SNP politicians appear 50 times on Kremlin channels
Ex-first minister is a regular on state-run ‘propaganda machine’
SNP politicians have made nearly 50 appearances on Kremlin propaganda channels despite widespread concern over the outlets within their party.
Former First Minister Alex Salmond personally accounted for more than one-third of nationalist exposure on RT and Sputnik, according to media monitoring from the Scottish Conservatives.
The now MP appeared four times on RT, formerly Russia Today, in January alone as part of an otherwise relatively uncontroversial drive to raise international awareness of the SNP’s views on Brexit. Previously, Mr Salmond in 2015 used the channel, described as a key part of Russia’s statefunded disinformation campaign, to attack the BBC as a “mouthpiece of Tory propaganda”.
Most nationalist politicians shun RT, not least to avoid what they see as unfair criticism that the SNP is soft on the regime of strongman Vladimir Putin.
Mr Salmond’s fellow MP Martin Docherty last year warned his party that RT and Sputnik were outlets of a regime which “most certainly would not tolerate a nationalist movement like our own within its own borders”.
However, another MP, Paul Monaghan, has made at least seven appearances on Sputnik, which now has an Edinburgh base employing independence supporters.
The radio and internet outlet was earlier this year described as a “Kremlin propaganda machine” by Nato for seeking to spread “confusion” and “misinformation”.
RT and Sputnik say they are independent of their Kremlin funders.
Mr Monaghan, meanwhile, has said both channels were “impartial”.
Some SNP insiders fear such remarks – and high profile interviews with RT and Sputnik – will make it harder to convince EU and Nato nations of an independent Scotland’s commitment to both bodies.
A spokeswoman for Mr Salmond, however, declined to acknowledge that RT and Sputnik were in any way different to other news media.
The former party leader, she said, had done more than 30 interviews one morning last week alone with outlets such as America’s CNN and ABC, Japan’s NRK and France 24.
She said: “If the Tories are proposing a boycott of Russia then why is Boris Johnson in Moscow? If they are not calling for a boycott then they should stop being so absurd.
“Mr Salmond does more international interviews in a day than most Tory MPs do in a year, such is the international interest in Scotland.”
Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser condemned SNP politicians for speaking to RT and Sputnik. He said: “These outfits are amateurish, run by people with zero journalistic training or credibility, and it’s embarrassing that the SNP is so eager to pander to them.
“It’s utterly hypocritical, and will no doubt cause huge embarrassment to more reasonable elements of the party.
“As long as the SNP are putting up people for these dangerous and discredited outfits, it has a cheek to complain of any sort of media bias.”
The Conservative monitoring of the two channels is not exhaustive but shows Mr Salmond, Mr Monaghan and another MP, Douglas Chapman, accounted for most exposure.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has also appeared on RT, which has reported 9/11 as an inside job.