It’s such a pity the word independence has no Rs in it because Stephen Flynn is good at Rs. He takes his time over them. They rattle and rev in his mouth. When he’s talking, he tries to work words like barrier and warrior and corridor into every sentence if he can because it sounds so good. Dare I say it: he exaggerates it a bit to prove his Scottishness? But oh: if only there was an R in independence, things could be so different.

At least there’s an R in European Union though. Mr Flynn raised the subject in the Commons the other day when addressing Sir Keir Starmer (four Rs! even better). The House was debating the King’s Speech and like every King’s speech, there was good (more housing, more devolution for England, offenders forced to attend sentencing hearings) and bad (a gradual ban on smoking – we need fewer bans, not more).

But the main point Mr Flynn wanted to make was that the King’s Speech did not include a commitment to end the two-child benefit cap, and there are plenty on the Labour benches who agree with him (mostly secretly, for now). But we should look at something else Mr Flynn said during his remarks because it’s revealing about how the SNP think. It’s also revealing about the contradiction at the heart of what they say on constitutional and economic affairs.

What Mr Flynn said was this: “Our economy isn’t just about net zero, it’s not just about productivity. It’s not just about migration, it’s also intrinsically linked to our relationship with the European Union and I look forward to seeing what the government comes forward with in respect of our proposed new relationship with our friends and allies in Europe. We should of course be seeking to rejoin the European single market; we should of course be seeking to rejoin the European customs union. It makes sense to all of us.”

If you’ve seen the clips of Mr Flynn saying this, you will have noticed the heads of the other SNP MPs nodding along (only eight heads now rather than 47, but still). They were nodding for a number of reasons: the SNP loves the EU but doesn’t love the UK, the SNP thinks the Scottish people’s support for EU membership could be the key to support for independence, and the SNP genuinely thinks Scotland being in the EU makes sense and Scotland being in the UK does not make sense.

This may appear fine to people in the SNP, partly because it’s based on their antipathy to the UK, but let’s look again at what Mr Flynn said because it underlines where the party’s gone wrong but also, more positively, suggests a way forward. Mr Flynn said our economy is intrinsically linked to our relationship with the EU and we should therefore be seeking to rejoin the European single market and customs union, and he’s right: it is and we should.

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But it’s remarkable to me that Mr Flynn and others cannot see the contradiction here, the intellectual inconsistency. The Scottish economy is intrinsically linked to our relationship with the EU. But it is also intrinsically linked to our relationship with the UK (only more so). Therefore we should be seeking to rejoin the European Union. But therefore we should also be seeking to remain in the United Kingdom.

The logic of this has been underlined by what’s happened since Brexit: leaving the EU has created greater barriers to trade and has damaged economic growth, something the SNP, quite rightly, has been banging on about. But again, they do not, will not, cannot see the intellectual inconsistency of their position. If leaving the EU has created barriers and damaged growth, Scotland leaving the UK would do exactly the same.

Challenged about this, supporters of independence tend to wave their hands dismissively and tell us there will be no barriers to trade between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK and there will be no regulatory and customs issues at the border. But this is precisely the same argument used by Brexiters right up until the moment when there were regulatory and customs issues at the border. Can’t you see that Mr Flynn? Right there, in front of you when you talk about rejoining the EU and leaving the UK?

Keir Starmer

Maybe he can change. Mr Flynn referred in his remarks in the Commons to “our friends and allies in Europe” and that’s nice and in keeping with the new government’s efforts to reset the relationship with our EU neighbours. But perhaps Mr Flynn could give some consideration to our other friends and allies. There’s a picture of Mr Flynn you may have seen by now of him doing pretend-crying about England’s defeat by Spain in the football and maybe it’s just bants or maybe it’s a sign of a failure to think of the rest of the UK as friends and allies too.

Recognising, and articulating, that would be a great place to start for Mr Flynn and his party; it might even persuade Scots who swither on independence that they recognise the economic facts we’re dealing with here. It would also be a step towards acknowledging the reality they cannot apparently see. The Scottish economy is intrinsically linked with the UK’s and loosening the links would be damaging. Tell us why that is not so Mr Flynn. Tell us why we’re wrong.