A LONG time ago, when the first independence referendum was still a year or so away, I came up with a daft feature idea for The Herald.

This was back when the tabloids were first discovering “cybernats”, the troubled and troubling fringe of online independence supporters.

There were several stories about these poor, unhappy souls, not least because the less savvy of their number had abused the kind of people who buy ink by the barrel. The idiots had got themselves noticed. And not in a good way.

It’s not fair, they retorted, the other lot are just as bad. And so they were. The early “cyberyoons” – though that term had still to take off – had chosen different, softer targets, mostly independence supporters, and consequently did not get the same publicity. But, boy, could they get nasty too.

Alex Salmond’s Putin apologism is not just a Scottish problem

My crazy scheme? To get the two sides together for coffee and scones. The editor of this very section of the paper agreed to foot the bill and I set about asking internet men to tea.

Quite a few were keen on free pastries. But only if the other side did not come. The scones were cancelled. I had not expected hugs and kisses all round as internet zealots discovered their common humanity but I did think a few folk would find a way to be civil. It was not to be.

This wee episode, I suppose, illustrates our traditional, stereotypical understanding of Scottish constitutional politics: of a linear continuum with hardcore independence supporters at one end and diehard British loyalists at the other. And never the twain shall meet.

But things are changing. The most passionate supporters of Scottish or British nationalism may have had different flags, but they were very often similar types. They always had common characteristics; now they are finding common causes too. This includes support for the conspiracy theory that Alex Salmond was framed, which I think is Scotland’s version of Donald Trump’s lies about a stolen election, our most recent national disinformation event.

I think this means there is another way of looking at our political continuum, bending each end of the line until the two extremes meet, or nearly do.

This is the indy-union version of what politologists, sometimes controversially, call the horseshoe theory.

Usually this refers to the fringes of left and right coalescing around the same issues. Think of a supposedly “anti-imperialist” Brooklyn lefty appearing on a Trumpy US TV talk show to defend a corrupt oppressive strongman in the Middle East. It ain’t pretty; but it happens.

A quick health warning: in Scotland, things are not so straightforward. Our politics is three dimensional. Aside from our indy-union axis we can plot people across left and right, and from social conservative to liberal. Inevitably, and perfectly healthily, we can expect people with diametrically opposed views on the constitution to agree on, say, the re-distribution of wealth or same-sex marriage.

The most radical, sometimes the most extreme voices, of Yes and No are still “very online”, and heavily in thrall to a small number of shockjock bloggers. Sometimes they are chummy.

This week, Craig Murray, a former diplomat awaiting sentencing after being found in contempt of court in his blogs on the Salmond trial, even urged pro-UK followers to vote for “George Galloway and his party”, the list-only All for Unity. “Let us have unionists with at least something to say, rather than the current numpties,” tweeted Mr Murray, who supports Mr Salmond’s party, Alba.

Mr Galloway has been a strong supporter of claims Mr Salmond was the victim of a plot, a contention for which there has never been any actual evidence. The former first minister – in case anybody has forgotten – was acquitted of sex charges a year ago.

Both Mr Salmond and Mr Galloway have day jobs as hosts on Vladimir Putin’s primary international state media outlet, the TV station RT.

And here too their supporters have ended up singing from the same song sheet, as they defended the similar choices by their heroes to take money from an authoritarian regime.

Mr Galloway and Mr Salmond and their respective parties look like they are flopping in the polls for next month’s Holyrood elections.

Yessers, it seems, are largely sticking with the established SNP and the Greens and unionists mostly support mainstream UK-wide parties Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Of course, there is a still a month to go.

But there is one wider narrative within both unionism and nationalism which might be argued shows our politics is forming a horseshoe. It is “media bias”.

There is a wide belief now among some of those campaigning for and against independence that the dreaded MSM, mainstream media in the social media abbreviation, is for the other side, whatever that is.

Just the other night Mr Galloway, unhappy with a line of questioning on BBC Scotland’s Nine programme about his political journey to British unionism, snapped at an interviewer. “I believe in Britain and the unity of Britain,” he told the programme’s Martin Geissler. “You, who get your wages from Britain, are doing daily everything you can to destroy Britain.”

I suppose you could argue that Mr Geissler was asking about Mr Galloway’s own horseshoe politics, how a one-time socialist firebrand supporter of a united Ireland and Scottish self-determination ended up standing alongside conservative unionists. Unfortunately, Mr Galloway chose to allege bias rather than answer that fascinating question.

How you say ‘Alba’ matters

Inside the BBC, and the news industry in general, journalists tend to joke that if we are being accused of bias by all sides, we are doing something right. That is not really true, alas. Bias claims are almost entirely unrelated to what we print or broadcast, whether it is right or wrong, good or bad.

It is a nearly a decade or so since I, in vain, sent out my invitations to coffee and scones. Some of these men – and they are mostly men – are still about. I think some of them would happily now sip a tea and share stories with their ostensible opponents about how much they hate Nicola Sturgeon or the BBC. But I doubt they would want a reporter there to watch.

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