Does the prospect of independence for the Western Cape excite you? Given the state of the rest of the country, you could be forgiven for putting your hand up. Could the ANC's unglued management of our economy one day break the union?
A poll of Western Cape residents just after the violence up north last month asked: "Do you support or oppose the idea that there should be a referendum in the Western Cape to test whether people in the province would like the Western Cape to become an independent country, separate from the rest of SA?"
The poll was conducted for the Cape Independence Advocacy Group by Victory Research, which is run by the intensely rigorous researcher and columnist Gareth van Onselen. Victory interviewed 886 people for the survey.
Not a huge sample, but I have seen headlines draw conclusions from far less. Of the people interviewed, 58% supported the idea of a referendum and almost 40% didn't.
A second question was simpler: "Now, thinking again, do you support or oppose the Western Cape becoming an independent country?" The answers narrowed - 41.6% supported the idea and 53.8% did not.
In both cases, support for a referendum and independence had grown since a similar poll last year.
And while the divide in opinion between white voters remained more or less the same, growth in support for a referendum and/or independence came almost entirely this year from coloured and black respondents.
The fact is the province is by some distance the best managed in the country, and as national unemployment numbers vanish into the stratosphere, the Western Cape manages to hold them more or less in check despite almost relentless migration into it.
It isn't going to happen in my lifetime, though. I worked as a journalist in Spain and watched both the Basque Country and Catalonia battle in different ways for their independence.
They still have neither succeeded nor seceded. In my view, both are stronger in Spain than apart from it. But supporters of independence are as passionate there as they are in Scotland, and in a small but growing band in the Western Cape.
Partly, it is an arrogance. In Barcelona, Catalans clearly feel themselves above the Castilians who rule them. The Basques can sometimes seem to believe they are from a different planet; that their very blood is unique.
Partly, though, they are both better-run and richer than the rest of the country. Some of this would apply to Scots who want to leave the UK (though as their king I am still waiting to be consulted). And tell me Capetonians don't think they're superior to just about everybody.
But just wanting to leave is obviously not enough. It's not even clear how you hold a referendum without national government approval. And economically, it's a big, big problem. What currency would the new Republic of Windy Storms use? What assets or reserves would support it? Sanlam and Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Woolworths would have to decide where to domicile and they'd be pretty bonkers to stay in the Cape and wave their customers in SA goodbye.
Recent secessionist unrest in Catalonia saw a host of big Catalan companies relocate to Madrid.
The desire in the Cape to hive off from SA is slowly growing
But don't underestimate the public. The desire in the Cape to hive off from SA is slowly growing.
You can mock it but you can't stop it, and the mix in SA of grinding poverty and rotten policy makes Cape independence a national political issue.
The Freedom Front Plus has already said it will back the campaign. It wants a new volkstaat.
For the DA, which runs the province, it's a tricky thing. It can't risk alienating provincial voters by arguing flatly against independence, but it also can't march around Gauteng in national elections making the case for it.
What the DA could do is fight harder for more autonomy for the provinces. They should be angling to run their own transport systems and not have to rely on rail agency Prasa, which is broken. Or the ports. Or Eskom. Or the police.
Our constitution's fatal error was to give all provinces the same competencies. Instead they should have to pass a means test. Can the Eastern Cape run a health service? Can the Western Cape?
As a national government, the ANC could learn a lot from the DA about service and detail and planning and maintenance. Farming powers out to provinces that have the ability to use them is how the Spanish have kept the Basques and the Catalans inside the tent.
There's no reason a confident national government could not do the same here. Western Cape independence is light years away, but the kind of rule that seeks to make it impossible probably does more to hasten it than it does the reverse.
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