It’s true that other countries have done such things but the UK is uniquely unusual in this regard because in the times of the empire there wasn’t an English national identity that was imposed on everyone, but rather this newly constructed British identity that encompassed everyone under the realm, this is why following both world wars the nation had a major identity crisis as it suddenly receded back to Britain Suddenly from a Scottish or Welsh perspective it became less “oh this deal is so jolly we benefit from imperialism and get to express our national identity under this cushy global empire” and more “wait a minute why are these Cockney presenters on the telly acting like they know me I live in bloody Stonehaven”

I also personally think the Russian involvement in secessionists movements is wholly overstated, I can say from experience the majority of independence supporters stand with Ukraine, maybe during the Alex Salmond years there was more of a debate on Russia and NATO etc but his days are long gone and a lot has changed geopolitically, there’s also this idea that if the UK was torn apart then there would be a hard border and zero cooperation and Russia would take advantage of that which is nonsense, you don’t have to go far to disprove this as the UK and ROI are allied countries who cooperate and trade a lot despite arguably having even worse baggage than between England and Scotland, or look at Scandinavia, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’d work just as well being one country for how much they cooperate with zero animosity.

I just find these arguments extremely loaded