Indy vision is branded ‘a political suicide note’
A FORMER Nationalist adviser has branded the SNP’s Growth Commission report a ‘political suicide note’ as key party members criticised Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘presidential regime’.
Alex Bell yesterday said her latest independence blueprint will only drive voters to the Conservative and Labour parties.
Mr Bell, Alex Salmond’s former policy chief, said: ‘It is suicide because there is no referendum and no means to trigger one.
‘The membership have been taken for fools, told all the emotional effort in defending the last argument was pointless.’
Writing in the Courier newspaper, Mr Bell added: ‘Labour will pick up disillusioned Lefties who now can see that welfare and the NHS won’t be any better after Indy, and the Tories are waiting to welcome back centrist Conservatives who drifted to the Nats.’
His intervention came as former justice secretary Kenny MacAskill attacked Miss Sturgeon over her ‘presidential regime’ which he claimed is restricting debate or amendments to the Growth Commission report which was published last week.
Mr MacAskill also insisted Miss Sturgeon must be ‘wary of alienating those who’ll deliver the vote’ for independence – mainly Scots living in low income households and housing schemes.
Scottish Tory deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said: ‘The SNP’s flawed independence blueprint has dramatically exposed the scale of the divisions now obvious in the SNP.’ Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour’s economy spokesman, said: ‘Nicola Sturgeon’s primary political purpose has been to create division – but she presumably did not envisage creating such division in her own ranks.’