The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Salmond’s Alba could be draw for indy supporters who want a new routemap
Roman emperors regularly had slaves whisper into their ear: “Remember Caesar, thou art mortal.” That wise admonition not to get above themselves sprung to mind after I had a 20-minute conversation last week with Alex Salmond.
He asked me if I would endorse him for the Holyrood elections.
It sometimes feels as though he and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, his former deputy, are regarded almost as deities by their supporters.
Their respective backers might reflect on another old adage: “Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.”
Sturgeon appears visibly maddened that Salmond has risen like a phoenix to pose a challenge to her and to the SNP hegemony.
Salmond, some independence supporters reckon, is mad to mount a challenge which they worry could give the Unionists an advantage and split the Nationalist vote.
Despite Salmond’s olive branch, ungrasped so far, that independence is greater than individual personalities, the bitterness between the two formerly inseparable allies appears palpable.
Many Salmond supporters feel that the party he steered close to independence in 2014 has been hijacked by entryism with a small number of activists leaving the cause of independence marooned through their identity politics.
He has promised that a ‘supermajority’ of independence MSPs returned to Holyrood will see independence negotiations begin immediately with Boris Johnson.
That assurance is aimed squarely at those voters who think that the SNP have dillied, dallied, and don’t know where to go if and when the prime minister refuses to acknowledge calls for another referendum.
The prospect of being compared to Salmond in Holyrood with his acknowledged debating skills and grasp of argument will be unsettling to Sturgeon who has reigned supreme there.
Sturgeon has enjoyed huge popularity despite some claims that her record on education, health, and other matters doesn’t stand up to serious and growing scrutiny.
Now she has to contend with someone she believes to be unfit for office due to his admitted indiscretions, but who was cleared in a court of law of the crimes he was accused of, and who intellectually is in a different league from those surrounding her.
She has said that he’s a gambler and politically he’s undoubtedly taking a risk in this new venture.
He faced a much greater peril, though, in the prospect of going to jail, so being centre-stage again, proselytising on the cause which has driven him all of his life doesn’t even count as a chance throw of the dice.
I first met Salmond in the BBC studio in Dundee and again at his invitation in Bute House some years ago, when he asked me if I would be interested in standing for the SNP for Westminster.
After our most recent phone chat I had a bit of fun on social media with the revelation that we’d chewed the fat.
Some folk contacted me privately aghast at the thought that I might be standing for Alba; others hoped that I would be.
I’m not.
I’ve turned the SNP down twice for Westminster but stood for them in a council election after my Labour Party voting days ended with Mrs Thatcher’s third victory.
The dogs bark and the caravan moves on, though.
I favour independence, but I have as much and more in common with Scousers and Geordies than Berliners or Madrilenos.
The SNP’s unhealthy fetish for an EU which treated the Greek people abominably, and in which we would be forced to abide by certain core principles, has some independence folk questioning the logic of leaving one union for another one in which we still won’t have full control of our own affairs.
I regard the case for independence as a better one than what we have currently with Westminster, but I also regard the claim that we can be independent in the EU as an oxymoron.
Salmond was aware of my views on EU membership and in my conversation with him I got the impression that he and his party will be less enamoured of full EU membership than the SNP.
A large number of independence folk like me voted to leave the EU so there is a sizeable constituency who will listen to what he has to say on the matter, rather than the unquestioning EU love-in which the SNP have embraced.
Neither Sturgeon nor Salmond is likely to have their acolytes whispering reminders of their political mortality in their ears in the coming weeks, but that doesn’t mean that the grim reaper isn’t hovering.
The new party may present a growing challenge to the SNP who could find it tougher to control wayward MSPs and MPs.
Alba, if it is successful, can offer a new home to those who believe in independence but are unhappy at the direction of travel of the SNP and its current leadership.
I regard the claim we can be independent in the EU as an oxymoron