With the Scottish independence referendum just a brief British summer away, the Better Together campaign still leads the polls, but so far it has been unable to pull decisively clear of Alex Salmond's nationalists. What should unionists do? There's a simple solution that would not only spike Salmond's guns but also have huge advantages for our national life: David Cameron and the other party leaders must commit themselves to moving the capital of the United Kingdom to Glasgow.

The very idea of moving the capital from London will strike some as laughable – but that is precisely the problem. No matter how many powers are promised to Holyrood, while London remains the ultimate centre of authority, Scots will rightly doubt whether the UK can ever be a partnership of equals. With Glasgow as the UK capital, however, these doubts will be answered. The move will leave the yes campaign dead in the water and help heal a 300-year-old psychic wound.

Glasgow, once the second city of a British empire that covered the world, is more than qualified to be the seat of government. It is a beautiful, cultured metropolis with a long history, shiny metro and a medieval university, which is more than London can boast. Unlike the colonial settlement of Londinium, Glasgow is also a truly British city. King Lud is a fiction; St Mungo was the real deal.

Moving the government and civil service 400 miles north will naturally occasion some grumbling – just look what happened when the BBC decamped to Salford. Westminster politicians like to proclaim the vital importance of preserving the union, but may still wonder whether it's worth the hassle of moving house. (The Queen need not budge from her palace: her weekly audience with the PM could be conducted via Skype.)

In fact, though, the move will bring many other benefits in its wake. Naturally, it will be good for Glasgow and for Scotland. The jobs and prestige that come with the role of capital will give momentum to George Osborne's much-heralded "rebalancing" of the economy. In venturing beyond the Westminster duck house, MPs will experience at first hand the infrastructure and arts provision available outside London and, given that self-interest has always proved a powerful motivator for our legislators, we may expect that regional investment will swiftly follow.

Less obviously, the move will also be good news for England. The English have a notorious habit of conflating England and the UK (never more so than during a World Cup), but the flip side is that they believe the UK parliament is really the English parliament in thin disguise. As a result, they have barely noticed that England alone of the UK nations enjoys no devolved power, making it a sitting duck for higher university tuition fees, prescription charges and the rest.

If the UK parliament had singled Scotland out for such treatment there would have been civil disorder; in England it elicits no more than a martyred sigh over morning toast. Moving the capital to Glasgow will expose this complacency for the delusion it is, and the demand for an English parliament will inevitably follow. Its ancient seat at the vacated palace of Westminster is one possible location.

The move will be good for London, too, because it will help prick the housing bubble and ease the pressure on scarce resources. Londoners will naturally be apprehensive, but London will still be a world financial hub, a major cultural centre and the UK's natural gateway to Europe. Who can doubt the capacity of Londoners to forge a bright future for themselves? After all, no one thinks less of New York for not being Washington DC.

The only people with reason to take umbrage at this change are the citizens of Edinburgh, who will find themselves outranked by their neighbours on the Clyde. This will probably exacerbate the ancient rivalry between the two cities – but, given its undoubted entertainment value, that can only be a good thing.