THE man behind ‘The Vow’, the cross-party pledge of greater devolution credited with securing the No vote in 2014, has come out in support of independence.

Former Daily Record editor Murray Foote, who organised the paper’s famous front page on the eve of the referendum, said he could no longer put up with Tory contempt for devolution.

Mr Foote, 51, whose media savvy would be invaluable to a future Yes campaign, also offered to “strap on my work boots” if there was another referendum.

Peter Murrell, the chief executive of the SNP and husband of Nicola Sturgeon, hailed the conversion as “big and very welcome news”.

Former First Minister Alex Salmond said the Vow cost the Yes campaign victory in 29014, although pollsters disagree.

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In a column for the Times, Mr Foote, who left the Daily Record in March, said devolution had brought the biggest political change of his lifetime.

However it was not enough for Holyrood merely to “mitigate the excesses of Westminster”.

He said: “We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to be far more progressive, dynamic, ambitious.”

He said he orchestrated the Vow - corralling David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg to offer Holyrood more powers to avoid a Yes vote - because he believe most Scots wanted it.

However the country continued "to labour under a vindictive Westminster administration” with Brexit offering “despair” instead of the hope and promise devolution was meant to bring.

He singled out the 15 minutes for devolved issues in Tuesday’s Commons debate on Brexit law as evidence of a Tory government treating devolution with “blatant contempt”.

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He said it was a “democratic abomination” that one Tory minister hogged the speaking time.

“I can no longer stand by while a cabal of the privileged deprive our children the right to live in 27 European countries because they don’t like Johnnie Foreigner encroaching their elite club,” he said.

“I can’t remain silent as May, Davis, Rees-Mogg, Johnson and Gove undermine the stability of a continent that has largely been at peace for 70 years.”

He said the Tories only governed for their own class, while Labour was letting down its own people over Brexit and needed to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn.

Nor was he going to wait for the Liberal Democrat “unicorn” of a “mythical federal Britain.”

Therefore “independence it must be,” he concluded.

He said an independent Scotland would face financial challenges, difficult decisions and sacrifices, “but what troubles me more is the prospect of bequeathing to my daughters an isolated Britain governed indefinitely by the progeny of Rees-Mogg and their ilk.”

Under Mr Foote, the Record backed a second referendum in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Brexit vote.

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Green MSP Ross Greer said: "The former Daily Record editor sums up the frustrations of many people in Scotland perfectly.

"Murray Foote’s assertion that the ‘independence stars are ever nearer alignment’ is right but with the SNP saddled with eleven years of government baggage, a strong contingent of Green MSPs will be critical in ensuring a majority for both independence and a referendum in the years ahead."