A LEADING European expert has denounced Tory “scaremongering” after a minister alleged an independent Scotland would need to build a “great wall of Gretna” if it joined the EU.

Dr Kirsty Hughes rubbished the comments made by Home Office minister Kevin Foster, who sought to discredit arguments for a Yes vote during a visit north of the Border.

He insisted that if the country joined the Schengen scheme, which permits free travel without passport checks between European nations, Holyrood would need to establish a hard border with England.

The immigration minister also challenged Nicola Sturgeon’s party to “start being upfront about the impact of some of their policies”.

Speaking to journalists during his visit to Linlithgow, West Lothian, and other parts of the country, Foster said: “If they wanted Scotland to join Schengen that does mean a hard border, it means building a great wall of Gretna.”

That claim sparked accusations of hypocrisy from Hughes, former director of the Scottish Centre on European Research.

She told The National: “It’s simply scaremongering to talk about ‘great walls’ between England and Scotland.

“Brexit has certainly put trade barriers between Britain and the EU which add costs and bureaucracy but while Brexit has damaged trade, there still is EU-UK trade, there’s no ‘great wall’ between England and France or the Netherlands.

“There is also hypocrisy here which needs calling out: putting barriers between Britain and the EU – and barriers within the UK between Britain and Northern Ireland – is what Brexit did. Unlike Brexit, an independent Scotland would be independent in the EU – ie re-joining an almost half billion person market, not retreating into third country isolationism like the UK.”

The National: European expert Dr Kirsty Hughes European expert Dr Kirsty Hughes

READ MORE: Scotland would need 'great wall of Gretna' after independence, Tory minister claims

Hughes added: “This is a counter-productive ramping up of Tory rhetoric when even this Tory government, that claims it didn't know what it signed up to in the Northern Ireland Protocol, knows that Ireland is an EU member state but not in the Schengen zone as it's in the Ireland-UK common travel area, as doubtless Scotland would be too on independence.”

Foster also attacked the SNP, urging the party to "start being upfront about the impact of some of their policies".

Rather than "debating the philosophical future" of the country with another independence referendum, the Tory minister claimed the SNP should be "getting on with the day job" of dealing with coronavirus and the recovery from the pandemic.

An SNP spokesperson replied: “People in Scotland are fed up with Tory ministers coming here on day trips spouting nonsense as part of their anti-democratic campaign to tighten Westminster control over Scotland.

“Just like Ireland, people in an independent Scotland as part of the EU would have the huge advantage of being able to move freely across the British Isles as well as the EU – instead of being subject to Boris Johnson’s disastrous hard Brexit.

“It is the Tories with their anti-European obsession who are building borders. As an independent EU member Scotland would be in the world’s biggest single market which is seven times the size of the UK offering massive economic opportunity.”

SNP MSP Fiona Hyslop, who represents Linlithgow, also hit back on social media.

She posted: "Surprised a UK minister hasn’t heard about the Common Travel Area or indeed wouldn’t want that.

"Had I known he was visiting my constituency I would have been delighted to show where the Spanish Ambassador’s House was and tell of the French influence of Mary of Guise on Scotland."