So do I, really, and it’s plainly true that many of the activities of ‘civic unionists’ are not especially grounded in unionism as such. But as you say, the difficulty arises in trying to tether the two things together, since I can’t see how unionism can ever be synonymous with civism. There’s a certain irony in how the apparently unconditional commitment to the union of ‘really existing’ civic unionism contrasts with the sort of religion-based unionism espoused by the likes of Ian Paisley. As I understand it, his unionism is actually conditional on the Union maintaining a particular character, that is, if the Union were subordinated to the ‘Roman Church’, then that would be the end of that.

That said, my very badly put point here is that Checkov – who makes an admirable effort to stake out a civic position – seems to shy away from actual debates on what precisely the UK’s constitutional settlement ought to entail. The UK is obviously already quite variegated and diverse in its institutional arrangements and yet – by his own lights – it’s obviously still a Union. It’s bizarre then that, instead of exploring the merits any specific institutional change, he prefers to force the issue by making it black and white. I don’t think that rings true to Checkov’s own expressed ideals.

The point being that however one attempts to stake out a purely rational basis for a unionist position, the political effort always seems to be grounded in the a set of nationalist cultural practices (proudly displaying Union Jacks everywhere, saying ‘Her Majesty’ with solemn affection, and so on), leavened with a surprising amount of highfalutin identitarian whimsy about ‘Britishness’.