NICOLA Sturgeon has claimed that “there is an appetite” to hold an independence referendum next year despite polling showing the Scottish public do not want a vote on that timescale.

The SNP leader also admitted her "options are limited" to force the UK Government to acknowledge her strategy for independence.

The First Minister was speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning with Laura Kuenssburg in Aberdeen.

Ms Sturgeon played down her enthusiasm for her plan B to use the next UK general election as a de facto referendum on independence if a legal referendum is blocked.

Asked if she is confident her plans to hold a referendum in October next year will happen, the First Minister said: “Yes I’m confident that that can happen.

“The Supreme Court next week will consider the question of whether the Scottish Parliament has the competence to legislate for that referendum.”

She said that if the Supreme Court decides in the Scottish Government’s favour that Holyrood can legislate for a second referendum, Ms Sturgeon said: “We have the plans ready to go .”

Ms Sturgeon criticised the UK Government for continuing to “act in a deeply anti-democratic fashion”.

She added: “If the Supreme Court paves the way for a lawful referendum next year, I think the vast majority of the people of Scotland would take part in that.”

Ms Sturgeon claimed that the UK Government does not want a re-run of the 2014 vote because unionists “don’t believe they can win the substantive case”.

She said: “If you are confident in your politics, if you are confident in the case that you are making, then you don’t fear democracy, you actually relish the opportunity to put your case before the people and let the people decide.”

Pressed over opinion polls showing that despite support for independence generally matching those twho with Scotland to remain in the UK, only around one third of Scots would like a referendum to be held by the end of next year, Ms Sturgeon said: “We don’t actually have to look at the opinion polls”.

She added that her party has a “very clear manifesto commitment” to hold a referendum after securing victory in last year’s Holyrood election.

Ms Sturgeon said: “I believe there is an appetite for a referendum on independence.

“I believe very firmly if the other side of this debate really believed people in Scotland didn’t want a referendum and if they really believed that people would vote against independence, they would be the ones clamouring for a referendum just now.”

The First Minister was pressed over her plan B to treat the next UK general election as a de facto referendum on independence, despite previously warning the strategy was a “unionist trap”.

Ms Sturgeon insisted that the plan “is not my preference”, but stressed “we have to have an alternative” if “democracy is blocked” by the UK Government.

She added: “The choice is then simple – we put the case to people in a referendum or we give up on Scottish democracy.

“It should be a last resort. I don’t want to be in that position – I want to have a lawful referendum.

“If my options are limited, which obviously is the case to some extent, then that is because Scotland is in a system and we face a system that simply will not respect Scottish democracy.”

The FM stressed that this was “one of the most powerful arguments for Scotland being an independent country”, claiming the case for separation would be boosted by Scotland being “told that we are not even allowed the choice of becoming an independent country” and that the Union is “no longer a voluntary partnership of nations”.

Scottish Conservative shadow constitution secretary, Donald Cameron, said: “Nicola Sturgeon is deluding herself – and seeking to delude the Scottish people – when she says there is an appetite for another divisive referendum on her timescale.

“The polling evidence is clear and consistent – the majority of Scots, including many SNP voters, are resolutely opposed to the First Minister’s self-serving push for a vote next year.

“They recognise that it’s the wrong priority at the worst possible time. Instead, they want and expect the SNP government to focus on the cost-of-living crisis and tackling record waiting times in Scotland’s NHS.”

Scottihs LibDems leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton added: "It is hard to think of a time when the challenges facing the people of Scotland were larger, but sadly Nicola Sturgeon has proved again that the SNP-Green government is simply not interested.

"The SNP have been focussed on breaking up the UK for all of their 15 years in office. Given the record waits in A&E, people struggling to put food on the table and heat their homes, that obsession with breaking up the UK is nothing short of myopic.

"The SNP's latest wheeze of a de facto referendum at the next general election will sound ridiculous to families struggling to pay their bills. The next election will be a chance to change our country's future, not relitigate the divisions of the past as the SNP seek to do.

"Scottish Liberal Democrats would put action on the cost of living, A&E wait times and replacing our ageing ferry service first, not waste vital time and effort on breaking up the UK."