No comment on OP, but in reply to Khandro:
// all I'm saying is, if it was officially recognised by 'this government' that the Russians had rigged the Scottish referendum, I think I might have come across somewhere. //
https://docs.google.com/a/independent.gov.uk/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuZ292LnVrfGlzY3xneDo1Y2RhMGEyN2Y3NjM0OWFl
This is a link to an Intelligence and Security Committee Report detailing Russian Interference in British Politics for the last half-dozen years or so.
The relevant passage is (para. 41, p13):
"There has been credible open source commentary suggesting that Russia undertook influence campaigns in relation to the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. However, at the time [redacted]. It appears that [redacted] what some commentators have described as potentially the first post-Soviet Russian interference in a Western democratic process. We note that – almost five years on – [redacted]."
This is manifestly not the same as the 2014 Referendum being "rigged" (or the Brexit Referendum, which is also touched on in the report). It's also not the same as suggesting that the result of either, or both, Referendums would have been different if Russian interference had not been a factor. All the same, foreign interference that distorts the campaign, or promotes misinformation, etc, for the purpose of causing chaos, is clearly unwelcome.