Nicola Sturgeon warns Salmond he cannot 'bulldoze' his way to independence

She also raised concerns over the impact of Mr Salmond's candidacy on the women who raised complaints against him.

Speaking to journalists, Ms Sturgeon said her predecessor would be disappointed by the number of SNP defections to his party.

She said: "I suspect, knowing him as I used to, that Alex would have been probably wanting and expecting a bigger defection of elected representatives from the SNP to his new party."

Mr Salmond was dramatically unveiled as the leader of the new pro-independence Alba Party at the start of the Scottish election campaign.

With the one opinion poll carried out since the new party - which is only fielding candidates on the regional list section of the ballot - putting them on three per cent, Ms Sturgeon stressed that "we shouldn't assume that Alex Salmond is going to return MSPs to Holyrood".

She insisted she "could not envisage" working with him or his new party.

She said: "That's not about personal differences. It is firstly because what I think he is doing hinders the cause of independence rather than helps it.

"In the short term that is because I think...there is a risk that asking people to gamble with their vote actually jeopardises an SNP majority.

"But beyond that, the tone and the approach he is striking I don't think is necessarily particularly helpful to building a majority of the population behind independence."

Ms Sturgeon added: "We can't bulldoze our way to independence, we have to build support, persuade people, win trust and confidence.

"And when I listen to what is coming out of his new outfit I fear that is more likely to drive the undecided former No voters that we need to attract away from the independence cause rather than to us."

Ms Sturgeon said independence for her is "about the kind of country you're trying to build, and I don't know what their vision for that is".

She seized on supportive comments about Mr Salmond made by former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.

She added: "If it gets the Nigel Farage seal of approval, it's not necessarily a vision that I would sign up to."

Ms Sturgeon said she did not want to spend "too much time talking about a party that doesn't look, on early polling, as if it's going to get any MSPs elected".

But she said: "I think there are big questions about the appropriateness of Alex Salmond's return to public office.

"I know some of the women that made complaints against him, and I therefore know that having him putting himself forward like this is not making things easier for them.

"If you have somebody who has behaved in some ways, by his own admission, inappropriately towards women – albeit not criminally, and nobody is arguing that – who can't even seem to accept that that was inappropriate, let alone apologise for it, then I do think that does pose risks of sending entirely the wrong message to people and to women in particular."

Mr Salmond was cleared of sexual assault allegations following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh last year.

Elsewhere, Ms Sturgeon took aim at Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey, the two SNP MPs who have defected to Alba.

She said Mr MacAskill had "obviously not been that comfortable in the SNP for some time".

She added: "He should remember, though, he was elected as an MP as an SNP candidate, and perhaps these days we should probably all be clearer that when somebody moves party as an elected representative they maybe have a duty to allow the voters to decide that."

She said her "principle experience" of Mr Hanvey was having to suspend him during the 2019 election campaign amid a row over anti-Semitism.

It came as Alba said its membership has now risen to 4,100 following a "whirlwind seven days".

Founder Laurie Flynn claimed this gave the new group more members than the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

He said: "Little did I think when I founded the party the impact that it would have.

"After exactly one week since our public launch, our membership has surged past that of the Liberal Democrats, a party which has been in existence for 150 years."

The Liberal Democrats were formed in the 1980s following a partnership between the Liberal and Social Democratic parties.

Ms Sturgeon told journalists she did not think the Alba Party would meet the necessary criteria to be included in television debates, as Mr Salmond has pushed for.

His party has written to broadcast regulator Ofcom over the issue.

Asked whether he should be included in the debates, Ms Sturgeon said: "I don't get to decide who is in television debates, and nor should I."

But she added: “Looking at it objectively, in terms of the conditions I understand that have to be met, I can’t see that his party meets those conditions, but that’s a matter for the broadcasters and for Ofcom.”

Elsewhere, she vowed to serve a full five-year term if re-elected as Scotland's First Minister.