A row broke out last night after the leader of the pro-UK group Better Together compared Alex Salmond to North Korea’s dictator.
Labour MP Alistair Darling claimed the first minister was behaving like Kim Jong-il in the way he blamed the media for Ukip winning its first European Parliament seat in Scotland.
He also claimed the SNP did not represent civic nationalism and at its “heart it is blood-and-soil nationalism.”
Mr Darling’s controversial remarks were branded “pathetic, puerile and demeaning” by Mr Salmond.
They sparked fury among nationalists on social media networks.
The SNP’s director of communications Kevin Pringle said the MP must issue an apology and retract his “abusive language”.
The first minister’s former senior special advisor pointed to the fact that a few weeks ago the former chancellor said the pro and anti-independence campaigns must be conducted in a way that is a “model for the rest of the world” despite the “intensity” of the referendum debate.
Moray MP Angus Robertson said it was a “new unacceptable low” for Mr Darling to say the SNP was about “blood and soil nationalism”, a term linked to the Nazis.
Pro-independence group National Collective called on Mr Darling to apologise because the people of Scotland “deserve a debate that is open and informative, not vicious smears”.
Referring to the first minister in a magazine interview, Mr Darling said: “He said on the BBC that people voted Ukip in Scotland because English TV was being beamed into Scotland.
“This was a North Korean response.
“This is something that Kim Jong-il would say.
“And this is the same BBC for which we all pay our licence fee, and we all enjoy the national output as well as the Scottish output.”
Mr Darling challenged the SNP leader to a debate about Scotland’s future.
A spokesman for Mr Salmond, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, said: “Alistair Darling demeans himself and his colleagues in the ‘no’ campaign with these pathetic, puerile remarks for which he should now apologise.
“The debate on Scotland’s future is one that deserves far, far better than boorish and abusive personal insults, as do the people of Scotland.
“Mr Darling has called for a positive debate free from abuse – he should now aim to live up to that pledge, and stop trying to divert attention from the real issues.”