Hmmm. The Scottish National Party appears to have had the substantial backing of the Iranian government.
At least it sure seems that way.
How do we know? Dozens of the most prominent pro-SNP X accounts that accounted for about 250,000 pro-Independence posts on X all went silent at once–on the day Israel started bombing the crap out of Iran and Iran’s internet went dark.
BREAKING: Dozens of “Scottish independence” X accounts suddenly went silent on June 12—the same day Israel began its strike on Iran, including a major cyber attack.
They’d been tweeting nonstop for months. Then, nothing.
Turns out, they may have been Iranian bots all along. pic.twitter.com/uNFKLlWF17
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) June 26, 2025
It’s almost as if Iran were interested in sowing division and social strife in a country to which tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants were streaming.
Dozens of anonymous social media accounts backing Scottish independence abruptly fell silent after Israel’s air strikes caused an internet blackout in Iran, it has been alleged.
The UK Defence Journal (UKDJ) reported that many of the accounts on X had posted hundreds of messages per week backing independence or criticising the UK.
But the posts suddenly stopped at the same time on June 13 after a major Israeli air strike campaign crippled Iran’s cyber infrastructure, causing an internet blackout that affected 95 per cent of national connectivity.
Some of the accounts included a first name and a description in their bios such as “NHS nurse” or “Glasgow socialist”, and were accompanied by a photograph of a young, attractive person.
The disclosure comes after US researchers last year identified a network of more than 80 X accounts linked to Iran that had posted more than 250,000 messages since late 2021.
It can’t be! I thought it was Russia, Russia, Russia that has been doing all the foreign interference in Western politics.
Clemson University in South Carolina estimated that the campaign accounted for at least four per cent of discourse about Scottish independence on X in early 2024, “and likely more”.
The posts were found to focus on possible economic benefits from independence, including a claim that “England is subsidised by Scotland”, and regular mentions of Brexit.
The posts also included claims that England suppresses Scotland’s “freedom”, which the search said was part of an online campaign to “undermine the United Kingdom and impact discourse there”.
The researchers found that the network was responsible for four to five times as much of the “conversation” around Scottish independence on X as the SNP, “the leading organisation (other than the Iranians) pushing for Scottish independence”.
Charles, a veteran intelligence researcher who publishes his work under a pseudonym, told the UKDJ that the posting patterns of the accounts and their “sudden synchronous silence” following the Israeli attack all pointed to one explanation.
He said: “These accounts didn’t log off, they were cut off almost certainly because their command-and-control layer, likely hosted through Iranian VPN exit nodes or proxy-managed access platforms, went down after the strike.”
You may recall that the SNP has been pursuing extremely left-wing politics, including tolerance for mass migration, and that Humza Yousaf was its Prime Minister for a year. The son of Pakistani immigrants, he often complained about how “white” Scotland is.
You can’t make this up: The Pakistani prime minister of Scotland 🏴, Hamza Yousaf, complains that there are too many white people in Scotland 🤣
pic.twitter.com/mkbzKHG9Cr— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) October 31, 2023
It has been suspected for a while that Iran was backing the SNP, but the party seemed uninterested.
All sorts of people believe in Scottish independence. That’s the claim often made by the SNP; it’s seen as natural justice, they insist, and as such is viewed by supporters everywhere.
After all, they’ve been getting hundreds of supportive messages – for the most part from attractive young people who included pictures of themselves on social media when they voiced their passion for breaking up Britain.
They listed themselves not by name but sometimes described themselves as things such as an “NHS Nurse” or a “Glasgow socialist”, often hundreds of times per week on platforms such as X, formerly Twitter.
There were no half-measures, either, in their support for independence and they were usually happy, just like the most ardent of SNP supporters, to denounce England and the English.
They said that England “suppressed Scottish freedom” and that England was subsidised by Scotland.
Just the sort of backing that the ambitious political party would crave on the route to what they’d hope was Scotland leaving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
All great stuff, eh? Except for one thing – it was all baloney, complete rubbish and the work of a foreign state that clearly hates Britain and is determined to undermine a country it obviously sees as an enemy. And, furthermore, an enemy that deserves to be attacked relentlessly.
That foreign state is Iran. The disclosure comes after US researchers last year identified a network of more than 80 X accounts linked to Iran which had posted more than 250,000 messages since late 2021.
It turns out that all those happy smiling people were Iranian bots, and when Iran lost its access to the internet, all those “people” went “poof.” Noticing this fact is, of course, a very bad thing.
It was a pity that Angus Robertson was the minister who responded to questions on the issue yesterday. He was at his pompous worst when asked by the Tories’ Murdo Fraser if his Government wasn’t concerned that its central policy objective was being backed by a terrorist state.
Instead of showing even a hint of humility, Mr Robertson warned his tormentor that he should be “careful not to smear people” who believe in Scottish independence.
What, even Iranian terrorists?
No doubt, many Scots favor independence — it’s as Scottish as haggis. A lot of SNP social media support was foreign-generated. Probably not so much that they expected their contribution to the conversation to actually result in total Scottish independence as to spread discontent and buck up anti-Western/pro-Muslim immigration sentiment.
It’s really rather funny. We keep being warned against Russian interference to promote the right wing, and keep finding interference from adversaries backing the left.
Go figure.
