Brian Cox’s view that Scots will inevitably back independence because they are fundamentally different from the English has been described as “ill informed, wrong and dangerous”.
The actor, who was born in Dundee, said Scotland must break free from the “manacles” of the United Kingdom.
Cox told The Economist podcast that the Scottish independence campaign will “gradually move forward but I think it’s inevitable”.
He said: “Decisions have always been made on our behalf. I embrace Scottish independence because social democracy at the time in the UK was failing miserably.”
Cox said that the SNP “was a joke 30 or 40 years ago but it has emerged as a social democratic party”.
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He said: “I think Nicola Sturgeon is extraordinary.
“She does an amazing job and she has had a tough time recently at home because the Scots are very difficult when they get together.
“Scotland suffered so much from Thatcherism and the closing down of industry and it has been really hard.
“Also, we are very different. Scots are very different. We are Celts, we have a different sensibility, we have different cultural roots. We are not the same as the south.”
Pamela Nash, chief executive of Scotland in Union, which campaigns to maintain the United Kingdom, said: “Brian Cox is a fine actor and a great Scottish export. But to claim that there is a fundamental difference between Scottish people and English people is ill informed, wrong and dangerous.”
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Cox, 75, said that he was an “anglophile” and would have some regrets if the UK broke up but added that Scotland had become a beacon of “egalitarianism” that had been eroded in England and the US, where he has lived for almost 30 years.
“Scotland has moved from tribalism to a form of egalitarianism and the potential for Scotland is enormous but we have got the manacles round our ankles,” he said.
Cox also pointed out that working-class students were now priced out of the acting profession.
The actor plays the tyrannical media baron Logan Roy in the HBO drama Succession, now in its third series.
