Chiefly since I suspect many did not realize that Independance= End of the U.K. And the SNP did their damnest to ensure that stayed that way.
Not saying you’re wrong, but how could anybody not realise independence not mean the end of the UK?
Did you not follow the independence claims. We will still be able to use the pound. We will of course keep the common travel area. And keep using the DVLA. Never mind that for that to happen the remaining UK would have to agree and there is no reason they necessarily would.
Yes it was more of a “you’ll hardly even notice”, “we’ll keep everything we like and ditch what we don’t” campaign. Not unusual politics, come to think of it.
Yes, pretty much. The SNP played down the problems of independence and played up the benefits (as they saw them). The unionists dismissed the SNP’s claimed benefits and blew up the problems to gargantuan proportions. As you say, politics as usual. But everyone realised that independence meant the end of the UK. We may be Scottish, but we’re not basically stupid.
Though the perception by unionists that you are might, in itself, be a powerful argument in favour of dissolving the union. 
[QUOTE=PaulParkhead]
We may be Scottish, but we’re not basically stupid.
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I don’t think its about stupidity. Its about the nationalists misrepresenting/being unclear as to what exactly independence entailed*. Which was not unique to Scotland, you saw that in Quebec as well. And this was pointed out in the discussions on the Dope by not just Unionists, but several foreigners. From what I recall, many seemed to think they were voting for a new constitutional order rather than separatism.
*Perhaps they wanted an ejection seat just incase the negotiations did not go as planned, which with what has happened to oil prices since then seems a possibility that might have occured.
I think there’s an intrinsic problem here. If your choice is between the status quo and some new arrangement, you always have better information about how the status quo (actually) plays out than about how the new arrangement (hypothetically) would play out. And a couple of things flow from this:
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The cautious and risk-averse will tend to favour the status quo. And a proportion of the electorate is cautious and risk-averse. This gives the status quo a built-in advantage.
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Those advocating the new arrangement have to say how they think it will play out. In the first place, if they don’t say this, they’ll be accused of being less than honest about what they are “selling” to the electorate. (“What are they keeping from us? Why are they holding back?”) In the second place, the more concretely, coherently and convincingly they can present the new arrangement, the easier it is for voters to imagine it, for a view about it, and decide they like it.
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The advantage for the advocates of change, obviously, is that they get to paint a picture that’s attractive (and “attractive” has to include “plausible” or “likely”). The disadvantage is that the electorate understands, despite what AK84 suggests, that what they are being offered is the future the advocates want, that it’s contingent, and that it’s not inevitable that the future will play as anybody hopes it will. And in case the electorate are particularly slow-witted, the advocates for the status quo will always be around to point this out.
In the present campaign the advocates for leaving are in the same situation as the Scots Nationalist were in the union referendum - they’re selling a dream. And they have the same freedom to construct a dream which is attractive. To my mind, at least some of them are not sufficiently aware that “plausible” is a necessary element of “attractive” - that an independent Scotland could remain in the EU and link its currency to the pound sterling is far more plausible than the notion that a UK outside the EU could negotiate its own trade agreements with France, Germany and Scandinavia, or that it would get a better free trade agreement out of the US than the EU will.