Residents of an English town 90 miles away from London want to petition Alex Salmond for a vote in the 2014 independence referendum.

About one in five people in Corby in Northamptonshire, nicknamed "Little Scotland", is Scottish.

The town has always been proud of its Scottish links and now councillors are calling for a say in whether or not Scotland leaves the UK.

Conservative Rob McKellar has put forward a motion to the local council calling for the First Minister to give voting rights to Scots living in other parts of the UK.

Mr McKellar said he hoped the SNP leader would listen to the people of Corby, "many of whom are just as Scottish as those living north of the Border".

A decade ago the census showed 20% of people in Corby, about 10,000 in total, were Scottish.

The town first saw Scots arrive in the 1930s to work in the steelworks, with another round of arrivals in the 1980s.

It is not the first time there have been calls for Scots living in other parts of the UK, thought to number about 800,000 in total, to get a vote in the referendum.

However, the Scottish Government insists only those eligible to be on the electoral register in Scotland should be able to vote and Scottish ministers have dismissed calls to extend the right to Scots in other parts of the UK.

Councillors in Corby are due to vote on the motion just before Christmas.

Meanwhile, former Corby MP Louise Mensch was at the centre of contro- versy last night after her husband appeared to admit she stood down because she thought she was going to lose the 2015 General Election.

Mrs Mensch, who is also a best-selling novelist, said she was giving up the role to spend more time with her family.

Last year she married Peter Mensch, the manager of the rock band Metallica, who is based in New York.

In a newspaper interview he said one of the reasons they decided to base themselves in the US instead of the UK was "Louise's belief that she was only going to be an MP for three more years.

"She thought – and I wasn't going to argue with her – that she'd get killed at the next election.

"So, to her, it seemed much more short-term than my job as a manager, which is going to go on for another 20 years."

Mr Mensch later wrote on the micro blogging site Twitter: "This is why I don't do politics. Stick to music."

He added: "Just read article. Louise laughing but my enthusiasm for her seemingly greater than my recollection of the facts. What can [I] say."