The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Sillars questions party leadership under Sturgeon
SNP: Former deputy leader claims Sturgeon is safe only because there is no one else
Nicola Sturgeon is only worthy to lead the SNP because there are no other options in the party, says one of its grandees.
Jim Sillars, former deputy leader of the SNP, also warned the First Minister to wait at least five years for another independence vote – so the Yes movement can rebuild its case based on what Brexit looks like.
Speaking on Sunday Politics Scotland, he said: “Suppose Nicola was knocked over by a bus this afternoon, where are the candidates of the necessary stature to take over the leadership of the SNP?
“She’s what we’ve got at the present time and I would like to see her improve.
“If there was someone better around who had the intellectual capability to understand that you’ve got to analyse things first before you take a decision, yes I think she should step aside.”
A second independence referendum should not be held before 2022 to allow the impact of Brexit to be assessed and the arguments for secession to be redrafted, Mr Sillars added.
The Leave supporter is a vocal critic of the SNP leadership and spoke out against Ms Sturgeon’s decision to go for an early referendum in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote.
“I’m for a second independence referendum but you cannot actually have one sensibly until you know exactly what the Brexit deal is in detail and then take time to assess it and take time to actually formulate an argument for independence. “We’re in a new paradigm. “What was in 2014 will no longer be the case when we Brexit, so we have to have a new thinking of the structure which we put to the Scottish people.”
He said a post-mortem was also needed to assess what went wrong when the Yes movement lost the 2014 referendum.
“You’re probably 2022, 2023 before you actually have the referendum,” he added.
Ms Sturgeon told delegates at the SNP conference to be patient over the timing of Indyref2, saying there needs to be more clarity over Brexit before a decision can be made on when another plebiscite can be held.
But she has said another poll is “likely” before 2021 and activists must continue campaigning for secession.
Mr Sillars also told the party “think again” on its attitude to fracking as he called on trade unionists and poverty charities to rise up against the effective ban of the controversial gas extraction technique.