Groupthink, repression, obedience and conformity are not what you would expect to confront in a group of passionate campaigners insisting loudly that they are about to wrestle power from the English authoritarians and take responsibility to develop a discrete State, no less, and to establish the “rule of the people by the people”.

This lucid account confirmed my worst fears in many respects about the Yes Campaign, and as an English outsider confined to observing the economic and socio-political processes involved in the independence debate, on a micro-level – analysis of personal encounters has been restricted to a few overtly angry, oppositional, strongly anti-Labour Yes campaigners, who felt my Englishness and Labour Party support warranted and justified bullying and abusive behaviour.

This powerful article provides an insight into a claustrophobic, awkward and defensive affiliation of disparate groups, of ontological insecurity, tempered with blind faith, psychic spit and glue, and a sprinkling of sugared silence, balanced only with negative campaigning and black propaganda.