HEARTS are pumping faster, shivers are running down spines and some are waking up in cold sweats, no doubt. With one week to go, it’s a full-on panic.

That seems to sum up the mood at Westminster, as MPs contemplate the once-unthinkable – that Scotland will vote ‘yes’ and kill off Great Britain as we know it.

Recriminations are already flying around over who is to blame for this calamity and resignations – including David Cameron’s - will be demanded if it happens.

Amazingly, the forgotten figure of Gordon Brown is setting the agenda, blind-siding No.10 with a rapid-fire timetable for more devolution, to tempt Scots back from the brink.

Cancelling Prime Minister’s questions laid bare the panic. But that was topped by Mr Cameron pleading with Scots not to use the referendum to “kick the effing Tories” – normally the abusive term of his opponents.

Is it the Conservatives who are more terrified, of having taken the step that ended the 300-year-old Union that they hold so dear, with those proud memories of Empire and ruling the waves?

Or is it Labour, because of the 41 MPs it will lose and the enormous blow to its chances of winning a Commons majority ever again?

For my own part – as a Welshman living in London – I wonder where the break-up of Britain will leave my home nation, so easily forgotten by England already?

But, for all the hope that Scotland votes ‘no’ next Thursday, I resent the way so many commentators appear to view a ‘yes’ as something dirty, devious and dangerous.

I keep reading that the Scots, if they embrace independence, will be somehow giving in to the dark forces of nationalism and ethnic division, as if it’s all about hating the English.

I haven’t been on the campaign trail, but it seems clear that huge numbers of ‘yes’ voters passionately believe this is the chance to create a beacon nation, better than the one they will leave behind.

After all, ours is a country scarred by being deceived into a disastrous, illegal war and one with an enormous - and growing - gap between rich and poor.

Of course, viewed from England, this seems like ungrateful rejection – but, if I lived north of the border, I would probably feel the emotional pull of independence.

After all, over 300 years, Scotland has retained its distinctive music, literature, dialects, customs, laws and Church. Why shouldn’t it also make its own political decisions?

With the Cold War a disappearing memory and England’s primary political force – the Conservatives – wiped out in Scotland, it’s obvious the ties will continue to weaken.

By now, Scots must know there will be a big economic cost to going it alone and that financial pain lies ahead once the current English subsidy is removed?

They should also know the idea of sharing sterling – even if allowed – is not true independence, because interest rates, spending and borrowing will be decided in London, with no Scottish say-so.

And yet still the ‘yes’ vote is in the ascendency, because many Scots appear to have decided that nationhood is not just simply about the impact on wallet and purse.

To me, that seems noble – not a descent into tribal nastiness – and we should respect that choice, even if we regret it.