An editor has claimed last year’s General Election result was the biggest factor behind his daily newspaper’s falling sales.

This month’s ABC figures for the second half of 2017 showed pro-Scottish independence daily The National had an average circulation of 9,746, a year-on-year, a decline of 6pc on the same period in the previous year.

But although HTFP’s alternative ABCs, published last week, showed the Newsquest-owned title was actually the third-best performing UK daily in terms of retail sales alone, editor Calum Baird believes it could have done better.

In an editorial marking the Glasgow-based daily’s 1,000 edition, he said that last year’s election result, and the perception that it was a setback for the independence cause, had cost the paper readers.

The 1,000th edition of The National

Wrote Callum: “The biggest single thing that has affected our sales in the last year was June’s General Election result and the perception that it was a setback for independence.

“In the four weeks following the result, we lost more than 1000 readers. That’s pretty stark.”

“But it’s worth knowing. Because we need our readers to stick by us in the hard times. If you want a newspaper that’s able to provide a counterpoint to the rest of Scotland’s Unionist press when that second referendum campaign begins, then we need you to help us get there.”

At last June’s election the Scottish National Party lost 21 seats, and Callum has previously estimated losing almost a fifth of his print readers as a result.

In the editorial, Callum admitted the paper’s lack of a “natural” geographical base was also affecting its ability to grow

However, he added the title was “doing really well” digitally, with more than 600,000 unique visitors to its website so far in March.

He said: “The latest ABC figures showed we averaged about 7,800 copies a day last year. Of course, we’re not immune to the pressures of the print media market and we’ve got to acknowledge that most newspapers are facing similar problems.

“But some of those problems are felt more acutely by The National than others. As a title without a natural base (The Herald in Glasgow, The Scotsman in Edinburgh etc), we’re spread evenly across nearly 5,000 shops, all over Scotland, and it can be difficult for us to put enough copies in each newsagent to meet demand. We know we’ve got a problem there, and one that’s not easy to fix.”