Is Home Rule the only realistic alternative to independence for Scotland?

‘Is Home Rule the only realistic alternative to independence?’ was the question posed at a Spectator debate, sponsored by Brewin Dolphin, in Edinburgh last week. In one sense the question is redundant since, no matter how much some nationalists claim otherwise, there is no reasonable or realistic scenario in which it is possible to envisage the United Kingdom government scrapping the Scottish parliament. Some measure of Home Rule, therefore, is indeed the only realistic alternative to independence?

But what is Home Rule? As the panel agreed (not least since this has long been obvious) there is no agreed or even satisfactory definition of Home Rule. Is it, as the journalist Iain Macwhirter suggested, something similar to the parliament Ireland was promised in 1914? Well, yes, I suppose it could be even though the growth of government since Edwardian times necessarily makes dividing responsibilities in the Irish manner significantly more complicated than was the case a century ago.