Leave the Queen out of it, warns Major as Scotland panic grows

Sir John Major, the former Conservative prime minister, has warned senior Tory MPs that it would “not be a good idea” to call on the Queen to intervene to save the Union with Scotland at the llth hour.

Tory MPs have been urging David Cameron to ask the Queen to step in, according to the Daily Telegraph, since the weekend’s shock YouGov poll showed that the Yes campaign had taken the lead.

Buckingham Palace has vehemently denied reports that the Queen was itching to show her disapproval of the break-up. Yet constitutional experts reckon the Queen, whose mother was a Scot, prizes the Union dearly and, despite the Palace denials, is “horrified” at the prospect of losing Scotland.

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Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King's College London, wrote in the Telegraph yesterday that the Queen had revealed her true feelings in 1977 at her Silver Jubilee when she said: “I cannot forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Perhaps the Jubilee is a time to remind ourselves of the benefits which the Union has conferred...”

This morning, as Cameron, Miliband and Clegg headed north to beg Scots not to vote Yes – a sign of “total and utter panic”, in Alex Salmond’s words - Radio 4 Today presenter John Humphrys put it to Sir John Major that it would be understandable for the Queen to show her indignation at Scotland’s readiness (if the polls are to be believed) to vote for the break-up at next Thursday’s referendum.

But the former PM told Humphrys that the Queen's role as a constitutional monarch transcends politics. “That is why she must not step into politics. This is a political matter between the SNP and the other parties.

“The Queen is head of state and she is above politics. It would not be a good idea for the Queen to intervene. I know of no Prime Minister who would encourage her to do so.”

Sir John has good reason to know the Queen's true feelings about her role as monarch. He helped the Royal Family through the crisis at the start of the divorce between Prince Charles and Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, and was guardian to the young princes, Harry and William, when Diana died.

Sir John spent the last day of his ill-fated campaign in 1997 against Tony Blair on flying visits to the four corners of the United Kingdom fighting to stop the very break-up he now fears is about to happen. He told Humphrys he would not be getting out his soap box this time, but he has fired a warning salvo against the separatists and SNP leader Alex Salmond.

In an article for The Times, Major says: “The impact [of a Yes vote for independence] on everybody in the UK would be absolutely profound... I am not at all convinced that everyone has fully understood what the implications of this are."

Those implications, he says, are that Scotland may not gain admission to the EU (Spain, which has its own separatist problems would not want it) or Nato, while Britain's defences would suffer because of the loss of its Scottish base for the Trident nuclear deterrent. In everyday life we will feel the difference too: Scottish friends overnight will become foreigners.

Meanwhile, another former prime minister – Labour’s Gordon Brown – is doing his best to save the Union, too.

The last party political broadcast from the cross-party Better Together campaign will use Brown to make a final appeal to Scottish Labour "switch" voters who have been ignoring the calls to vote No from Ed Miliband and his team and moving over to Yes camp.

The PPB features emotive black-and-white-footage of the Jarrow jobs march and of the early days of the NHS and promotes Labour's role in introducing the minimum wage and the Scottish parliament. It ends with Brown speaking directly to the camera, saying: "I love Scotland. It's as simple as that. I'm proud of our history and of our culture."

The Queen would doubtless echo those views, if she were allowed to.

For a balanced, in-depth discussion of the historical context of the current debate about Scottish independence, read The Week's ebook, Independence for Scotland?, available now from Amazon.