Walkout by SNP was my idea, says Salmond

Alex Salmond has claimed he came up with the idea for the SNP’S dramatic Commons walkout last week.

The former First Minister said he spoke with the SNP’S Westminster chief, Ian Blackford, the night before Nationalist MPS quit the chamber, when their leader was suspended by Speaker John Bercow for protesting the amount of time given to debate on Brexit and devolution.

Mr Salmond, who was suspended from the Commons in 1988, told the Sunday Herald: “One of the iron laws of parliamentary politics is that if you always play the Westminster game then you will always lose.

“The way to turn that round successfully is to target interventions at those occasions which mean so much to the Westminster establishment – PMQS, budgets, state openings... Certainly that was my advice to Ian Blackford when he phoned me last Tuesday night and I was delighted to see him carry it through.”

The ex-mp also criticised former SNP colleagues who he said were “too intent on winning the gold star” at Westminster. “The SNP fell into the Westminster trap after 2015 and then paid the price at the polls,” he said. “The people who send the SNP south expect their MPS to shake it up, not settle down.”