LAST week the UK Supreme Court, reaffirming the “unqualified legislative power” of Westminster to legislate for Scotland, thwarted the Scottish Parliament’s attempt to entrench the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Scots law.

Court-bashing is a dangerous game. Courts ultimately interpret and apply the law as it is. If anyone is to blame, it is Tony Blair, who insisted that the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament would exist only subject to the continuing absolute sovereignty of Westminster.

Nevertheless, the decision will be regarded as a gift to Unionists. It has further eroded the Sewel Convention (the rule, written into the Scotland Act 2016 but never enforceable, that Westminster should not “normally” legislate for Scotland in relation to devolved matters). Westminster now has carte blanche to molest Scotland with impunity.

They have quite a lot of that in mind. To braying cheers from the Tory conference, Dominic Raab (Secretary of State for “Justice”, believe it or not) announced his intent to shred the Human Rights Act. Another great leap forward for authoritarian populism.

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Meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Alister Jack, has announced that under a Tory Government there would be no referendum on Scottish independence for 25 years.

Jack further insisted that the “four nations” approach to the United Kingdom should officially be dropped in favour of a unitary concept of British nationhood. This is in direct opposition to the spirit of the devolution settlement and to the “Vow” made to the people of Scotland in 2014. It is also antithetical to the traditional understanding of Scottish Unionism.

Scottish Unionism, even before devolution, always recognised Scotland as a nation – albeit one which had chosen to pursue its national interests through a voluntary, consensual union, in which Scotland’s distinctiveness was recognised and protected.

That is why so many Unionists – including Gordon Brown – were able to sign the Claim of Right, asserting Scotland’s sovereign right to determine its own form of government.

Of course, that might never have been the reality, but it was the official story on which the Union rested. That story has been abandoned. As the UK Government sees it, we are “England’s province” now.

That means old Scottish Unionism is dead. It has not been killed by a Scottish nationalism, but by an intransigent British nationalism that no longer has respect for the rights, voice or status of Scotland within the Union.

You might think all this dismantling of devolution and hacking away at people’s basic human rights would make the government unpopular. But fear not, our shrewd overlords have a solution to that, too. The Elections Bill going through Westminster threatens to undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission, making it easier for the government to interfere in the management of elections.

Incidentally, this yet another instance of why boring but important institutional details like the appointment, composition, powers and autonomy of the Electoral Commissions should be put down in a written constitution that the government of the day is not able to mess around with.

Constitutional disintegration is just part of a wider process of British state-failure. If this creeping despotism does not arouse Scotland’s wrath to breaking point, perhaps persistent Brexit-induced shortages and stagnation will.

There will not be any “levelling up”, because the free trade on which our economy depends has been strangled by the idiotic decision to leave the Single Market and Customs Union. A normal, functioning county in peacetime does not need to call on the Army to provide basic necessities.

Then again, perhaps we are not living in peacetime. For all their talk of Global Britain and naval expansion, the British Government has no understanding of sea power. They have learned the wrong lessons from “Rule, Britannia”. Sea power has value only to the extent that it supports a thriving, open, commercial economy.

The UK is doing the very opposite. The same strategy of blockade that Lord Nelson used against Napoleon and Admiral Jellicoe used against the Kaiser – to shut down trade, to starve them out, to bankrupt them into submission – is now being imposed by the British Government against its own people.

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The UK Government, in its fit of self-destructive delirium, has blockaded our ports, cut off our supply lines, laid siege to our country, bombed (in virtual terms) our SS Ohio. Brexit is madness, utter madness. They are at war with us.

States have a natural life. They are born, they consolidate, they grow. Some have a healthy constitution and stay fit and strong for centuries. Eventually they degenerate, unless herculean efforts are made to regenerate them. The UK, in its deranged decrepit dotage, is killing itself.

Scotland, to save itself, must be free to deal directly with our European partners. If a love of constitutional freedom does not motivate you to get independence, maybe fear of starvation will.

Activist, Yvonne Ridley, is our guest on the TNT show on Wednesday. Join us on October 13 at 7pm on IndyLive