I have worked as a trade union national lay representative then union general secretary since the early 1980s. 

My responsibilities always covered the north of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England. Culturally and politically my work in England has always been harder. 

There have been more odious Tories here, more of a callous bureaucracy in government and what has felt at times a less socialist spirit. 

Nevertheless a strong sense of being part of an interdependent nation called Britain has underpinned all that we have tried to do. This has been particularly the case with regard to Wales, Scotland and England.

As secretary of the Coventry trade union council in our most industrialised city for 10 years in the ’80s and ’90s, I was struck not only by the contribution of Irish, Welsh and Scottish communities to our economic power, but also how every factory at that time was part of a national union or combine which brought workers together throughout the nation to organise collective bargaining and discuss the fortunes of manufacturing and skill and protect the wealth-creating base throughout the union.

My work over the years has been mainly to help promote three important public services — youth work, community work and play work. 

The professional development of these services has only been accelerated at times of great co-operation and co-ordination throughout Britain. The critical mass and scale of England has meant that often developments here have had a positive ripple effect throughout the country and have, paradoxically, achieved greater impact in Wales and Scotland. 

As England reversed gear over recent times, so Wales and Scotland sought to hold on more tenaciously to popular services such as these.

The icy blasts of neoliberalism do not leave fruit on the trees anywhere. To pretend you can nurture your own fruit is not only selfish, it is a myth. It is a myth that has arisen as a result of the deliberate demolition first of our integrated industrial strength, then, and as a result of this, the loss of our independence as the nation of Britain to the European Union. 

The great miners’ strike 30 years ago was at heart a struggle for the political sovereignty of Britain. It remains relevant every time an energy bill drops on our doormat from one of the foreign-owned, extortionate utility suppliers.

If a country cannot have its own nationally agreed industrial and foreign policies, control the export and import of capital, control its own agricultural and fishing industries and borders, then it cannot be independent and self-determining. 

Under the EU’s regional policies and general direction, Britain was allocated the finance sector, largely based in the London. This skewed the country geographically and politically. 

It meant privatisation, the break-up of state intervention in either industry or industrial policy, deregulation, shifting wealth from the public to the oligarchs and mass corporate tax avoidance. 

None of this benefited any part of Britain. The chasm of wealth between east London and west London is just as much of a concern as any differentials between Merthyr, Glasgow or Plymouth.

Edinburgh cannot create a safe haven from the neoliberals any more than London or Berlin can. 

Only five of the oil companies investing to increase oil production in Scotland are based here. Only 10 per cent of whisky production is Scottish-owned while 80 per cent of salmon production is owned and controlled by companies based outside Scotland. 

About a third of the financial services revenue generated by the banking sector comes from companies registered and owned in Scotland. 

Most of the modern Silicon Glen-type manufacturing in Scotland is owned by US and Japanese firms. They are usually non-union and employ women at 70 per cent of the male rates.

Many in the labour movement ignored Bevan’s old warning that the “jungle doesn’t become any better because it becomes bigger” and thought we could save these islands by putting Jacques Delors in control rather than Margaret Thatcher. 

As the EU sought to break European territories up into competing economic zones (all dominated by the manufacturing might of Germany) a new warning was also ignored — that the jungle doesn’t get any better because it gets smaller. Small units become easier to control by the larger powers. 

The chances of tackling the finance-dominated force of neoliberalism are reduced if you divide and separate parts of countries into regions and tear up collective bargaining as the EU is doing throughout the continent.

The continuing fragmentation of industrial and workforce strategies in England, Wales and Scotland shapes our country dramatically and leads to the appalling inequalities in all parts. No Scottish socialist I have ever known has ever been indifferent to the inequalities and problems faced in southern England.

A nation cannot be independent within the eurozone, within Nato and with the commanding heights of its economy in the hands of foreign powers and its economic policies determined by the mighty heists of the banks. 

We need an integrated economic policy for Britain that will rebalance the economy both geographically and in favour of manufacturing production and agriculture, regulation of the banks and a reimposition of controls on the flows of capital, goods, services and people. 

A new united Britain with a clear constitution to protect all of its inhabitants against the kind of ravages we have seen since 1979 would provide a more progressive way forward. Real independence depends on integration and shared prosperity.

Doug Nichols is general secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions.