James Mitchell, professor of public policy at Edinburgh University, criticised the paper published last week by the First Minister, stating the vision for an independent Scotland set out would be in reality a “little Britain”.
The paper, which argues independence is the central answer to the problems facing Scotland’s “democratic deficit”, was attacked by Professor Mitchell in a piece for Holyrood magazine.
In it, he states democratic renewal in Scotland would be “easy to imagine” without independence, providing it began with a reversal of the “SNP’s centralisation” and a focus on openness and transparency.
The academic said: “Much of the argument rests on the notion that the current SNP shares with many of its opponents that the Westminster Parliament embodies the notion of unlimited sovereignty to legislate on all matters, free of any constraint from underpinning principles of international law or human rights, and now also from EU law.
“This is utterly fanciful.”
He added: “The lack of self-awareness in [rightly] criticising UK Government for hoarding power and treating devolved institutions with contempt while behaving in exactly the same way with local government is breath-taking.
The academic said he believed the SNP had moved away from the ideas of “self-government” and was now a “straightforward, one-dimensional nationalist party”.
He said: “What is on offer is not a proposal to renew democracy.
“This dismal, negative, uninspiring document suggests that the SNP would recreate a warped and discredited form of democracy, an independent Scotland that would simply be a little Britain.
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