In 1990 Kenichi Ohmae, a management consultant, published a book called The Borderless World, whose title captured the spirit of globalisation. Over the next almost 25 years developments in business, finance, technology and politics seemed to confirm the inexorable decline of borders and the nation states they protected.
No international affairs conference was complete without somebody remarking that the world’s most important problems could no longer be tackled by nations acting alone. The emergence of the internet bolstered the idea that borders no longer matter. In a borderless world of bits and bytes the traditional concerns of nations – territory, identity and sovereignty – looked as anachronistic as swords and shields.
But somebody seems to have forgotten to tell politicians and voters that states, borders and national identity no longer matter. Last week 45 per cent of Scots voted in favour of setting up a nation independent from the UK. The referendum was watched eagerly by separatist movements in Catalonia, Tibet, Quebec and elsewhere.