NICOLA STURGEON would hand powers she is demanding from Westminster “back to Mr Juncker,” former SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars said yesterday.

Mr Sillars, a leftwinger and eurosceptic, accused his party of “acting like a fifth column for the EU.”

He said SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford’s outrage at the silencing of Scottish MPs that led to a walkout from Prime Minister’s Questions last week was “real and justified.”

The Westminster and Holyrood governments are locked in a dispute over whether powers handed back from Brussels will be immediately devolved to Holyrood or go to Westminster first.

Mr Sillars argued in the Sunday Times: “Let me be blunt. The stand-off between Holyrood and Westminster is primarily the fault of Nicola Sturgeon.

He said Ms Sturgeon could have responded by “carefully considering that the Brexit vote created a new paradigm in which the previous triangular power relationship of Holyrood-Westminster-Brussels had given way to Holyrood-Westminster, where the devolved power is, and always will be, the weaker partner.”

Instead, “she opted for a catastrophically miscalculated dual strategy — declaring for a second referendum and implacably opposing the Westminster government.”

Scotland was now in the “the ludicrous position of demanding immediate powers from [Prime Minister Theresa May] that Nicola Sturgeon promises an independent Scotland will hand back to [president of the European Commission Jean-Claude] Juncker,” he said.

Mr Blackford is expected to deploy another parliamentary procedure today to urge ministers to introduce an emergency law striking out the “power-grab amendment.”

Scottish Labour deputy leader Lesley Laird will call for fresh all-party talks “to give our country the lasting settlement Scots deserve.”

Conrad Landin is Morning Star Scotland editor.