It makes a bit more sense when you realize that the Empire saw themselves as the continuation of the Republic (the Senate wasn't abolished until partway through A New Hope, for example), and Obi-Wan was very much a part of the Republic's leadership, being a sitting member of the Jedi Council and all.

So it's not so much a "villain accent" as it is a "Republic leadership accent", where the Empire is just a corrupted Republic.

Played by Guinness who was half Scottish and educated in Edinburgh and Mcregor who seems completely Scottish.

Do we Scots get an exemption from the "evil Brit" trope - (OK apart from Begby or Fred the Shred, but there aren't really people like that in Scotland, honest).

;-)

It doesn't matter where Alec Guinness was born, he sounded about as Scottish as the Queen. Ewan McGregor's English accent OTOH sounds fake.

I was probably thinking of Guinness as Charles I in Cromwell.