A former SNP MP has claimed support for Scottish independence is "wafer thin" and is largely based on the "political charisma" of Nicola Sturgeon.
Veteran Nationalist George Kerevan said the party had been allowed to drift rightwards and was spending too much time trying to appease middle class voters.
He accused senior SNP figures of wanting to placate a "conservative oligarchy" in Scotland made up of "lawyers, accountants, bankers, medial consultants, kirk ministers and university professors".
"This group retains a unique, weighty, and reactionary place in Scottish society as it supplied the Quisling institutional base for managing Scotland during the long Unionist overlordship," he wrote in an essay for the left-wing Conter website.
Kerevan, a former associate editor of The Scotsman, was elected MP for East Lothian in 2015 but lost the seat two years later to Labour.
He did not stand for election in 2019 and the constituency was subsequently won back for the SNP by Kenny MacAskill.
Kerevan wrote: "The foundations of middle class support for independence are wafer thin.
"It is based solely on the political charisma of 'president' Sturgeon and the SNP leadership’s slavish support for the institutions of the EU
"This provides the professional, pro-EU Scottish middle class with the necessary assurance that the First Minister will personally protect their narrow interests both from incompetent, Little Englander Boris but also from the anti-austerity, democratic passions of the pro-indy underclass in the housing schemes."
He continued: "Even when they accept the SNP leadership is drifting rightwards, many party loyalists argue that now is not the time to “rock the boat” - especially as popular support for independence is running at record levels.
"But Sturgeon’s softly-softly tactics leave the movement impotent if the British state turns nasty – which it will.
"Worse, the sort of independent Scotland the present SNP leadership is leading us toward will only enshrine the rule of the complacent Scottish middle class and rapacious foreign multinationals, to the detriment of the working people.
"We face a choice between defeat or a new form of servitude."
Kerevan previously told a pro-independence rally outside Holyrood he SNP leadership has failed to push the independence cause on the streets of Scotland since 2017.
He was one of the speakers at a "static, distanced demo" organised by the All Under One Banner group in July.
He said: "I'm the first to congratulate our Government on how it has handled the Covid crisis.
"But I'm also worried that for the last three years - essentially since the 2017 general election - the party leadership ... has refused to campaign in the streets for independence.
"It's left the campaigning to organisations like All Under One Banner."
The Record has asked the SNP for comment.
