Nicola Sturgeon has challenged whoever becomes the new Tory Prime Minister to come and debate their case against independence “any place, any time”.
The SNP leader struck back against Tory leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss after they both rejected the idea of a second referendum while appearing at a Scottish hustings in Perth on Tuesday evening.
The First Minister said: “My message to whoever is the next Prime Minister is debate on the substance. I’ll debate you any time, anywhere.
"Come and let’s have a debate, not on process, not when the denial of democracy, but on what the best future for Scotland is, and make your case and then let the Scottish people decide. That is democracy.”
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On Tuesday at the hustings Rishi Sunak told Scots Tories it would be “barmy” to hold a referendum when the cost of living crisis was the priority and Truss said she would never give powers to stage a second ballot while she was Prime Minister.
Sturgeon reacted: “In my experience, when you’re reduced, as Rishi Sunak clearly did last night, to just hurling insults then you’ve lost the argument in substance.
“If is Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss or anybody in the Conservative Party was remotely confident in the substance of their position, if they were remotely confident that they could make a positive case for the Union that a majority of people in Scotland would vote for, they wouldn’t be trying to go block the right of the people of Scotland to choose.
“The only reason they are trying to block the right to choose is that the running scared of the substance of that debate."
Truss - who describes herself as a "child of the union" due to spending part of her childhood in Paisley - challenged the Scottish Government to improve its record rather than seeking another vote.
"If I am elected as prime minister, I will not allow another independence referendum," she said to applause from the crowd at Perth Concert Hall.
The Foreign Secretary said she would "never let our family (of nations) be split up".
Rishi Sunak told Tory members at the event he "can't imagine the circumstances" in which he would allow a vote.
"We live in a union which is, of course, there by consent and by democracy and I accept that, but I just don't think that anybody thinks that now or any time in the near future is remotely the time to focus on this," he added.
Mr Sunak emphasised the need for politicians to focus on rising energy costs rather than indyref2, which he described as "barmy".
