A REFERENDUM, it would seem, is rather like a bus: you wait ages and then three turn up at once.

For, if Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon gets her way, the UK may well be heading for its third referendum in five years – after she laid down the gauntlet to the government this week by demanding a second vote on Scottish independence.

Ms Sturgeon’s Bute House announcement on Monday that she would set the wheels in motion next week for a second independence referendum to take place before Britain exits the EU, left politicians and observers of all persuasions reeling. Not least prime minister Theresa May who was thoroughly wrong-footed by Ms Sturgeon’s announcement and hastily put back her own plans for triggering Article 50 – which was widely expected to have happened yesterday.

No-one can say politics in the UK is boring at the moment – but, it’s certainly all getting a bit exhausting. Even the most fervent political animal must be appalled at the prospect of yet another divisive referendum. I feel real pity for the poor Scots, many of whom are still licking their wounds from the 2014 campaign, which was fought so bitterly and at times aggressively that many families, friendships and communities have yet to recover from the trauma.

Like some of her political colleagues on the other side of Hadrian’s Wall, Ms Sturgeon appears all too willing to go back on promises and declarations. The 2014 referendum on Scottish independence was, according to Sturgeon, a “once-in-a-generation” event. And yet here we are, less than three years later, with her demanding another bite at the separatist cherry.

Of course, secession from the UK is the raison d’etre of the Scottish Nationalist Party, a party which has shown itself in government to be the ultimate one-trick pony. The SNP, as the ruling party in Scotland, has demonstrated itself to be woefully inadequate at proper governance, as the country’s domestic performance under them illustrates across society – from education to policing and much in between.

Sturgeon and the SNP’s nationalism is visceral and divisive; the polls (if anyone can believe them these days) show there is little appetite in a referendum-weary Scotland for a third trip to the polling booths.

Economically, the case for Scottish independence is almost entirely unjustifiable. Oil prices have plummeted, leaving Scotland on earthquake-level shaky ground; and then there is the small matter of the loss of the £15bn a year Scotland receives as a fiscal transfer from Westminster. Add to that the cost of membership of the EU (which, in the event of a yes vote for separation would have to be met from the Holyrood, not Westminster, coffers) and the case for another referendum looks shakier still.

Potentially cutting itself adrift from the rest of the UK before the terms of Brexit are settled would be an act of epic recklessness by the Scottish people. This is a country with a national spending deficit that is proportionally higher than that of Greece – and yet, in the event of a vote for separation, Scotland would find itself having to apply to join the EU as an independent state, and almost certainly have to agree to adopt the euro as its currency. What could possibly go wrong?

Perhaps most concerning of all, though, is the contempt for democracy which Ms Sturgeon’s Bute House announcement demonstrates. Clearly, the Scottish voters of 2014 delivered the “wrong” result – and Ms Sturgeon and her SNP colleagues are determined to keep gnawing away at their countrymen until they toe the line and deliver the “right” result.

It is a contempt for democracy that is seen throughout the western world today, from the Lib Dems and other fervent remainers bemoaning the “flawed” result of the EU referendum and demanding the right to ignore the majority’s wishes, to the outrage in America when the electorate delivered the “wrong” result in the presidential election of November.

The “under-informed” voters need putting right and need telling what to do by “experts”, is the received wisdom by too many people. No, the people spoke – and that is an end to it. Once we allow so-called experts to overrule the will of the people we find ourselves living in a technocracy, not a democracy. The EU is a classic example of this. Perhaps it’s not so surprising after all that Ms Sturgeon, who clearly wishes to ignore the democratic choice of the Scottish people in 2014, is so desperate to yoke her country to such an undemocratic quasi-empire as the European Union.