THIS IS ALL ABOUT INDEPENDENCE
Salmond is at odds with Sturgeon as he reveals truth over election goal
ALEX Salmond went headto-head with party leader Nicola Sturgeon yesterday after he claimed the SNP will use any success in the General Election to boost the case to break up Britain.
The ex-First Minister said a strong performance by the party in June would ‘reinforce’ Nicola Sturgeon’s right to demand an independence referendum.
He claimed anyone backing the SNP ‘will know they are voting to support the right of the parliament to decide on the holding of a Scottish referendum’.
His comments come just days after the First Minister insisted the General Election ‘won’t decide whether or not Scotland becomes independent’ as she attempted to halt a Tory poll surge.
Yesterday, the Conservatives said Mr Salmond had ‘let the cat out of the bag’ that the SNP will use the election to ‘manufacture a case for independence’.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson also said Miss Sturgeon had a ‘duty’ to spell out the ‘next steps’ towards securing independence before Scots go to the polls.
Theresa May rejected a call last month by Miss Sturgeon for a referendum between autumn next year and the spring of 2019. The Prime Minister said it would be wrong to have Indyref 2 while Brexit negotiations take place.
During his phone-in show on London radio station LBC yesterday, Mr Salmond said: ‘I’m sure that Nicola Sturgeon will fight the elections by saying: listen, the mandate is in the parliament already, we’ve got the mandate, and the General Election is to reinforce the right of the Scottish parliament to decide when the time is right for another independence referendum.
‘If you get that sort of overwhelming vote for the SNP then I believe the Prime Minister’s position will crumble. I don’t care if she has got a majority of 100 or 150 at Westminster, it is political reality that comes to the fore and that is one of the realities that she will have to face.’
He said that one of the reasons for voting SNP is to ‘back the parliament on the referendum’.
Asked if Miss Sturgeon’s decision to postpone publication of a Referendum Bill until after the election indicated she was scared, he said: ‘No, she is looking to get another election victory which will indicate and support the right of the parliament to decide these things.’
His comments completely contradict Miss Sturgeon’s attempt to distance her campaign from the issue of independence after polls showed the Tories are set to win up to 12 seats in Scotland. Tory MSP Miles Briggs said: ‘Mr Salmond has let the cat out of the bag.
‘The SNP’s objective in this election is to manufacture a case for independence – just as they’ve tried to do with Brexit. Nobody takes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim otherwise seriously, not even Alex Salmond.’
Miss Sturgeon was also accused by Miss Davidson of ‘going back on her word’ to spell out her ‘next steps’ to a referendum.
She said: ‘The reason is obvious: as always with the SNP they desperately try to play down independence in an election campaign because they know it’s unpopular.’
Though saying the General Election is not about independence, yesterday Miss Sturgeon jumped on a motorbike covered in Yes2 stickers and Saltires at a Stirling campaign event and denied avoiding the topic of independence.
She said: ‘My opponents are ridiculous. They go from accusing me of talking about independence too much to accusing me of not talking about it enough.’
She added: ‘This election, in many ways, is a choice between the kind of country we want Scotland to be.
‘Is it one determined by a increasingly Right-wing Tory party or is it one determined and shaped by our democratically elected parliament here in Scotland?’
‘He has let the cat out of the bag’
NICOLA Sturgeon is presented as the acceptable face of Scottish nationalism, the amiable queen of selfies whose softlysoftly approach is designed to lull voters and not scare any horses.
But the real power behind the facade is the unapologetically divisive and abrasive Alex Salmond.
We saw it yesterday when Mr Salmond told the truth about the SNP’s election campaign, unvarnished by spin doctors.
Scots, he said, ‘know that they’re voting to support the right of the parliament to decide on the holding of the Scottish referendum’.
It came hard on the heels of Miss Sturgeon claiming the polar opposite, insisting the June 8 vote ‘won’t decide whether or not Scotland becomes independent’.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson has an incisive take on why Miss Sturgeon is downplaying the independence issue.
‘The reason is obvious: as always with the SNP they desperately try to play down independence in an election campaign because they know it’s unpopular.’
Voters know the SNP is all about one thing, independence, and that its every step is designed to inch forward its reckless separatist dream.
Mr Salmond is right and Miss Sturgeon is being duplicitous. For the SNP, this election is all about independence and its neverending attempt to undermine the legitimate No vote of 2014.
LOUSY customer service, incompetent administration, rip-off charges, unscrupulous sales techniques… As complaints against banks and insurance companies top three million in only six months, the full scale of public anger is laid bare for the first time.
The truth emerges that the firms handling our money and investments have a monumental crisis of public confidence on their hands. In an industry that depends absolutely on trust, they must clean up their act without delay.