THE next independence vote should be delayed until 2049, Ruth Davidson has insisted.

The Tory chief wants a 35-year gap between polls on splitting up the UK, putting the next one back to the year of upcoming sci-fi movie sequel Blade Runner 2049.

2 Ruth Davidson sets out vision for the future Credit: Splash News

But last night SNP bosses hit back, insisting that denying Scots a say on their future for more than three decades would be “undemocratic and unsustainable”.

Ms Davidson’s comments come amid speculation over how long it will be before Downing Street grants permission for another independence referendum.

Nicola Sturgeon said she wanted a vote by spring 2019 but bullish Tories were already known to be plotting to hold it up until after the 2021 Holyrood elections.

But Ms Davidson now believes it shouldn’t be held until 35 years after the 2014 poll — leaving voters to wait 32 years from today.

And she insists she is basing her timescale on comments made in the run-up to the last indy showdown by then First Minister Alex Salmond and Ms Sturgeon, his deputy at the time.

2 First Minister wants referendum by 2019

The Scots Conservatives leader said that when the pair signed the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012, setting out the terms of the referendum, Ms Sturgeon declared she would “respect the result”.

Ms Davidson said: “I believed her. She said it would be for a generation. We will endeavour to make sure that it is.”

When asked by The Scottish Sun on Sunday to define “generation”, she replied: “What was Alex Salmond’s definition?

“He said that between the 1979 and 2014 referendums was about a generation. That works for me.”

That indicates Ms Davidson, 38, doesn’t favour a referendum before 2049 — when she’ll turn 71.

Ms Sturgeon, 46, will celebrate her 79th birthday that year. And Nats elder statesman Mr Salmond, 62, would turn 95 on Hogmanay.

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The sequel to cult flick Blade Runner, released this October, is set in 2049. It stars Harrison Ford and Ryan Gosling.

The year also marks the start of war in Aldous Huxley’s classic sci-fi novel Brave New World.

Last night the SNP’s Deidre Brock — fighting for re-election as MP for Edinburgh North and Leith — said: “If Ruth Davidson thinks her party should spend decades denying people in Scotland their say, that would be undemocratic and unsustainable.

“And it would run the risk of public opinion turning even more sharply against the Tories.”

Nats sources insist that Mr Salmond’s definition of a “political generation” was the time between the first devolution referendum in 1979 and the second in 1997.

But even applying that 18-year timescale to Ms Davidson’s comments would still suggest no IndyRef2 until at least 2032.

The row has rumbled on since Ms Sturgeon’s announcement on March 13 of her intention to push for a second vote.

The First Minister justified her call for a re-run by saying she wants to keep Scotland in the EU after the country rejected Brexit last June by a 62-38 majority.

She wants it held between autumn 2018 and spring 2019 — before the UK quits Europe.

But it’s widely accepted the Scottish Government would need permission from Downing Street to stage a binding referendum.

And Theresa May has already slapped down Ms Sturgeon’s plan by claiming: “Now is not the time.” The Prime Minister has so far refused to say when she might allow a vote.

And now Ms Davidson has revealed her party’s upcoming General Election manifesto will spell out their opposition to a second referendum in the near future.

She also accused Ms Sturgeon of “betraying” anti-indy Remain voters who “breathed a sigh of relief” when she took over from Mr Salmond in November 2014.

The Tory boss claimed there has been a “relentless drumbeat” from the Nats for a new independence poll. She said: “Nicola was standing up in her first few weeks in the job saying, ‘I want to be a First Minister for all of Scotland.’ There was a lot more consensus — and now that has been taken away.

“There’s that sort of betrayal that she said she would do one thing and now she has done something else.”

Ms Davidson said the SNP supremo has become “at least as divisive” as her predecessor Mr Salmond.

And she mocked her pop-star-style leader’s tour in 2014 when her rallies included one in front of 12,000 party members at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro.

She joked: “Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people who still have the Nicola Sturgeon signature merchandise they bought at her sell-out Hydro gig who think she’s amazing.

“But I think a lot of people who were more ambivalent now have a stronger negative feeling than they did. And that has just happened since last June.”

Ms Davidson revealed that Downing Street won’t send a formal reply to Ms Sturgeon’s Section 30 request to stage a referendum until after the UK-wide poll on June 8.

On the prospect of IndyRef2, she added: “People should not be asked to make a decision of that magnitude when they don’t know what the options look like. We don’t know how Brexit is playing out and we don’t know what independence looks like.

“There is no indication the majority of Scots want to go back to another referendum. In fact there’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest they do not. It would be a good bet you will find some language reflecting that position in my party’s UK manifesto.”

chris.musson@the-sun.co.uk