendum campaign. If we are to believe the polls, a tad under a half of the voting population of Scotland supports independence already, and the independence movement hasn’t even got out of the parking lot yet.

Theresa hows no sign at all that she’s going to alter her reckless course, convinced as she is that Scotland has no veto over Brexit. And she may very well be correct, Scotland can’t veto Brexit. But what she fails to realise is that Scotland has the power to veto the continuing existence of the UK, and that it’s becoming increasingly likely that we’re going to wield that veto. Theresa is running out of time, and so is the UK.