VETERAN independence campaigner Jim Sillars has accused the SNP of “manufacturing grievance” and risking a future Yes vote with “sloppy thinking”.

Sillars, a former deputy leader of the party, accused the SNP of having “an obsession with Brexit” that was playing “into the hands of the Tories.”

An SNP spokesman said Sillars, who campaigned for a leave vote, was “completely wrong”.

Writing in yesterday’s Daily Record, Sillars, said talk of “torpedoing” the Great Repeal Bill was “fantasy”

“Since no rational Scottish Government can believe their own propaganda on stopping Brexit, what is really behind this exercise?

“I suspect it is to engender feelings of anger in Scotland that we’re being ignored and not treated as an equal in this United Kingdom, with a resultant surge in Scottish patriotism, a steep rise in support for independence, thus producing new compelling evidence of justification for a second referendum.”

He added: “The SNP Scottish Government now risk damaging the movement which they claim to lead, and that movement is compounding the damage by their docile, uncritical acceptance of whatever the First Minister says. Intellectual rigour is missing, sloppy thinking has become the norm.”

An SNP spokesman said: “Jim Sillars’s assertions are completely wrong on several counts. Firstly, the SNP Government has not claimed it could block the Brexit Bill - but we have made clear we would not vote for legislation which stripped powers away from Holyrood.

“Secondly, a majority of people in Scotland believe Holyrood should have the right to decide on an independence referendum - and that Theresa May is wrong to try and block it.

“Despite being an architect of the Independence in Europe policy, Mr Sillars is a longstanding and outspoken critic of the EU, and he is entitled to his views.

“But Scotland voted decisively, by a 24-point margin, to remain in Europe”.