Scottish Independence: SNP's Alex Salmond to Tell Scots to Not Be Intimidated by Westminster 'Diktats'

The Scottish National Party's leader will tell voters to not be intimidated by "diktats from on high" and that Scotland will not be a "foreign country", should it break away from the rest of the UK, when he delivers his first speech in London this year.

In excerpts from his speech, which will be delivered at a New Statesman event at Westminster in London, Salmond will hammer home the message that Scotland will not sever all social and economic ties if it becomes independent.

"Scotland will not be a foreign country after independence, any more than Ireland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales could ever be foreign countries to Scotland," Salmond will say.

"We share ties of family and friendship, trade and commerce, history and culture, which have never depended on a parliament here at Westminster, and will endure and flourish long after independence.

"Every time we hear one of these interventions, telling us there are things we can't do, it elicits a clear response in Scotland – Yes we can."

Scottish people will vote in an independence referendum on 18 September this year and will be asked the straight "yes/no" question: "Should Scotland be an independent country?"

The SNP has repeatedly promised Scots that the country will keep the sterling and will remain part of the European Union should it leave the UK.

However, over the last two months, Britain's main political parties - the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Labour - have united in a bid to demolish the SNP's promise that an independent Scotland will keep the currency.

UK Chancellor George Osborne has explicitly said that "Scotland walks away from the UK, it walks away from the pound."

SNP members have branded the comments as "bullying."

Meanwhile, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso explicitly said that "of course it will be extremely difficult to get the approval of all the other member states to have a new member coming from one member state."

"I believe it's going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible - a new member state coming out of one of our countries getting the agreement of the others," he added.

However, Salmond claimed that "no member state has suggested they would seek to block Scottish membership."

This month, an Ipsos-Mori poll revealed that over 57% of voters are against Scottish independence while only one third of voters support Scotland ending the 307-year union with England.