A former Scottish Government minister has disclosed that he and several other SNP MSPs secretly voted for Brexit in the EU referendum and questioned why rule from Brussels would be better than being part of the UK.

Alex Neil, who served in Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond’s governments, said he had decided to vote Leave around ten days before the June 23 referendum but did not want to “rock the boat” by making his preference public at that time .

He told the Telegraph that he had since been approached by “a number” of SNP MSPs who did the same but who will not publicly contradict the First Minister’s pro-EU stance.

Among the factors Mr Neil said influenced his vote was the manner in which the EU had imposed extreme austerity on member states such as Portugal and Greece and a surge in support for Right-wing parties on the Continent.

He agreed Scotland, which has a higher deficit than Greece, could face a similar fate in the EU and warned the voting rights of smaller member states had been watered down.

The former Cabinet Health Minister also cited as a key reason for his Leave vote George Osborne’s threat of a Brexit emergency budget, in which the then-Chancellor warned he would slash public spending and increase taxes.

Mr Neil is the key mover behind a new cross-party group in Holyrood that will examine the implications of Brexit and the opportunities and dangers for Scotland.

He has previously argued that Ms Sturgeon should focus on winning “neo-independence” by using Brexit to demand a series of new powers for Holyrood and abandon her threats of a second independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon with her MSP group at the Kelpies sculpture in Falkirk credit: Getty

The former minister’s latest intervention came as the Scottish peer who wrote the EU’s Article 50 process for Brexit dismissed Ms Sturgeon’s claim Scotland could stay in the EU single market even if the rest of the UK leaves.

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, who is one of the First Minister’s official advisers on Brexit, told the BBC that he did not think this was possible but there could be different arrangements for access. He is the second of Ms Sturgeon’s hand-picked advisers to reject the proposal in the last week.

Mr Neil said his decision to back Brexit had been “very fine” and he had been “prepared to go along with the down sides of the EU” but he had been influenced by “the growth of Right wing parties in Europe and the way Greece and Portugal have been treated.”

“In the last ten days of the campaign I was persuaded and George Osborne just tipped me over with his emergency budget. I saw the scaremongering and there was no way I was going to endorse it. I was not going to vote for George Osborne and David Cameron’s scare campaign.

“There’s a number of my colleagues who have spoken to me privately who did the same. They don’t want to broadcast it. They were betwixt and between and they voted Leave.” He confirmed that the colleagues were SNP MSPs.

Mr Neil said around 400,000 of the million Scots who backed Brexit also supported independence and warned Ms Sturgeon’s prospectus of a separate Scotland leaving the UK to join the EU risked alienating them.

He said: “A proportion may not well vote for independence. Anecdotally a lot of them have hardened their position. A lot of them don’t understand why we don’t want to be run by London and would rather be run by Brussels.”

Alex Neil lambasted the EU's treatment of Greece credit: Getty

Citing the reduced influence of smaller member states and the potential ramifications for Scotland’s finances, he argued that tying Scottish independence to the EU reduces the Nationalists’ chances of winning.

Scottish Government figures show Scotland’s deficit has reached 9.5 per cent of GDP, higher than anywhere else in the EU including Greece, which is 7.2 per cent in the red. Countries wanting to join the EU are supposed to have deficits of less than three per cent.

The Airdrie and Shotts MSP also reiterated warnings that member states with their own separatist movements, such as Spain, may block Scotland joining. Mariano Rajoy, who has said Scotland has to leave with the rest of the UK, last week won a parliamentary vote to continue as Spain’s Prime Minister.

Although Holyrood has a European committee investigating Brexit, Mr Neil said it was restricted in terms of its remit and its personnel, which are appointed by the party leaders.

In contrast, he said the new cross-party group will be able to fully investigate how Scotland’s interests should be properly “promoted” after Brexit to stimulate informed debate.

The other MSPs who have founded the group are Labour’s Neil Findlay, the Tories’ Oliver Mundell, the former Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott and the Greens’ Alison Johnstone. Ms Sturgeon's official spokesman declined to comment on Mr Neil's intervention.