A FORMER SNP deputy leader has called for Nicola Sturgeon to "deprioritise" a second independence referendum and focus instead on the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

Jim Sillars said the First Minister “would be wise to place independence and a referendum more like sixth on the list of priorities for the new parliament, bringing her into line with the public’s view”.

Some 17 successive polls have given a majority in favour of Scottish independence, with two surveys putting support at a record 58%.

However, Boris Johnson has repeated ruled out handing over powers to Holyrood to hold a new vote on independence on terms agreed by the UK and Scottish Governments.

Sturgeon has said she hopes to hold indyref2 this year but Sillars suggested it should rank lower on her agenda, in line with what matters most to the Scottish people.

He said Scotland needed “a re-ordering of priorities – as we have become transfixed on independence and how to get a referendum”.

Writing in the Sunday Times, he said: "First minister Nicola Sturgeon would be wise to place independence and referendum more like sixth on the list of priorities for the new parliament, bringing her into line with the public’s view. But that is a tall order.

"Sturgeon, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford and others have wound up the independence activists to such a pitch, it would take a level of wisdom and courage so far missing to talk them down to the new reality."

Sillars said in the run up to the Holyrood elections in May that Sturgeon should place independence and a referendum sixth on the list of priorities for the new parliament.

He went on to criticise the SNP's record in government, describing it as "the epitome of incompetence" due to the Ferguson Marine ferry contract, care home and hospital deaths and the "woke-inspired Hate Crime Bill".

Sillars, who supports independence but voted leave in the Brexit referendum, says the SNP faces a dilemma as more than one million Scots, including 300,000 independence supporters, voted to leave the EU.

"Is the SNP going to fight the May election asserting a vote for independence is also a mandate to rejoin the European Union?" he added. "Will we 300,000 be expected, like sheep, to accept that the sovereignty we want to win with independence will then be surrendered to the EU?

"How will Sturgeon convince us to accept that illogicality? Does she think we have not read the Lisbon treaty? More to the point, has she read it, with its allocation to small countries such as ours of just 1.5% in qualified majority voting?"

It comes as the Prime Minister told the Andrew Marr Show that there should not be another referendum on Scottish independence until 2055.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson rules out indyref2 until 2055 saying referendums are 'not jolly'

Johnson said people in the UK had had the chance to vote twice on EU membership in 1975 and 2016 and the period between them was "right" in terms of referendums.

"Referendums in my experience, in my direct experience in this country, are not jolly events. They don't have a notably unifying force in the national mood and they should be only once in a generation," he said.