My party helped the SNP win, claims Salmond as he fails to secure one seat

‘I’ve won so many elections I don’t mind losing a few’

ALEX SALMOND has hit out at Nicola Sturgeon after his attempt at a political comeback ended in humiliating failure.

The former first minister of Scotland said that pro-independence voters had “missed an opportunity” by failing to back his new Alba Party, which he conceded would fail to win a single seat.

He predicted that Ms Sturgeon, who was expected to be returned as first minister in a pro-independence parliament once SNP and Green seats were combined, would continue to “prevaricate” over separation.

Mr Salmond also claimed his party had “helped” the SNP in the election by taking “venom” from the media that would otherwise have been directed at Ms Sturgeon and because Alba had made her appear “more moderate”.

He has repeatedly urged his former party to take more extreme positions in seeking to separate from the UK, floating “alternative” routes to independence other than a referendum and claiming a breakaway state should refuse to take on its share of UK debt.

“Nicola will prevaricate,” Mr Salmond, 66, said in an online interview with Alba-supporting bloggers. “Nicola lost her nerve on independence back in 2017 and has never recovered it, it’s as simple as that.”

He was referring to Ms Sturgeon abandoning her plans for a new referendum after the SNP lost a third of its Westminster seats in the UK general election almost four years ago.

Mr Salmond also attacked unnamed members of the SNP leadership as “among the most graceless people I’ve come across” and singled out the “poseur” John Nicolson, the SNP MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, for particular criticism.

He said that while unionists had successfully voted tactically to defeat the SNP in key constituencies, pro-independence supporters had failed to do so, meaning his attempt to deliver a proindependence “supermajority” failed.

Mr Salmond’s strategy had centred around persuading SNP supporters to vote for Alba with their second ballot papers, which in Scottish elections are used to elect regional MSPs under a system of proportional representation.

His campaign in the Holyrood elections was plagued by questions over his conduct towards female staffers when he was first minister. Mr Salmond was cleared at trial last year of 13 sex assault charges, but admitted to inappropriate conduct, including an occasion when he engaged in what he described as a “sleepy cuddle” with a staff member at his official residence.

“I’ve won so many elections I don’t mind losing a few,” Mr Salmond said.