Jim Sillars: Ex-SNP deputy leader says Sturgeon damaged indy movement

Mr Sillars said Ms Sturgeon had as a consequence stacked up a "catalogue of failures" from the failing lifeline ferry fleet, to poor education standards and a National Health Services that "isn't working".

He said: "I think Nicola is paying the price of serious strategic mistakes. Ever since the Brexit vote, she has wasted six years in trying to get a referendum and wasting the party's energy in trying to get to a referendum that was never possible. And of course there are also a catalogue of failures. People have mentioned it from the ferries to education to the National Health Service.

"I mean the two ferries which still haven't sailed are costing more now than it took to build the Scottish Parliament's new building.

Nicola is now history. My concern is what the party does. And I hope the lesson the party has learned from the Sturgeon years is the cult of personality is damaging to policymaking and always ends in tears.

"And I hope whoever becomes the next leader of the party will not fall into the same trap as the Salmond/Sturgeon era did in creating the cult of personality, which means that you don't listen to critical voices. And if you don't listen to critical voices, you make strategic errors. And that's what's happened with Nicola."

The late SNP stalwart Margo MacDonald from 1977

Mr Sillars, who before joining the SNP served as a Labour Party MP for South Ayrshire from 1970 to 1976 and founded and led the pro-Scottish Home Rule Scottish Labour Party in 1976, said none of Ms Sturgeon's current cabinet should be considered for the position of First Ministers.

"They are the acolytes that have gathered around the cult of leadership. So I think hopefully it will be a new generation coming through, which has learned the lesson of the Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon years, that you open up to people who don't agree with you, because very often, they can be right and you could be wrong. That's a lesson that Nicola never learned and that's one of the reasons why the mistakes were made.

"For example, a first year law student knew that there was no point going to the Supreme Court on the question of a referendum, because all you needed was to read the Scotland Act and see there was no case they argue. But time has been wasted. [We should be] doing policy work of the kind that can explain to people what you can do, if you're independent and you have full sovereignty over a whole range of policies.

"We have about 30% of the people of Glasgow living in poverty. We've got 25% of Scottish children living in poverty. Think what that does to their educational potentiality. We've got a national health service that is not working. We've got an education service that everybody knows is actually failing the generations to come. These are the priorities. Instead of that we went down a cul-de-sac for a referendum. This has been a tragedy for the Scottish independence movement. And I hope the next leader has learned the lessons."

Mr Sillars, who joined the Scottish National Party in 1980 and later served as MP for Glasgow Govan after winning a by-election in 1988, and was deputy leader between September 22, 1991 and September 25, 1992, said Ms Sturgeon presided over "a whole series of failures" and yet it appeared to have "no effect upon the public's perception of the Sturgeon government".

And he believed the gender recognition bill was the trigger for an awakening of some within Scotland.

The First Minister continued to defend the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill passed by MSPs in December, despite growing disquiet in her own ranks.

The shake-up would reduce the age limit for formally changing gender to 16 and remove the need for a medical diagnosis.

Ms Sturgeon has said she still intends to challenge the UK Government's use of Section 35 to block the law.

She was repeatedly challenged at a press conference last week on whether she regards trans rapist Isla Bryson as a woman.

Ms Bryson was initially sent to a women's prison before being transferred to the male estate following an outcry.

Mr Sillars said: "We got the gender recognition bill and suddenly the public who have been really ignoring it, during its passage, woke up to the full realisation of what this meant.

"So I think the gender situation has been the trigger where people are beginning to see the whole picture of the failures of the Sturgeon government.= And I think that's been reflected in the most recent opinion polls with a dramatic loss for independence.".

He added to Sky News: "You know, a number of people have said to me over the last six months, I am from independence, I would vote yes, but I don't want an independent government or an independent Scotland if this lot are in charge.

"So I think enormous damage has been done to the independence movement, and we have to have a total reset of how the party is organised how the government's organised, the relationship between the government and the party, and the relationship between the party and the people in terms of policy. We now have an opportunity to reset and if we miss it, they will miss the opportunity that I believe is there for independence over the next five or 10 years."