AN SNP MSP who came under fire for saying that the creation of new borders after independence would create jobs was right, campaigners have said.

Emma Harper, who represents South Scotland as a list MSP, was speaking to ITV Border when she said: “There are issues that have been brought to my attention that show that jobs can be created if a border is created.”

She added: “And again, [the SNP] want the softest of borders.”

The comments became a lightning rod for opposition politicians, with Labour’s only Scottish MP, Ian Murray, branding it “fantasy economics”.

Asked about Harper’s comments, Nicola Sturgeon said she had not seen them “directly”, adding: “Nobody in the SNP wants to see a border between Scotland and England. This is only being talked about because the UK Government has decided to ... rip Scotland out of the EU.

“I want Scotland to trade freely across the UK and to trade freely within the world’s biggest single market which is the European single market.

“It’s the Tories that are about borders, it’s the SNP about Scotland being an independent country but then operating economically and socially on the basis of equality.”

Iain Black, the co-convenor of the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC), told The National that he believed “Emma Harper is quite right”.

Black pointed to the first of the SIC’s transition papers, which deals with the issue of an independent Scotland’s borders and was written by Bill Austin, who worked as a higher executive officer in HM Customs and Excise for three decades.

The SIC convener said there were inevitably “opportunities to create new, better jobs that arise from building the state institutions needed to function as an independent country”.

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Black went on: “Controlling our own borders, and creating the necessary organisations to do so, will by very definition lead to more jobs in Scotland. More than this, as set out in Independent Scotland’s Smart Borders by Bill Austin, in some instances these jobs will be ‘revenue positive’, meaning they bring in more than they cost and will bring employment to rural communities.

“One choice set out in this report shows how we could focus on collecting lost tax, rather than a hostile immigration ‘Border Force’ approach followed by the UK. This political decision sees a far greater proportion of UK Border Force employees focused on implementing immigration policies rather than chasing down billions in lost customs and excise duty.

“Of course these jobs are not just required in any head office, but would be created across the country in our ports, along our coastline (and off it) and inland. This would bring desperately needed high paid, high skilled jobs to the Highlands and Islands and to the Emma Harper’s region, the Scottish Borders.”

Black said further employment would be created in building and servicing the coastal and inland protection vessels, in the agencies needed to coordinate revenue collection, in immigration services and in crime agencies.

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He added: "We look forward to seeing the Scottish Government’s plans and in doing so proving Emma Harper even more right."

An SNP spokesperson said previously: "The Tories are the party that put a border in the Irish Sea, and between Scotland and the European Single Market, which is seven times the size of the UK.

"It's not the SNP that is proposing borders - and as an independent member of the EU, unlike now, people would benefit from freedom of movement both with the rest of the UK and the EU.

"It is Boris Johnson's disastrous hard Brexit that will hold back recovery and as Emma Harper said we want trade between Scotland and the rest of the UK to be as seamless as possible."