Their life mission may be to make London the capital of a foreign country but Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon seem to have set up shop here in recent weeks. Having failed to convince Scots of their plan for separation, they’re now trying to convince England that it’s inevitable and — despite the referendum result to the contrary — that Scotland now is a different country regardless. Go on chaps, they urge, Scotland has one foot out the door already, why not just sign the divorce papers and get it over with.

It’s a clever trick but don’t be fooled. I’m also in London today to attend the last Cabinet meeting before the election. And I want to set out a simple truth: the SNP is not Scotland and Scotland is not the SNP.

When Salmond talks of planning to hold a weak Miliband government to ransom, that doesn’t just scare people south of the border, it scares many, many Scots too.

He is simply doing what nationalists do: trying to conflate the national interest with his own narrow, ideological one and paint anyone who disagrees as unpatriotic. It’s cheap, dirty politics designed to send out the message that everyone north of the border is equally Scottish but some are more Scottish than others. The majority of people in Scotland want no truck with this version of divide-and-rule.

While Salmond may have said on The Andrew Marr Show that whoever holds the balance, holds the power — and gloated over votes yet to be cast — he would do well to remember that nationalism is (and has always been) a minority pursuit in Scotland.

The real Scotland is the Scotland that voted No to independence by a clear margin — a firm decision made despite three years of relentless campaigning by an SNP government with the Scottish Civil Service at its disposal.

It’s the one which repeated social-attitude surveys show holds similar views to the rest of the UK on difficult issues such as immigration, capping benefits and holding an EU referendum.

The real Scotland is the one where two-thirds of people think the British economy is doing well — confirmed by a recent Ashcroft poll of over 5,000 Scots. It’s the one that wishes Salmond and Sturgeon would stop the endless shuttle visits to London to talk up divisions within the UK and actually deal with the things they’re paid to address — such as sorting out our schools and hospitals.

There’s a reason why people in London and elsewhere in the British Isles bridle when senior SNP members are interviewed. It’s because nationalists — having failed to sufficiently stoke division in Scotland for separation — endeavour to annoy the rest of the country into pushing Scotland towards the exit.

So the next time you see the SNP preaching about how different Scotland is, think of its members as the away fans at a football ground. Yes, they’re noisy. Yes, their chanting can really wind you up. But they are in the minority. The real Scotland has a home support of far greater numbers and is opposed to their separation plans.

It wants what it voted for in the referendum — to be an equal partner in the UK with more decisions taken closer to home. And that’s what the majority of Londoners want, too.

Ruth Davidson MSP is Scottish Conservative leader