What will history call the movement for Scottish independence if there is a Yes vote next September? The Czechs have already claimed "velvet revolution" and we can't just refer to our big moment as "The Campaign for an Independent Scotland". More than a few of us, of course, would like the nationalists to adopt a more aggressive attitude in rebuffing the campaign of disinformation being sewn by the unionists. The fact remains though that the Scottish revolution (and that's exactly what it is) will go down in history as the most peaceful and reasonable of modern times.

Even the velvet revolution started with the violent suppression of a student demonstration. So what will we call ours: the Enlightened revolution, perhaps, or the modern revolution, because, in future, this will become the model for all popular regime changes? You'll have had your revolution, Edinburgh matrons may in future be heard to say to signal that the subject is closed for discussion.

In recent weeks, though, several prominent commentators have expressed fears that the nature of the debate is exposing the darker side of the nation's character and that the consequences may have profoundly negative social consequences for Scotland.

During the Edinburgh book festival, the broadcaster Andrew Marr, now happily on the road to recovery following his recent illness, had this to say. "There is a very strong anti-English feeling (in Scotland), everybody knows it, there always has been," he said. "If you go back to the origins of the SNP, the origins of home rule, Anglophobia was as well entrenched then as it is now. I don't think it is particularly serious most of the time, but it can become serious, it can become toxic."

Only a person who has not been resident in Scotland for the best part of 20 years would claim that this was true. You couldn't call Marr's observations even a distortion of the truth simply because they have no basis in fact whatsoever.

More than 400,000 English people live in Scotland, making them our largest ethnic minority. Presumably most of them enjoy the experience of living and working here as you couldn't accuse them of doing so for the weather and the wages. Their voice will be welcome and crucial in the independence referendum. Dr Murray Watson, a Dundee University academic who researched the experiences of English people in Scotland, found that they thought of themselves as New Scots and that claims of anti-Englishness were grossly exaggerated.

The only manifestation of anti-Englishness comes when the English international football team is playing and, childish as that may be, it is mainly directed at semi-literate and ignorant BBC football pundits, though happily they have been all but eclipsed by their far more professional and knowledgeable rivals at Sky. There are many of us who cheer on the English cricket team every summer, even though our patience is being severely tested as the chaps with the three lions on their shirts increasingly resemble a pack of sullen and spoilt brats who can't handle their drink (but that's a discussion for another day).

Last week Sir John Elvidge, formerly Scotland's top civil servant, expressed his fear that the independence debate was beginning to get out of control. As such, he observed, this could reap a bitter social whirlwind for the nation after the referendum business is done.

We'll leave aside for the moment that when Sir John and his ilk step out of the shadows like this they remind us that Scotland's civil service and judiciary remain the most elitist and discriminatory in Europe, and that this must be one of the first tasks of an independent Scotland. The leader writer on one of Scotland's quality papers was reduced to quivering subservience when describing him.

Sir John's observations, while carrying more merit than Andrew Marr's, remain fundamentally flawed. He is correct to acknowledge that deep and profound emotions are swirling around this debate such as have never before been evident in Scotland's history. It could not have been any other way.

Thousands of people, who had rarely before felt engaged with the process by which decisions are made on their behalf, are now fully and wide awake. Several generations of these families had dreamt of a day not when they could be out from underneath the yoke of the English but when they could stand unaided and control their own destiny.

To suggest though, that this is all too heady a mix for ordinary Scots and that many of us may be unable to handle the outcome of the referendum, is condescending and patronising. "We public school chaps know how to contain our emotions when the blood is up and the sap rises" is the clear inference here. "Otherwise events are apt to get beastly, frightful and out of hand." Does Sir John envisage bands of armed militia running amok across the Scottish Highlands just because the cause of independence has been lost?

There is a subtle and pernicious motif contained within the observations of Marr and Elvidge. Perhaps, too, it is unintentional. It acknowledges that the unionist campaign will never be driven by the emotion and passion of the nationalists. Watching Alistair Darling trying to summon up some spunk for the union is like watching a bank manager extolling the charms of a fixed-rate savings account.

In the last few weeks before 18 September 2014, the Yes campaigners, who have been waiting a lifetime for this, will swamp the unionists in numbers and fervour. It will be an unequal contest where thousands of votes will change hands.

Better then to calm everything down, my dears, and not scare the horses. The more heat is taken out of the debate the better for the unionists. •Better still if we can equate heat and emotion with anti-Englishness and toxic civil strife when brother will turn against brother.

Britain has used similar tactics for 1,000 years in maintaining its anciens regimes and ensuring that no revolution has ever taken root. Faced with this revolution, how did you expect her to react?