In the run-up to the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014 I lost several nights’ sleep. As an Anglo-Scot, born north of the border and educated south of it, I had never considered myself to be simply “English” or “Scottish”, but always “British”. So when, at the eleventh hour, polls suggested that Scotland might vote to leave and break up the United Kingdom, I suffered an existential crisis. I faced the prospect of losing my identity, and it distressed me very deeply.

But should that matter to anybody else? After all, the pain of having to call myself “English” is barely visible in the wide ocean of human suffering. And besides, the depth of my attachment to an identity cannot be the measure of its