THE SNP has insisted the First Minister’s focus is “rightly” on the coronavirus pandemic after she came under attack from a prominent independence supporter who argued she was doing nothing to bring about a second referendum.

Robin McAlpine, director of the Common Weal think tank, forecast there would not be a second vote on independence within five years if Nicola Sturgeon remained in power.

The 48-year-old accused the First Minister of hiding behind her “self image” for three years, and behind Brexit for three years, to avoid talk of independence.

McAlpine claimed in his blog that, for the next five years, the First Minister “plans to hide behind Covid” and will not focus on delivering a second referendum. The activist gave the prospect of achieving independence in the next five years as “being as close as damnit to zero.”

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He added: “I’m tired of this, and much as I love the independence movement, more far-fetched schemes hatched on social media but with no chance of implementation may make you feel better, but will be as pointless over the five years to come as they were in the five that we just lived through. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s over to the loyalists now.

“Don’t tell me it’ll be different this time, that there is a secret plan, that the rise in the polls is all a result of genius, that supposed competence wins referendums, that you really, really promise to hold them to account this time, that there will be a manifesto commitment.

“I don’t believe a word of it. Set out your detailed plan now or, to quote that sentiment towards people like me who actually want independence, f*** off.”

Responding to the attack, an SNP spokesman said: “Right now the full focus of the First Minister, and the Scottish Government, is quite rightly on protecting lives and supporting Scotland’s economy.”

Sturgeon halted plans for an independence referendum this year at the outset of the pandemic.

Speaking to ITV’s Peston on Wednesday, she said she will park the independence question “for as long as it takes” to cope with the coronavirus pandemic. She said she would be “on the wrong side of public opinion pretty quickly” if she focused on the constitution instead of the pandemic, and urged her party to drop it for now.

Two recent polls have forecast that the SNP are set for a landslide majority at next year’s Holyrood election, and have put support for independence at 54%.

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However, tensions have emerged in independence movement that the First Minister has not addressed what she will do if Boris Johnson continues to reject a request for referendum powers to be transferred to Holyrood.

Johnson has repeatedly insisted he will not grant a new Section 30 order for a second vote.

Earlier this week former SNP MSP Dave Thompson announced he was retiring from the party to form his own pro-independence party, the Alliance for Independence, in a bid to win more Yes supporting seats.

A former Tory spin doctor yesterday argued the Yes movement would be undermining itself with such a development.

Andy Maciver, former director of communications for the Scottish Conservatives, said that Johnson could use any list seats won by Alliance for Independence to put up a new barrier to indyref2.

Writing in The Herald, Maciver said “a perceived manipulation of the voting system” could give the UK Government a new reason not to grant the Section 30 order request.

He claimed pressure on the PM would come from a single party’s clear manifesto commitment to an independence referendum rather than from “a muddying of the waters” from different parties’ manifestos.

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“On the face of it, AFI is a clever concept, exploiting the SNP’s strength in constituencies, peeling off the wasted SNP regional votes, and scooping up a large proportion of the 56 regional seats,” he wrote.

“There remains a debate in the Conservative Party about the granting of indyref2. The official line remains that there will not be one.

“We’ve had one, we said no, we meant it, you said “once in a lifetime” and so on and so on ... others, though, understand the long term difficulties in repeating that age-old unionist mistake of ignoring what Scottish people have expressed a clear wish for.”

But Maciver added: “A perceived manipulation of the voting system will give the UK Government an ‘out’; a muddying of waters as a result of blending different manifesto commitments will give the UK Government an ‘out’.”