I actually think that the process around Scottish independence actually demonstrates that the UK is actually relatively sane - a part of the country wanted to consider independence, the government at the time said "OK you can have a referendum", the referendum was held and Scotland voted to stay in the UK.

I was, and still am, a support of Scottish independence but I how the whole thing was handled reflects pretty well on the UK as a whole.

> I actually think that the process around Scottish independence actually demonstrates that the UK is actually relatively sane - a part of the country wanted to consider independence, the government at the time said "OK you can have a referendum", the referendum was held and Scotland voted to stay in the UK.

You cannot ignore the influence of EU membership, both to the referendum vote for Scottish independence, and post-Brexit attitudes. The Scottish independence referendum was impacted by it becoming clear that an EU membership would not be automatic nor even possible (Spain would veto); Brexit happening means that part of what motivated Scotts to remain in the UK was taken from them (they voted overwhelmingly for the UK to remain in the EU).

Then you had the insane Brexit referendum which was non-binding but considered binding, where the "leave" vote could mean any number of things, and blatant nonsense was allowed to be used as slogans (that famous Boris bus), with the government failing to communicate on what the EU is.

I guess in my world the IndyRef was in the good old days before the breaking of the world that was Brexit.

Many "remain" votes in IndyRef were predicated on the UK remaining in the EU - Brexit was specifically a bait and switch.

Talk of referendum's being "non-binding" is a red herring and a distraction.

The Scottish independence referendum was also non-binding, because that is how things work in the UK.

.. Of course there was a complication in the Scottish case as the Edinburgh Agreement (2012) was necessary to hold it, and the UK government was politically bound to honour the result - but that's the same as the UK brexit vote. All parties were politically bound to honour the result, but not legally bound.

I'll certainly give you that. We have a (reasonably!) healthy democracy in Blighty, despite our grumblings.

Though it's fair to say that had the referendum been held more recently, Russian interference would have been orders of magnitude more severe. I'm not sure what the solution is to protect against such interference. (That is, interference in the worlds democracies, not just ours).

> I'm not sure what the solution is to protect against such interference. (That is, interference in the worlds democracies, not just ours).

Do to them what they do to us. Make "FAFO" a thing again.

We once upon a time stopped supporting the Russian opposition and it cost us dearly.

As for "what can we do now" - for every attributed or even suspected action of interference by Russia, Ukraine gets handed another few billion dollars worth of ammunition. When something gets attributed to Iran, give some nice toy to Israel. When something gets attributed to China, how about some missiles for Taiwan. We don't need to engage in wars ourselves, but we can put serious impedances against their plans.

The only ones I can't think of a solution are the North Koreans because they're so isolated and have the unique advantage that for anything we do they can shoot ballistics onto South Korea.

Politics is a bit like the roads in that it depends on manners, trust, mutual respect and a sense of fair play.

That has been called the "Good Chap" theory of government:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Good_chap%22_theory

I do believe that if people have good "unofficial" unwritten/unspoken manners and customs, pretty much any official "system" can work. Conversely, if the unofficial stuff is not on point, you'll have all sorts of trouble even with a theoretically good system.

It's like "Thinking Fast and Slow". Fast, unofficial, unconscious part of decisions and actions versus the slow, official, conscious part. The unconscious is more important in many cases.

Relatively sane just says how bad it is elsewhere, as in we probably wouldn't descend into civil war.

As a fellow Scot, I watched the commentary unfold while I lived in Canada and to me the what would you call it, blatant, slant on things meant the vote would go a particular way. I think it all boiled down to the uncertainty of negotiations with Westminster. Pensioners were scared about their pensions disappearing and whatnot.

All the same, it's true that Scotland runs a deficit much the same as the rest of the UK does, relying on London generated revenue.

That seems to me a stark reality of independence, which some voters were willing to pay. Point being anyway, online algos are readily manipulating opinions and spreading false information.

> but a break up of the UK would serve Kremlin interests no end.

Like Brexit did.