Alex Salmond has launched an attack on the legitimacy of the Supreme Court after it ruled against Nicola Sturgeon's plan to hold a second referendum on independence later this year.
The former SNP leader used a speech in France today to warn the repeated refusal to allow an IndyRef2 was turning the UK into "the rogue state of Western Europe".
And he accused the Supreme Court of being "a recent and artificial political construct of largely self-appointed and totally self-interested judiciary".
Salmond, who established the Alba party in 2021, has previously criticised the Scottish Government's decision to refer its referendum case to London - branding it a gamble that had not paid off.
Judges in London were last year asked to rule on whether Holyrood had the required legal powers to hold a referendum without prior approval from Westminster.
In a unanimous decision issued in November, the court declared: "The Scottish Parliament does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence".
The result was accepted by Sturgeon, who said at the time: "While disappointed by it I respect ruling of the Supreme Court - it doesn't make law, only interprets it."
But Salmond used a speech at the L'Institut D'Études Politique De Rennes to take a different view.
He said: "This period will be seen not only as the year of three Prime Ministers and a Royal Family at war but the time when the British state fatally mortgaged its democratic credentials by denying Scotland’s rights.
"Such a state will not survive in the modern world and indeed should not survive.
"The fact that this situation has now been backed by the UK Supreme Court, a recent and artificial political construct of largely self-appointed and totally self-interested judiciary with no foundation in either Scots or indeed English law, does not alter the democratic reality.
"Nor does it auger well for the fortunes of any radical movement within the UK which comes before such an ultra conservative court, determined to uphold a antique principle of untrammelled Westminster parliamentary sovereignty, unprecedented in the modern world."
Salmond also claimed he had "faced down" David Cameron to secure the referendum in 2014.
He added: "Scotland's current political leadership should be asking serious questions of themselves as to why they have not been able as yet to overcome a British establishment so devoid of domestic authority and international support.
"In 2012 as First Minister, I faced down Prime Minister David Cameron. Ten years later why is it a problem overcoming a reduced figure such as Rishi Sunak?"
To sign up to the Daily Record Politics newsletter, click here.
