One of the nationalists’ favourite jibes against the Labour Party in Scotland is that they “got into bed with the enemy” when they teamed up with the Tories during the battle for Britain, otherwise known as the indyref campaign.
Committed unionists from the right and left defended the Better Together pairing of Labour and Tories (and Lib Dems, of course) because it was all for a good cause: the future of the United Kingdom.
But the SNP has made much political capital out of their cooperation ever since, and is thought to have won some Labour seats as a result.
It is no wonder then nationalist activists are apoplectic that one of their most cherished disciples has decided to work with “the enemy” for another good cause.
Kevin Pringle, the former SNP communications chief, who helped run the Yes campaign and was Alex Salmond’s right-hand man for many years, is working alongside Frank Roy, a former Labour MP and Better Together stalwart.
Together how nice to be able to use that word in this context they are toiling for the pro-EU Britain Stronger in Europe organisation. Roy is Scottish campaign director and Pringle is there for his communication skills.
It is part of Pringle’s new job for an Edinburgh lobbying firm, Charlotte Street Partners, and entirely his own business now that he is employed in the private sector. But that hasn’t stopped the carping from “Yessers” irked at his involvement in a UK role.
‘Unfortunate’
Among those who took to Twitter to complain was one Stephen Ramsay, who said Pringle’s job “seems unfortunate”. Another said it would be a big mistake if Yes voters campaigned under British banners.
Nicola Sturgeon herself has said in the past she has no plans to share a platform with David Cameron in the EU debate, although they are both on the same side in backing Britain’s continued membership.
There will be a separate SNP effort in support of the European Union, and the party has been a noisy advocate of staying in. Sturgeon has even used the scenario of a British exit as a possible trigger for a second independence referendum.
The separatists claim that Scotland is much more in favour of the EU than England, although opinion polls point to just a slight divergence in attitudes.
It suits the SNP, of course, to exaggerate the differences between the Scots and the rest of the UK because the idea of culturally, socially and politically divided nations naturally strengthens their argument for corralling us into separate states.
No divide
The reality, though, is that, accents apart, there is little to divide Britons on either side of the border.
A British Social Attitudes survey last summer found that on contentious issues such as immigration, welfare cuts, and Europe, opinion varies less between Scotland and England than between the south-west and the south-east of England.
In the same survey, Cameron’s policy to keep Britain in a Europe with fewer powers was backed by 41% of Scots and 43% of English.
Hardly ammunition for a great constitutional schism.
But as the SNP has no other grounds for demanding a fresh ballot on independence, Europe has become a handy totem of Scottish dissent.
The nationalists are secretly hopeful, no doubt, that there will be a Brexit whenever Cameron decides to hold his referendum so they can claim that Scotland has been forced out of Europe.
This is why Pringle’s new appointment is interesting, especially as he has clearly given the matter some thought.
A few months ago he wrote in a Sunday newspaper that Scottish independence would be a “harder sell” if a second independence vote was staged while the UK was in the process of leaving Europe.
Among other things, this would create extra confusion over Scotland’s currency, he suggested, for how could we share the pound and enter a currency union with a non-EU country?
And the arguments for an open trade border between Scotland and England post-independence would be weakened if one country was not in the EU.
Salmond disagreed with him, saying it would take years for the UK to extract itself from the EU, allowing plenty of time for a separate Scotland to sort out its currency and so on.
Pringle also seemed to believe back then that some nationalists might be tempted to pay “lip service” to the SNP’s campaign to stay in Europe in the hope of sparking a second independence referendum. But he insisted it was in their interests to “commit head and heart”.
That is what he’s doing and the UK campaign will benefit from his expertise.
And who knows, he might enjoy himself.
Perhaps when he has finished working to save this union he might be persuaded to help save the other one.