Exclusive:Alex Salmond accuses SNP of 'brain dead' election response and makes 'demoralising' independence claim

Alex Salmond has accused the SNP's leadership of a "braindead" response to the party's disastrous general election result.

The former first minister said the SNP is losing members because it lacks "fight" and people no longer believe it is trying to secure independence. It came as he launched an attack on Angus Robertson, the external affairs secretary, whom he labelled "a fud".

Alex Salmond | Getty Images

Mr Salmond, who now leads the pro-independence Alba Party, said the SNP should be worried about its falling membership numbers.

Speaking exclusively to The Scotsman, he said: "It's not the lack of progress that demoralises people. It's the lack of any strategy. It's not the winning and losing, it's the lack of fight. It’s not to have fought at all, that's the disillusioning aspect."

He added: "It's like being a football supporter. You go to a match - you don't necessarily expect to win, but you expect the team to do their best, [not find] that they look like they'd all rather be elsewhere. That's what the SNP looks like just now. Therefore, it's disillusioning for independence supporters, therefore people don't want to stay as members. 

"I don't think most people say 'I'm not going to be a member of the SNP because of [the ongoing police investigation] Operation Branchform'. They don't want to be a member of the SNP because they don't think the SNP are trying to get independence. I would have thought that you would want some fairly radical shifts to change that."

The SNP’s annual accounts show the party lost almost 10,000 members over the past year. It had 64,525 members as of June, down from around 74,000 the year before. In 2019, the party had some 125,000 members, meaning the total has almost halved in five years.

It follows a tumultuous period for the SNP, which has been rocked by an ongoing police investigation into its funding and finances as well as declining fortunes in the polls and changes of leadership. Peter Murrell, its former chief executive, was charged in connection with the embezzlement of funds earlier this year.

The recent general election saw the SNP drop from 48 MPs in 2019 to just nine, causing John Swinney, the First Minister, to signal a rethink over its approach to independence. "We've got to reflect on the fact that the result has given us a setback – that we failed to get across the urgency of independence at this particular moment,” he said last month.

Mr Salmond, who stood down as SNP leader and first minister in the aftermath of the 2014 independence referendum, criticised the party’s response to the result. He referenced a recent article on the Wings Over Scotland website about what SNP figures had said in the wake of the election defeat.

"What has been totally absent is any sign of any analysis or serious questions about what actually went wrong, and most of the reasons given are trivial to the point of banality,” Mr Salmond said.

He added: "The SNP are giving the impression of being - the leadership - of being virtually brain dead at the present moment, and that's very worrying. You would have thought there would be a reservoir of talent and ability and common sense which would take it to a different level. That doesn’t mean that every single person in the SNP is devoid of these qualities - of course they’re not. But they seem to be, as an organisation right now, to be devoid of making the shifts that have to be made.”

Mr Salmond continued: "To minimise the extent of it is a mistake. Not to recognise there's something fundamental going on is a mistake."

Asked about the leadership of the SNP, he said: “The Scottish National Party must only elect people who are capable of leading it to independence. That’s the key criteria for somebody, and they have to judge on that basis. John was an excellent finance secretary, but he has now lost four elections as leader of the SNP [Mr Swinney previously led the party between 2000 and 2004].”

Mr Salmond said there was a “pathway” to a nationalist majority in the next Scottish Parliament election. He has already announced his intention to stand as a candidate in Banffshire and Buchan Coast.

Elsewhere, he hit out at Mr Robertson, who was recently the subject of internal party criticism after meeting Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK.

"I think Angus is a fud, which is a Glaswegian expression which means somebody with an over-inflated view of his own abilities who tends to make mistakes, as he does,” said Mr Salmond.

“But then of course, the point is why is Angus Robertson where he is? Is the SNP currently so devoid of talent that they can't have somebody who doesn't make elementary mistakes?"

He added: "Angus shouldn't have done it, he shouldn't be constitutional affairs secretary. He should have been sacked, he's managed to compromise one of the very few consistent, clear lines that the SNP Government has managed to portray in recent months. But Angus Robertson is not the reason the SNP Government is languishing where they are. He's a symptom, not a cause."

Mr Robertson’s meeting prompted a backlash from some within the SNP, with MSP Ruth Maguire saying it appeared to “legitimise a genocidal, apartheid regime who continue to commit war crimes”. Mr Robertson later apologised, saying the discussions should have been limited to the need for a ceasefire.

The Scottish Government has said any further meetings with Israeli diplomats will be declined. Earlier this week, Mr Swinney held talks with the head of the Palestinian mission to the UK, discussing the situation in the Gaza Strip.

The SNP and Scottish Government were both approached for comment on Mr Salmond’s remarks.