SO, the messiest divorce since Kramer versus Kramer has gone through and the UK is now three days into single life outside the EU.

Depending on which side you are on, you may still be either weeping along to Ode to Joy or cheerfully humming Rule Britannia. Some, understandably, will be trying to avoid the background music altogether.

It’s a confusing time. According to Nigel Farage we are living through “the greatest moment in the history of the UK”. Are you feeling all that greatness? Many, especially in Scotland, are not. But even if you wanted to, such histrionics seem at odds with the raft of media correspondents rushing to tell us that everything is just the same. At least for now.

Mr Farage is right in one respect, however. Though it may be true that travel arrangements and border controls won’t diverge until the end of the year, the idea that nothing is different doesn’t wash. Make no mistake, the UK is already changed, changed utterly.

With this in mind, here are some far from definitive thoughts on how, with particular emphasis on how our political, economic and intellectual lives will be impacted in the weeks, months and years to come.

Since 11pm on Friday night, Britain has officially been a reduced and isolated country that will have to make its alliances on an ad hoc, more desperate footing from now on. We can no longer offer our allies and partners access to a bigger market and more influential sphere. And since we have no trump card to play, we’ll be forced to make big concessions in order to secure trade deals. Speaking of Trump, the special relationship with the US will be revealed as being special only in how completely the UK will have to capitulate on things like higher drug prices and lower food standards, no matter how vehemently Boris Johnson may deny this right now.

The EU’s latest briefings on trade, meanwhile - linking finance with fishing rights - make clear not only which side has the upper hand, but how likely it is that Mr Johnson will have to throw allies he made promises to under the bus. The fishermen will likely be among the first. The EU can continue to be the bogeyman for now, but that can’t go on forever and the time is fast approaching when the Brexiters will have to own their ignorance, arrogance and lies. As an aside, look out for the way in which elements of the Tory party are moving their ire from the EU to HS2, which is already becoming the new Brexit in terms of factions and festering sores. More billions of public money down the swanny? One way or the other that seems inevitable.

Speaking of arrogance and untruths, it’s now crystal clear that the Dominic Cummings style of doing politics is the norm, rather than some sort of aberration. Expect more dirty tricks and a deepening US-style culture war to stoke division and mask the economic damage being done by Brexit, public service cuts and the ripping up of the social contract.

As for Scotland, what’s changed since Friday is that we have been put on a semi-campaign footing for an independence referendum that doesn’t yet exist. Events, dear boy, will determine whether and when the vote takes place. As Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged during her speech on Friday, a new and different post-Brexit case will have to be made if support for independence is to reach the breakthrough 55-60 per cent mark that would remove all questions of legitimacy and, crucially, carry the aftermath.

This new case must acknowledge the changes I’ve discussed here and offer pragmatic solutions and options not only to such issues as currency and borders, but also Scotland’s future relationship with Europe. Perhaps we should be talking in the first instance about EEA membership rather than full EU membership?

Being forcibly removed from a union such as the EU is particularly damaging for small countries, of course. They can never have parity with the big boys in terms of influence, but as Ireland highlighted recently, they can at least have a voice and a say. Scotland currently has neither in the decaying union we remain a part of.

What Scotland does have, however, independent or not, is an opportunity and pressing need to engage with Europe on her own terms. Many in the EU talked about leaving a light on for Scotland. If we are savvy we will set up missions in European capitals, as we have done already in the likes of Dublin and Berlin. That way the light will never go out.