Nicola Sturgeon has been accused of double standards by reassuring immigrants from other EU countries they are welcome in Scotland after the Brexit vote but creating a “cold house” for those from the rest of the UK.

The First Minister and her Cabinet held a special public meeting in Edinburgh for EU nationals from other countries at which she said she was heartbroken at the predicament facing families who are unsure whether they will be allowed to stay in the UK.

She said they had a “right to certainty and peace of mind” but a Northern Irish academic took her to task for “misrepresenting my Remain vote to further yet more separatism” and arguing that “my homeland (the UK) is the one country on earth that she wishes to distance herself” from.

Patrick Harkness, an engineer at the University of Glasgow, told the SNP leader that her rhetoric around a second independence referendum was making him feel unwelcome in Scotland as a Yes vote would mean he would not be a citizen in the country where he lives.

In an outspoken intervention that won applause, he claimed that her MSPs were allowed to openly discuss how much they hate the English and questioned when she planned to stage a similar event for people from the rest of the UK.