ALEX Salmond has accused Westminster politicians of regarding Scotland as their property and said there should be a "positive relationship of equals" between Scotland and England.
The First Minister claimed UK party leaders got "very upset at the idea that Scots might be impertinent enough to believe that we can run our own affairs like just about any other nation in the world".
He said the statement he will make to the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday on the details of the independence referendum consultation would rise above their "scaremongering nonsense" and set a positive tone.
Among the options in the consultation will be staging the ballot on a Saturday, lowering the voting age to 16 and adding the "devo max" question on fiscal responsibility to the straight yes-or-no to independence.
Mr Salmond, reacting to calls by Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes for an English parliament debating laws which affect only English voters, said it was "thoroughly sensible".
He told Sky News' Murnaghan programme yesterday that what was needed was "a new and better, adult, grown-up relationship of equals between Scotland and England".
He said: "We will share a monarch, we will share a currency and, under our proposals, we will share a social union, but we won't have diktats from Westminster for Scotland and we won't have Scottish MPs poking their nose into English business in the House of Commons."
Mr Salmond said there had been "a lot of rather injudicious things said by Westminster politicians about Scotland".
"I will be a lot more positive about the future of England than people like David Cameron have been hitherto about the future of Scotland."
He also dismissed claims Scottish taxpayers would be forced to fund cleaning up waste left behind if Britain's nuclear Trident submarines had to quit their Faslane base on the Clyde in a nuclear-free Scotland.
He said the claim by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond was "unreasonable".
Mr Salmond also criticised Westminster politicians for suggesting a Scottish defence force would be "some sort of gendarmerie" and asked if they would use the same terms to describe Norwegian, Danish or Swedish forces.
He added: "Of course they wouldn't. That seems to be insulting, pejorative language that they save up for Scotland."
Mr Salmond dismissed claims Scotland could be forced to abandon the pound.
He said: "Sterling is a tradable currency. You can't stop anybody using sterling, but why on earth would you want to stop Scotland using sterling?"
And he blamed the UK Government for a "silly scare story" about EU membership which claimed Spain would block an application from Scotland as it would encourage Catalonia and Basque separatists. Mr Salmond said it was another example of Whitehall trying to talk Scotland down by proxy.
The First Minister also lampooned Foreign Secretary William Hague, who was reported to have said independence would destroy the health service, and Scotch whisky would not be promoted by British embassies.
Labour MP Anas Sarwar claimed Mr Salmond was determined to keep the referendum debate about process, using it as a distraction from "the real issues about separation that are worrying Scots".
Scots Tory leader Ruth Davidson said: "If Alex Salmond is so sure of his position, then why does he not produce the evidence that backs up his assertion that Scotland would gain automatic succession to the EU?"
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