Very soon, members of the British electorate who are resident in Scotland shall vote – and only they shall vote – on the fate of the entire United Kingdom as a political entity.

Allow me to put that again. Those who’ll vote, or who are at any rate eligible to vote, in the Referendum are not the set of persons in the United Kingdom we might define as ‘all the Scots’. They are not all Scots, either: residence is the sole criterion as amongst eligible voters. And they are eligible voters by virtu...