Retiring SNP MSP in bitter attack on Alex Salmond

Published on Thursday 28 April 2011 18:19

ALEX Salmond's final push to secure a second term as First Minister is hit today by a withering critique of his last four years in government by one of the party's former MSPs.

In a new chapter to a book to be published next year, Professor Christopher Harvie questions whether the party's policy on independence has been kept simply to "pacify the SNP faithful" and says there are "internal divisions at the centre" over Mr Salmond's "safety-first" policy on secession.

The former MSP, who quit parliament in April, also says the Nationalists have paraded a series of "naff slogans" during elections, such as its current campaign message "Be Part of Better".

Prof Harvie was personally encouraged to stand as an MSP in 2007 by Mr Salmond, who has praised his historical and academic work. His comments are contained in a new chapter of his book No Gods and Precious Few Heroes: Twentieth Century Scotland, which is set to be published next year.

Describing the SNP government's first paper after being swept to power in 2007, Choosing Scotland's Future, as "less a move than a stumble", the historian takes aim at what he describes as the "Salmond regime", questioning whether it remains committed to independence.

He writes: "Had Holyrood 2007- 2011 really been a Scots attempt at breakaway or - while Salmond confronted Gordon Brown until May 2010 - was it part of a contest between two versions of Scottish social democracy, partial and flawed, struggling to survive on an unstable British stage?"

He adds: "Independence was never off the agenda, but was it kept around to pacify the SNP faithful? By early 2011 was Salmond still pursuing this goal? The diminuendo to 'safety first' of the SNP manifesto in early 2011 suggested internal division at the centre." The former professor of British and Irish Studies at the University of Tuebingen in Germany also uses the chapter to note that the party is beset by "tensions contributing to the overall opaqueness of SNP political strategy".

His comments will reinforce the mounting dissatisfaction among fundamentalists in the Nationalist movement, who accuse Mr Salmond of playing down the party's commitment to independence in order to hang on to the limited devolved power he holds at Holyrood as head of a minority government.

Prof Harvie has not been associated up to now with this wing of the party - he has even on occasion advocated a confederal Britain within a federal EU - but the views he has expressed in his new book chapter suggest that he has become as frustrated by the pace of change.

He also writes that "Gordon Brown put the SNP's gas at a peep" when the Royal Bank of Scotland and HBoS had to be propped up by the British state.

And he voices disappointment that ministers in the devolved government have "tended towards orthodoxy, particularly (John] Swinney at finance".

He also condemns the SNP for sticking with "Labour's rigidly legalistic policy" on drug abuse.

He believes renewable energy has presented Scotland with "a formidable opportunity, but not one reflected in government organisation, where energy was divided between four ministries". He questions whether Mr Salmond has "really mastered this agenda".

Professor Harvie is also critical of the party's Commons leader and Scottish election campaign chief Angus Robertson lobbying for British defence contracts and bases to be retained even after the break-up of Britain.

The Moray MP's controversial stance on this matter is dismissed as "military Unionism".

Asked to comment on the critique, Mr Salmond stated: "I've always enjoyed a lively debate within the Scottish National Party. That's been a hallmark of my leadership."

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But Prof Harvie said that the views he held were increasingly shared by others on the SNP benches at Holyrood. "Latterly I noted a 'he may have been off message, but he was probably right' tone creeping in. This will probably grow when we see how aligned we have become … with military Unionism."

Former deputy leader Jim Sillars also criticised the party's strategy on independence earlier in this campaign when he argued that the party was no longer seriously pursuing the nationalists' flagship policy.Writing in The Scotsman earlier this month, he said: "Only poor Iain Gray believes Alex Salmond is 'obsessed' by independence, oblivious of the fact that the 'I' word is on the back burner, shunted there, in the view of the leadership, by the superior tactic of gaining votes from all and sundry, including those opposed to independence (think of Sir David Murray), in order to reclaim those seats at the ministerial desks, from which the party will, so the boast goes, gather more credibility."

However, Mr Salmond has argued that the question of independence should be kept separate from a general election, with a specific referendum campaign being the best place to resolve the matter. Party leaders say that the party is now united behind a referendum strategy.