Alex Salmond warns that Tories would take Scotland into darkness
TEN YEARS AFTER HE BECAME FIRST MINISTER, FORMER SNP LEADER LASHES OUT AS TORIES THREATEN TO TAKE HIS GORDON SEAT. EXCLUSIVE BY
ASCOTTISH Tory revival would “drag Scotland back into the dark” and usher in a new era of Thatcherism, Alex Salmond has said in an interview marking the 10th anniversary since he was elected as First Minister. Salmond said Theresa May would be as bad a leader as Margaret Thatcher at the height of her powers if she was re-elected on June 8.
He claimed the Tories wanted to create a “social desert” in Scotland by demolishing the welfare state. Salmond also warned that the party was a “threat to the Scottish Parliament” and would seek to use Holyrood to pass on brutal cuts to Scots.
However, Salmond said that turning back the “Tory tide” in Scotland would enhance the SNP’s mandate for a second independence referendum.
Salmond made the remarks in an interview with the Sunday Herald reflecting on his 10 years since he was elected as First Minister.
He said: “We have come a long way since 2007. We shone a light on Scotland, so we don’t want the Tory party to drag Scotland back into the dark.”
Salmond said the Tories would seek to roll back the gains of devolution, such as free university tuition introduced by the SNP. He said: “Ten years on I’m most proud of the free tuition policy, part of what I call the social wage, that also includes free personal care that I inherited from Henry McLeish.”
He went on to warn that sweeping Tory gains in Scotland would severely weaken the powers of the Scottish Parliament. Salmond said a Tory-dominated Westminster would starve Holyrood of cash and seek to force it to make cuts.
Salmond said: “Tory success would mean a reduction in the power and authority of the Scottish Parliament that’s been accumulated. The Tories are making swingeing cuts to welfare. The Tory attitude is to make these swingeing cuts to services for vulnerable sections of society and then say that the Scottish Parliament should pay for it, even though Westminster holds the purse strings. It’s these invidious and underhand attacks they want to force the Scottish Parliament to clear up.”
He also said that the Tories had embraced the “hard right agenda” of Ukip. He added: “Theresa May will follow in the footsteps of Thatcherism and there will be consequences for the Tories of doing that. Very few people in Scotland want to see the Tories win an unassailable majority at Westminster. The Conservative party is a threat to the Scottish Parliament and a threat to Scottish values. It will starve the Scottish Parliament of funds and create a social desert. They’ll do their best to put the hems on the Scottish Parliament’s freedom of action. Mid-Mayism is the equivalent of high Thatcherism. There’s a little Englander mentality and a narrowness to mid-Mayism.”
Salmond also dismissed the Tory bid to oust him in Gordon, the Aberdeenshire constituency he was elected as an MP for in 2015. He said opinion polls showing the Tories were poised to make sweeping gains would galvanise SNP supporters. In a defiant response, Salmond said: “Let’s see if the Tories manage to knock me over in Gordon. There is a ceiling on the Tory vote in Scotland. The people of Scotland don’t like the Tories. There’s nothing quite like being a Tory target to galvanise people.”
He said the Tories had to be brought down to earth with a “sharp bump”. He claimed that if the SNP was able to halt a Tory revival in Scotland it would strengthen the mandate the party had to hold a second independence referendum. He said: “Turning back the Tory tide would enhance the mandate that Scotland’s future should be in Scotland’s hands. The task for the SNP is to tame the Tory tide.”
However, a Scottish Tory spokesman said: “It is clear that Alex Salmond is rattled by last week’s local election results and the challenge in his Gordon seat from the Scottish Conservatives. His language in recent days suggests that the SNP has nothing new to offer in this election campaign. Mr Salmond said at the outset that he’d always fight a positive campaign. The fact that he is already resorting to this type of fear-mongering suggests the SNP has run out of ideas.”