Alex Salmond on the 2014 independence referendum: 'It's The Scottish Sun Wot Lost It'

Alex Salmond has said the decision by The Scottish Sun not to back independence helped lose the Yes side the referendum.

The former first minister said it would have had a “huge impact” if the tabloid had come out for Yes. There was widespread speculation The Scottish Sun would back independence in the run up to the 2014 referendum.

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Rupert Murdoch, whose media empire News Corp owns the paper, posted a series of tweets suggesting he was considering it, and the tabloid previously endorsed the SNP.

In 2012, the tycoon tweeted: "Let Scotland go and compete. Everyone would win.” He described Mr Salmond as the "most brilliant politician in the UK".

But in the end, a lengthy editorial published in the paper the day before the referendum said it would not tell its readers how to vote.

Speaking to The Scotsman, Mr Salmond said: "Things don't always work out as you hope. I hoped and believed that the impact of the success of the campaign would make a number of dominoes fall.

"Particularly, I thought that a number of mainstream newspapers would defect to the Yes side. One in particular - which it didn't do, which was a great pity."

Mr Salmond added: "I believed that we would have The Sun defecting to Yes in the last week of the campaign. Now, people think, ten years later, ‘would it really matter if a single newspaper did that?’ Yeah, actually it would, ten years ago. Would it matter now? Probably not. But ten years ago, that would still have been a huge impact for us."

Mr Salmond continued: "Yes, it would have been important if the biggest selling tabloid had defected to the Yes campaign in the last week of the campaign, of course it would. And people who don't like it just have to face the reality. Of course it would have mattered. 

"We had a range of forces against us which were extraordinarily powerful, and we were outgunned in every physical aspect of the campaign - on money, finance, establishment power, mainstream media. 

"Therefore, to have something collapse on their side of the campaign would have been very influential. So I'm afraid it was The Sun Wot Not Done It."

The latter is a reference to the famous front page of The Sun following the 1992 general election, in which the paper backed the victorious Tory Party. Its splash read: “It's The Sun Wot Won It”.

Mr Salmond’s relationship with News Corp was examined during the Leveson Inquiry into the British press in 2012, amid claims he offered to help Mr Murdoch’s bid to take over BSkyB in return for The Scottish Sun’s political backing.

This was dismissed as “total nonsense” by the former first minister’s spokesman. James Murdoch also denied it, telling the inquiry: “The decision-making around the support had absolutely nothing to do with other business interests around the place. And the lengthy negotiations and regulatory process around the Sky transaction was entirely separate. I simply won't make that trade. It would be inappropriate to do so. I simply don't do business that way."