Article by William Hague: ‘I was born Scottish and I will Never be British,” tweeted Fiona last year on X, with the hashtag “ScottishIndependence”. Jake joined in, with a picture of the saltire, urging his followers to retweet it if they are proud to be Scottish. One Ewan McGregor added to the excitement, insisting “the call for independence is no longer a dream — it’s a democratic necessity”.
But then the internet in Iran was shut down as US bombers attacked the country’s nuclear sites. Suddenly, Fiona, Jake, Ewan and dozens of other keen advocates of Scottish independence stopped posting messages. Last month, as the regime launched its murderous crackdown on peaceful protesters, the same happened again. The truth has been revealed: large numbers of social media accounts with Scottish-sounding names, all advocating the break-up of the UK, are actually Iranian bots.
The disinformation firm Cyabra reported that in May and June last year, before the internet went dark in Iran, 26 per cent of all accounts arguing for Scottish independence were fake. An earlier study by Clemson University found that 4 per cent of all X content relating to independence was linked to a single network of Iranian-backed bots, generating several times more activity than the Scottish National Party.
It is time we recognised democracy is under serious and sustained attack, not only in Ukraine by military invasion, or Hong Kong where it has been ruthlessly quashed, but across the globe…
Yet democracy doesn’t just need defending. It needs renewing. We should expect our parties to produce plans to improve accountability, speed up government and involve responsible citizens. My own list of ideas would include allowing voters to recall MPs who defect to a different party and force them to face a by-election. Having served as an MP for 26 years I cannot imagine how an elected member can look constituents in the eye after so ignoring their wishes. But that is a topical reaction to recent events. More fundamental would be the use of digital technology to speed up dramatically the processes of government. This has begun: the use of AI to analyse rapidly the thousands of responses to a consultation on abolishing Ofwat recently shows how we can use new technologies to improve decisions in a democracy.
Much more use could be made of citizens’ assemblies. Wouldn’t the debates on assisted dying have benefited from parliament convening a body of citizens giving their informed views, as Demos advocated? Or couldn’t ministers have saved themselves the endless U-turns on digital ID if they had asked such an assembly what they thought? If Ireland could sort out its abortion laws that way, many intractable issues could be tackled with the participation of voters…(More)”.
