A politician has hit out at a daily’s “questionably photoshopped, negative splashes” in a column for the newspaper.

The National has allowed Ross Greer, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, to criticise the paper in its own pages after he claimed on Twitter that it was doing “more harm than good” to the cause of Scottish independence.

The Glasgow-based daily was founded in 2014 with a pro-independence editorial stance following Scotland’s decision to remain in the United Kingdom earlier that year.

In his piece, Green MSP Mr Greer singled out a front page spoofing the Daily Mail’s ‘Enemies of the people’ splash from November 2016, which was run after the High Court ruled that parliament would need to trigger Article 50 to start the UK’s exit from the European Union.

In The National’s version the following month, which he claimed was in “exceptionally poor taste”, the three judges whose pictures were printed on the Mail’s front page were replaced by Theresa May, David Davis and Advocate General Lord Keen QC.

But, in his own piece responding to Mr Greer’s comment, National editor Callum Baird said it was “supposed to be a humorous send-up of the po-faced Daily Mail original”.

Mr Greer, who is himself pro-independence and has previously written for The National on several occasions since its launch, said in his column: “It was cheap, nasty and sensationalist, everything they had hoped a publication born from the new politics of the referendum would not be.

“It riled up a hardcore of hardcore Yes supporters at the cost of pushing other readers away and it dragged The National and by extension the Yes movement into the debate about an irresponsible media inciting ugly politics.

He added: “The steady stream of questionably photoshopped, negative splashes doesn’t work for either of what I presume are the paper’s competing objectives. They don’t change minds and draw new supporters to Yes, nor do they give the impression of a paper intent on serious, interesting journalism. Very often they’re a poor reflection of the high quality of journalism contained inside.”

Mr Greer further claimed many Yes voters have stopped buying the paper “out of embarrassment” because of its coverage of fringe elements in the pro-independence movement.

In response, Callum said he thought the ‘Enemies of the people’ front page was “pretty obviously a joke” and had no idea of the reaction it was going to provoke on social media.

He wrote: “As a new newspaper in Scotland we were – and still are – faced with two big problems: one, not enough people have heard of us; two, we’re given the worst spots on the newsstands. Our strategy to deal with both was to create eye-catching ‘event’ front pages which would be shared widely on social media. People would see the front page, and be inspired to go out and buy it the next day. We’ve done 800-odd now, we’ve taken more than a few risks and have made a couple of missteps along the way.

“But the truth is that, in general, many more people like our front pages than don’t, and there’s a strong correlation between how widely shared they are with how well that day’s edition sells. There’s no point in having a newspaper that’s right-on but doesn’t sell any copies. Because that’s a newspaper that doesn’t exist for very long.”

Callum concluded: “I’d like to thank Ross for engaging with us on this. And to anybody else who might have had complaints about the paper or lost faith with us over the past three years, I’d just say this: get in touch and help me and the team shape our newspaper. There’s no point attacking us from afar: come get involved.”