Prime Minister Tony Abbott has declared war on Scotland. On the front page of the Times no less.

In an interview with that great London paper – covering everything from Israel to why Australians wear those funny hats with corks hanging down – Mr. Abbott was asked for his sage advice as the vote for Scottish independence draws nearer.

“As a friend of Britain, as an observer from afar, it’s hard to see how the world would be helped by an independent Scotland,” he said. Fair enough, you’d think. Obama, Merkel and a whole host of other world leaders have also said the break-up of the United Kingdom would be a great shame.

But few have seen the potential horror the way Abbott has or the threat to democracy as we know it.

“I think that the people who would like to see the break-up of the United Kingdom are not the friends of justice, the friends of freedom, and the countries that would cheer at the prospect … are not the countries whose company one would like to keep.”

Justice, freedom; that’s what’s at stake here, apparently. To think the Scots and the English have been arguing about the currency union and the BBC. When really, it is the very humanity of the Scots at stake.

That tartan tyrant, First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond replied with disgust. “Tony Abbott has a reputation for gaffes,” he said. DFAT officials – trained in Scottish dialect – have translated that as, “I’ll get you, my pretty and your little wallaby too.”

The threat an independent Scotland poses to freedom is obvious. They have one Tory MP in Westminster and a devolved parliament in Edinburgh dominated by two left-wing parties. Scotland could become our worst nightmare: the land of the loony left.

With unionists in Glasgow and latte-sippers in Edinburgh, how could it not? The Scottish National Party have declared an interest in memorialising crazy left-wing ideas like equality for women and nuclear bans in any Scottish constitution.

The world sees an independent Scotland with a struggling economy and an England with increasingly diminished power. Tony Abbott sees a proud nation at threat from the Scottish soft left. A place where Sarah Hanson-Young’s multiply like gremlins.

Now Abbott has been one of the better foreign policy leaders we’ve seen in Australia for a while. He spoke for us all in the aftermath of MH17 and stood up to Vladimir Putin. He secured trade deals with Japan and South Korea and has faced down any threat of Islamic State seeking to export its barbaric ideology.

He’s also been blessed with Julie Bishop, a superb foreign minister (her thoughts on the Scottish threat are as yet unknown).

So, with all these achievements, it’s a bit odd that Scottish independence is something Tony Abbott wanted to sink his teeth into.

In many ways, it speaks to his character. Foreign affairs suits Abbott because it speaks to the ideological fights he was trained for by Bob Santamaria. Scottish independence is about identity and nationhood and the past – the very essence of who we are. These big ideas are Abbott’s strong suit and it does him credit that he’s not afraid to think big.

It’s just that in this instance he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Nobody has ever suggested independence would be a threat to freedom – in fact a Scottish conservative movement free of the spectre of England would probably come into its own at last.

As Abbott will learn, it’s a Scots’ nature when told not to do something, to proceed to do it with a smile and a middle finger raised in salute. Back home, the Scottish-Australian population is significant and he really can’t afford to bother us right now with all the other troubles he’s got.

The only explanation, as they say in Scotland, is that Tony Abbott has eaten too many blue Smarties. He’s a great foreign policy leader and he’s earned the respect of the world. But perhaps it’s time for him to go have a good lie-down back home for a while.