NICOLA Sturgeon has made a direct appeal to No voters to get behind the SNP at the general election.

In a keynote speech to mark the final week of campaigning the First Minister will suggest that for Scotland’s voice to be heard and for “progressive” and “positive” policies, the Scottish electorate should back her party’s candidates.

Sturgeon is expected to say: “As I have made very clear, this election is not about independence or about another referendum.

“It is about giving Scotland real power at Westminster and about making sure that the voices of families, communities and individuals the length and breadth of Scotland – those who voted Yes and those who voted No last year – are listened to.

“Scotland can emerge from this election stronger and more united as a nation than we have ever been.”

The SNP will be hoping that the First Minister’s speech will quash Scottish Labour’s election strategy of talking up the possibility of a second referendum campaign.

Labour campaigners believe the prospect of a second referendum will scare the electorate off voting SNP. This week has seen high profile interventions by Labour shadow cabinet ministers Caroline Flint and Ed Ball, both warning that the SNP will use the election as a means of achieving independence. The party recently compiled a dossier of SNP candidates and MPs talking about the prospect of independence and have been using them on Facebook adverts. It is a message that former Prime Minister Gordon Brown is expected to re-enforce when he receives an honorary doctorate at the University of Glasgow tonight.

However, recent polls suggest that the Labour campaign message is having next to no effect. The TNS poll on Monday saw support for Labour drop two points and gave the SNP a 32-point lead.

In her speech Sturgeon will argue that her party are the outsiders and that a vote for the SNP is an alternative to the “Westminster establishment”:

“People from all parts of Scottish society and all areas of our country are now rallying to the SNP’s message of ending austerity and offering an alternative to the politics of the Westminster establishment.

“If this is how relevant Scotland can be on the strength of opinion polls alone, just imagine how much influence we can bring to bear if those polls are turned into parliamentary seats.

“We can be stronger for Scotland – and progressive for the UK. And the manifesto we published last week shows how much we can achieve.

“All of these policies can make a positive difference for people right across the UK.”

In her speech the First Minister is expected to attack the Conservative Party whose rhetoric, she will say, “suggests we have no right even to propose” the policies in the party’s manifesto.

She will add: “It is outrageous to hear representatives of the UK establishment, past and present, imply that some voices – and some votes – should be worth less than others.

“Last year, people in Scotland were told that their voices – and presumably their votes – really mattered. They were implored not to leave the UK, but instead to lead it.

“Now, when it appears that many people across Scotland are prepared to follow that advice and vote to make their voice heard, those same establishment voices rise up as one to denounce them.”

Sturgeon is also expected to criticise the intervention of John Major. The former Tory Prime Minister used a speech last week to warn that the SNP were a “clear and present danger”.

Major said the possibility of an SNP Labour partnership was “a recipe for mayhem”.

And that such a partnership would “risk a weak and unstable” government, “pushed to the left by its allies, and open to a daily dose of political blackmail.”

The former Prime Minister also suggested Sturgeon was “de-legitimising” democracy.

“I would like to know what someone who isn’t even a candidate for the House of Commons is doing talking about her party changing the policy and politics of the government of the whole of the United Kingdom. That’s what’s de-legitimising.” he said.

Sturgeon is expected to counter Sir John’s warning by reminding the former PM of his general election campaign in 1997, when Scotland voted out all Conservative MPs, saying: “Sir John would do well to remember the last time he lectured Scotland’s electorate, and the answer he and his party then received.

“For as long as Scotland remains part of the Westminster system, that means our voice – and our votes – must have equal weight. Anything else would be an affront to the democratic principles which the SNP’s critics claim to hold dear.”