Just as there were optimists and pessimists at the time of the Anglo-Scottish Union about the economic prospects facing Scotland as it was swallowed up in the larger entity of the new United Kingdom, so there were prophets of a miracle and predicters of disaster about the fate of Great Britain in the European Community, or Common Market as it was commonly called. On both occasions the Cassandras could have the cold comfort of saying ‘we told you so’, for there was no immediate boost to the Scottish economy following the Union, or to the British economy after entry into Europe. Indeed there were Scots after 1707, and Britons after 1973, who argued that their absorption into a wider community had been disastrous, and that it would be better to retreat from the commitment, reasserting Scottish or British independence. All that the advocates of surrendering sovereignty could urge, on both occasions, was that the alternatives would be even worse.

In the short run the benefits of the Union were perhaps outweighed by the disadvantages. But, until the late twentieth century at least, in the long run most Scots came to accept that they were better off as North Britons than they would have been had they remained independent. It is too early yet for Britons to make the same assessment of their involvement with Europe. The issues it provokes are too emotive and pressing for a dispassionate appraisal to be made.