Leader warned over ‘dangerous’ populism

NICOLA Sturgeon was accused yesterday of dangerous and alienating rhetoric as she declared the independence campaign was now ‘Scotland’s democracy movement’.

The First Minister addressed several hundred supporters at a low-key rally outside the Scottish parliament hours after the Supreme Court rejected her bid to hold an independence referendum next year.

Miss Sturgeon thanked her ‘fellow supporters of Scottish democracy’ for making their voices heard ‘in support of the democracy of our nation’. She said: ‘We are here as representatives of Scotland’s independence movement, a movement that will grow in numbers with every day that passes. But today our independence movement also becomes Scotland’s democracy movement.

‘Today, it has been clarified... that the United Kingdom is not a voluntary partnership of nations. Any partnership in any walk of life that requires one party to seek the consent of another to choose its own future is not voluntary, it is not a partnership at all.

‘While today’s ruling may create temporary relief on the part of Unionist politicians and parties, they should know that the hardest questions that have been posed today are questions for them, because they are questions about the future and the basis of the United Kingdom.’

But former Scottish Labour election candidate Cat Headley said: ‘This is dangerous and alienating rhetoric straight out of a populist playbook.

‘Let us not forget there is not currently majority support in Scotland for independence or a referendum on the timetable proposed by the Scottish Government... To brand one side of this already incredibly polarised, divisive and bitter debate “supporters of Scottish democracy”, and by inference the other side “the opponents of Scottish democracy”, is insulting.’