Why does anyone think the royals are the ones who will save the Union?

Another historic event in the story of the UK’s longest-running soap opera, with enough twists and turns to satisfy even the most ardent EastEnders fan. Will we ever run out of special dates which demand to be marked by street parties and free Gary Barlow concerts?

These events are always difficult for independence supporters, even ones who don’t necessarily want to consign the royal family to history.

The celebrations of all things British can leave us feeling very much on the outside, trying hard but failing to understand what it is that we’re supposed to be proud of.

The only time in my life when I’ve experienced anything like warmth for the notion of Great Britain was during Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the London Olympics in 2012, strangely enough the year we dragged that bunting out for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

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Boyle’s vision of Britain was certainly beguiling, celebrating the Beatles, punk, electronic dance music, the NHS, the industrial revolution and the internet. I admit there were moments the hairs stood up on the back of my arms.

But Boyle’s tribute was to a country which, if it ever truly existed, was already passing into history, its achievements behind it and the ties which bound its component parts fraying at the edges. It was an elegy for values which were never truly shared and a vision which has never really been inclusive.

So if royal events had never really torn at my heartstrings – no, not even the tragic sight of doomed Diana walking up the a isle to the disaster which we all denied knowing only too well awaited her – news of the Platinum celebrations come at a particularly difficult time.

We now know that the royal family has been enlisted as allies in the British establishment’s desperate battle to keep Scotland within the Union.

After all, how can we persist with our desire for independence when Prince William has come close to tears tells us what a special place we hold in his heart?

And to prove how much they are willing to endure to keep the Union intact, William and Kate even met Gordon Brown – surely now Scotland’s most irrelevant politician – and risked an endless lecture on the benefits of federalism, which has appeared on precisely no British ballot paper ever.

We know, of course, that this wasn’t the first example of the royals sticking their noses into Scotland’s future and we know it won’t be the last.

Which is why the prospect of the Platinum celebrations next year sucks the joy out of what will hopefully be a post-pandemic summer.

Four days – FOUR DAYS – of pomp, pageantry, patriotism and pomposity. A live concert featuring “the world’s biggest entertainment stars”. Have you started your list of the “stars” you are praying will hold on to whatever scraps of dignity they have left and refuse the invitation? Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Take That, Ed Sheeran … please, PLEASE don’t do it.

At least David Bowie is no longer around to plead with Scotland to stay.

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Of course, it’s not all A-list events. There are those obligatory events we are forced to put up with, either because the royals insist on having them (the Epsom Downs Derby) or because tradition dictates that into each life a little pain must fall (the first full-length Trooping of the Colour since the pandemic. Thanks).

Then there are those embarrassing events which go down well down south but fall resoundingly flat north of the order. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the Big Jubilee Lunch, with “street parties held across the UK”.

EXCEPT they won’t be, will they? It’s not because Scotland hates the royal family but it certainly doesn’t care enough to see three extravagant parties coast to coast. Never has and never will.

Which makes it all the more baffling why the pro-Union establishment places so much faith in the royals to shore up disintegrating support for remaining in the UK.

We’re by and large apathetic to the royals ... a generalisation I know but how often in your life have you come across an ardent royalist?

Most of us look askance at Kate’s shopping spree on tartan goods before a Scottish visit, scratch our heads and wonder what planet she lives on.

But even if we did care, the prospect of independence doesn’t necessarily mean that the royal family will never again enjoy an overpriced hamper in the grounds of Balmoral.

Getting rid of the royals is no part of the current prospectus for independence and, no matter how much some of us want it to be so, it’s not going to happen any time soon.

And yet we know that the Platinum Jubilee will be used relentlessly to induce a warm and rosy glow in us restless natives at the very thought of British values as represented by one of the oddest families in the world.

A family which must surely keep some of its members on the down low for next year’s big events.

Prince Andrew, for instance, must be disqualified after the scandal surrounding his association and activities with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Will there by a place for Prince Harry after his series of criticisms of his family and those close to them, including racism and a lack of emotional support verging on child abuse.

The world has changed in recent years and the royal family and the British establishment have tried their hardest not to change with it.

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They have turned their backs on the storms created by Black Lives Matter, MeToo and the growing sense of estrangement felt by those parts of the United Kingdom outside the centre of power in England.

The independence debate has no direct bearing on the future of the Royals themselves. They will provide the monarch of Scotland until such time as the people of an independent Scotland decide otherwise.

But the values they represent – the values of a British establishment stranded in a world which no longer exists – have no place in the 21st century.

As we watch the events of the Platinum Jubilee roll out next year, I’m convinced we will feel that more keenly than ever.

We will not hate the royal family or those who are happy to be subservient to them, for there is no place for hate in the country we wish to create.

But nor is there a place for the class system they represent, the privilege the rich enjoy nor the blind eye the powerful cast on racism, sexism, homophobia and poverty. Some time in the next five years we’ll have our chance to kiss those things goodbye.