JOURNALIST Stephen Daisley has come under fire for calling for a new "Act of Union" to "enhance the unity of the United Kingdom". 

Writing in The Spectator, Daisley says this should include Westminster legislating in devolved areas, getting rid of the Scottish Parliament, making elections and refendums reserved matters and stop spending taxpayers' money on reserved matters.

He says these changes "would be met by the full force of hysterical self-pity and imagined oppression that the Scottish establishment can muster".

Daisley warns Scotland leaving the Union could lead to Northern Ireland and Wales to follow.

Referencing the new poll that put support for independence at 53%, he says Scotland leaving the Union would cause "indignity, if not humiliation, on the world stage".

The survey, conducted by YouGov, found 57% of people in Scotland planned to back for Sturgeon's party in May - meaning the SNP would return a record 74 MSPs - up from 63 currently.

It would mean the SNP would be the most powerful party of government since the Scottish Parliament was re-established in 1999.

READ MORE: Yes support soars as SNP set for record Holyrood majority

The poll also put Nicola Sturgeon's net approval rating at +50 while the Prime Minister lagged behind at -50. Since last year, it marked a boost of 45 points for Sturgeon and a decrease of 16 for the Tory leader.

Daisley claims this is because the FM has "benefited" from coronavirus briefings being broadcast on the BBC and that it points to "longer trends in Scottish politics".

"Scotland has tended towards a dominant-party system," he writes. 

"The Scottish Liberal party more than once took over 80 per cent of the popular vote and a century later Scottish Labour began an election-winning streak of 14 in a row. The SNP is simply this era’s dominant party."

He goes on to say that Holyrood has been "weaponised by the Nationalists as a Trojan horse against the very Union that devolution was meant to secure".

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon's approval rating soars in new YouGov survey

Daisley suggests that if Johnson says no to indyref2, Sturgeon will either take legal action or follow the Plan B route which would see next year's Holyrood vote as a proxy plebiscite on independence.

Senior figures in the independence movement, including MP Angus MacNeil and councillor Chris McEleny, back this idea but there is little support for it among the party's leadership.

There are fears that anything other than a legally watertight vote taking place will mean any referendum result is ignored by the international community. 

But Daisley says: "The UK may be heading for a Catalan-style stand-off between Holyrood and Westminster."

The article was met with intense criticism on Twitter, with National columnist Andrew Tickell calling it "a complete abomination".

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