The National:

PRECEDENT is what matters in UK politics - according to conventional wisdom. For example, Scotland got a Parliament when we voted emphatically in the 1997 referendum; and Scotland got an independence referendum when voters backed one in the 2011 election.

Yet all through this election, numerous media outlets – BBC, STV, and Sky broadcasters as well as the right-wing press – have proposed the argument that the SNP needed to win a majority of parliamentary seats to have a mandate for indyref2.

Here is one of many such voices, Iain Martin, today: “Huge day - if the SNP gets an overall majority, hard to resist referendum call post-pandemic. If they fail and fall short there won't be one.”

This is questionable terrain. Firstly, by promoting this position media commentators are reinforcing the line put forward by Boris Johnson and the Tories which is to say no to an indyref irrespective of how people vote.

Secondly, what such perspectives do is bring the problematic Westminster FPTP winner-takes-all mindset and impose it on Scotland, and the dynamics of our Scottish Parliament with its proportional representation electoral system.

READ MORE: Six terrible London media takes on the Scottish election – and three that are spot on

Then there is how the will of the Scottish people and democracy is portrayed. Pre-election, Scotland voting for a majority of pro-independence MSPs was only seen as a legitimate indication of any kind of mandate if it was entirely an SNP mandate and victory. The notion of a pro-independence majority with the Scottish Greens was somehow discounted or not seen as a mandate.

In right-wing commentary, Scottish democracy is seen as second place to Westminster. This has major consequences if it continues to remain the position of the UK Government, disrespecting voters, harming democracy and changing the basis of the Union in a way that ultimately undermines the argument for the Union.

If that were all there is about how Scotland is portrayed it would be bad enough. But there is more.

The arrival of the Scottish Parliament and a distinctive Scottish politics was a huge challenge to the London-centric media – especially right-wing voices within it. And they have consistently failed, and even at points failed to even attempt to understand, the emerging and increasing distinctive and autonomous Scotland over the past twenty years.

The National:

The SNP’s winning of power, and since then fourteen years and counting in government, has caused an incendiary, incandescent armageddon version of Scotland. This seems to think that while the shambolic and corrupt nature of Boris Johnson’s government is somehow acceptable, any problems and challenges of Scotland and the Scottish Government are portrayed in the most black and white terms.

One Whitehall source said of the so called "stay calm" strategy (as they have called their response to trying to block an indyref): “We won’t want the police hopping on a train north of the Border to arrest Nicola Sturgeon and stop the referendum.”

This will not stop anytime soon. As UK politics increasingly becomes more fragmented, and about four nations and Scottish independence remains one of the defining issues, what inevitably follows is that the London-centric media take of the UK and Scotland becomes a bigger part of the problem.

READ MORE: London journalist told to 'calm down' over hysterical indyref claims

Scotland is thus presented as a basket case - only maintained supposedly by fiscal transfers and the benevolence of Westminster. We hear calls for a Union Jack Unionism flying the flag and branding every UK Government initiative in Scotland, while Ciaran Martin, the main Downing Street negotiator in the St Andrew’s Agreement which led to the 2014 indyref, has talked of a “know-your-place Unionism" towards Scotland which dramatically changes the nature of the Union.

Desperate times lead to desperate rhetoric and interventions.

The next few years will see an oscillating political and media coverage between love-bombing and punishing Scotland. What the UK Government and its media supporters will not do is reflect on the nature of the UK, and the limited democracy and political power it lets voters have, and realise that unless it changes course fundamentally the UK will continue to fragment and become a looser, more problematic union: one where Scottish independence along with Irish reunification continue to remain live issues.