‘Well, hello, United Kingdom. How nice it is finally to have your attention.” If the Scottish referendum could talk, that’s what it would be saying right now. It can’t talk, but it will say one word – on 19 September, after the votes are counted. Suddenly Westminster has realised that until that day, there’s no way of knowing what word the people of Scotland are going to say. Suddenly Westminster has cottoned on to the fact that it ought to have been listening all along, just a bit.

The assumption has always been that Scotland will say no to independence. Now, that assumption looks complacent. Now, Westminster is in a panic. One poll, by YouGov, has shocked unionists. It suggests that 47% of decided voters in Scotland intend to vote yes. And the underlying trend is not only for previously undecided voters to plump for independence, but for people who had at first thought they’d vote no to change their minds. The threat to the settled shape of the union is real. So there’s a lot for the whole of the UK to discuss in the run-up to the vote. And so little time.

In Scotland the discussion has been happening for ages. But the rest of the UK wasn’t paying much attention, because it thought it knew what the outcome would be. But many people in Scotland have come to a simple realisation during months of debate – maybe even the majority. That realisation is this: You’ll only be heard, only be taken notice of, if you say: “Yes”.

So the choice is not necessarily about independence, per se. It’s between being an active citizen and a passive one. It’s between having an opinion that will be heeded and having one that’s been taken for granted all along. It’s between casting a vote that matters and a vote that may as well never have been cast. The “silent majority” that politicians love so much, could turn out, in Scotland, to have dwindled away.

Now, MPs are warning of “constitutional meltdown”, something they didn’t think about when the referendum was agreed. A choice was to be offered. But there was no choice really, because it was inconceivable that Scotland would not make the choice that Westminster wanted. It’s been a while, after all, since democracy was any threat to Westminster’s settled duopoly. The referendum was a bone to be thrown to the nationalists, something to shut the buggers up for a while. But the referendum stopped being about nationalism some while back, and started being about democratic engagement.

The debate has intoxicated Scotland. Feeling involved in something BIG has intoxicated Scotland. People have seen the opportunity to seize power. It has become worthwhile to take an interest in political issues, achieve an understanding of them, discuss your own understanding with others, start formulating your own ideas.

The possibility of informed consensus, real democracy, rising up from the people, has become real. Why would Scotland turn its back on this, now that the tang of it hangs in the air? Many undecided voters, when they find themselves in the voting booth, will be asking if they want this feeling of involvement, of agency, of purpose, to end? Many will vote yes, simply because they don’t want it to end. Why would they?

The saddest thing is that what most Scots want – what I want – isn’t even on the ballot paper. I don’t want the UK to break up. It’s a unique institution in which four individual countries operate in concert, as a single state, in comradeship. It’s a beautiful thing. Or it should be.

But the democratic deficit across the UK is highly problematic, and likely to become more so. Supposedly apathetic voters often say during general election campaigns that “however you vote, you always get the government”. It didn’t occur to Westminster that this referendum could be the exception – that this vote might shatter the status quo.

Yet something strange, even sinister, has come to light during the referendum debate. It’s that pro-unionist politicians are the ones who seem least willing to change the union in order to preserve it. They scoff at the idea of a shared currency, of a single market, of a shared membership of the EU. They say that they won’t co-operate with any of that. They want only the union they’ve got, not the union they have the opportunity to create, one held together by what they have in common, yet one in which members are able to go their own way, if and when they wish to.

These people cling to this clapped-out, 300-year-old union, even though it’s clear that reform is long overdue. Weird anomalies abound. Embarrassing anomalies. Only in the UK and Iran do religious prelates automatically take a seat in the legislature, with the established church, the Church of England, by default in effect the church of the UK.

As for the downright perverse situation, in which Scottish MPs have the right to take part in votes that shape the future of England but are irrelevant to their own constituents, under devolution, what’s the plan on this glaring example of democratic deficit – to let it drift for ever? Scotland has become impatient. It wants the UK to start taking democracy seriously. If it won’t, then Scotland is perfectly capable of doing that for itself, alone.

England’s electorate is starting to see that a referendum it doesn’t have a vote in could change England for ever. This, it is generally considered, is not very fair. But the unfairness doesn’t emanate from Scotland. It emanates from a Westminster that assumes the political passivity of the UK and everyone in it.

David Cameron wasn’t too bothered about giving Scotland a vote on the future of the UK. It was easy to ignore the fact that the rest of the UK was being excluded, simply because he didn’t think it was going to come to anything. Even if Scotland doesn’t vote yes, and merely comes close, it will still have called Westminster’s bluff.

Many politicians ask sneeringly what Scotland would gain from the “independence lite” that Alex Salmond is suggesting – an independence that does not break up the UK. They miss the point for a simple, awful reason. They are unused to thinking too much about the electorate, other than at election time, so they cannot see that the revolutionary change would be in how people felt about government, how much greater a stake in government the individual would perceive herself as having. Members of the establishment see voters as giving them a mandate. They are not interested in sharing the mandate with the people who have granted it.

The Better Together campaign says: “Leave it to the big boys. It’s all too complicated for you lot to understand. Get on with your work. Look after your kids. We know best.” The Yes Scotland campaign says: “Think about how government impacts on your own life. Understand it. Reflect it back. Don’t be intimidated. Get involved. Get your workmates involved. Get your kids involved. We can work out what’s best together.” One campaign says: “Be quiet.” The other campaign says: “Speak.” Is it any wonder that yes has gained converts, while no has not?

Scotland got its referendum because it asked for it. Westminster’s been “asking for it” for a long time. It underestimated the Scots, and it underestimates the rest of the people of Britain too. Everyone in the UK can seize the initiative, as Scotland has. Start thinking about possibilities, instead of accepting stasis. Start seeking conversation, instead of putting up with pontification. Start talking. Start hoping.

Developed and sophisticated democracy can thrive in our four countries, replacing a tired old adversarial system, built for days gone by and resting on its withered laurels. Join Scotland, people of the UK, and liberate yourselves. For that, paradoxically, is the only thing that can keep us together.