JEANE Freeman took on former Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth during last night’s Question Time as he insisted the 2014 independence referendum was a once in a generation opportunity.

The Health Secretary was on the BBC panel alongside Forsyth, Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray, businessman Stephen Fitzpatrick, and journalist and commentator Angela Haggerty, while questions were submitted from a virtual audience based in “North East Scotland”.

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One audience member asked how, if the SNP win a majority in May on a manifesto pledging to hold a new independence referendum, the Tories can continue to ignore the growing desire to hold a vote.

In his response Forsyth, the Scottish secretary under John Major and now a Conservative peer, insisted the 2014 vote was once in a generation and it would therefore be too soon to have another.

There have now been 21 consecutive polls showing majority support for Scottish independence.

Freeman responded to Forsyth: “We were told in 2014 that if we voted to stay in the Union that meant that we would be in the European Union.

“And if we voted to leave the UK Union we’d be out of Europe. Look what’s happened! 62% of people in Scotland voted against Brexit, and now we’re out of Europe with huge bureaucracy, real damage to the economy in Scotland – and I hope we come on to that – so what we are saying is that people in Scotland have the right to choose. They have the right to choose.

“We’ll have the arguments about whether or not we are independent if people choose that they want a referendum. It’s really straight-forward and it’s a basic democratic question and no-one, actually no-one, should deny the democratic right of people in Scotland to choose if they want to have a referendum to be an independent country or not.”

During the programme the guests also discussed the quarantine measures for international travellers coming to the UK, the Salmond inquiry and the UK Government’s treatment of fishing communities following Brexit.

Earlier yesterday writer and campaigner George Monbiot also took on a Scottish Tory during the BBC’s Politics Live programme.

Monbiot told West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine MP Andrew Bowie that he was part of the “corrupt, dysfunctional Westminster government” – to which he refused to respond.

Bowie shifted in his seat and made faces as Monbiot made the case for Scottish independence, telling viewers: “Look, if I lived in Scotland I would want to get out of this chaotic, dysfunctional, corrupt Union as quickly as I could.

The National:

“The same applies to Wales, the same applies to Northern Ireland. I can’t see the point of staying in the United Kingdom or being chained to the United Kingdom like a block of concrete as the boat begins to flounder.”

After Bowie called the activist’s comments “nonsense” and promoted what he sees as strengths of the Union, Monbiot said while he finds living in England and being ruled by Westminster bad he would find it “intolerable” if he lived in Scotland.

A furious Bowie chipped in: “I happen to be speaking from Scotland, living in Scotland right now. So the idea that we’re some sort of –“

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Monbiot cut in: “Well you’re part of that. You’re a part of that corrupt, dysfunctional Westminster government, why should you not, why should you feel any differently?”

Bowie replied: “Well I’m not even going to bother responding to that.”

Monbiot’s appearance was described as “just fantastic” by SNP MP Pete Wishart.