“TAWDRY” politicos are wielding immigration figures as a weapon in the independence debate, First Minister Alex Salmond said yesterday.

The SNP leader poured scorn on Westminster leaders in a Herald article defending increased immigration as a boon for Scotland.

Holyrood estimated last week that Scotland will need an extra 24,000 new arrivals each year to balance the economic needs of an ageing population alongside a young workforce.

That figure is around 2,000 people a year more than net migration over the past decade under Westminster immigration policies.

Scottish Labour finance spokesman Iain Gray criticised the projection, saying Scottish ministers had invoked an economic boom “by magic without giving any explanation to how this would happen.”

But Mr Salmond accused his rivals of claiming “in their increasingly tawdry self-styled Project Fear campaign” that immigration was “something to be frightened of — a reason to vote No.”