Salmond: Scotland is in the driving seat

ALEX Salmond today launched a fierce attack on the UK Government, saying the future of Scotland would not be determined by Westminster.

Mr Salmond used his speech to the Scottish National Party annual conference in Inverness to send the UK Government a stark message.

The Scottish First Minister said: “The days of Westminster politicians telling Scotland what to do or what to think are over. The Scottish people will set the agenda for the future.”

Mr Salmond declared: “No politician, and certainly no London politician, will determine the future of the Scottish nation.

“The Prime Minister should hear this loud and clear.

“The people of Scotland - the sovereign people of Scotland - are now in the driving seat.”

The conference is the SNP’s first since the party’s landslide victory in May’s Holyrood elections, when the Nationalists became the first ever party to secure an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament.

Mr Salmond said that win had given his party the “greatest ever mandate of the devolution era”.

That election victory means a referendum will be held on Scottish independence.

While no date for such a vote has yet been set, Nationalists have pledged it will take place in the second half of the Scottish Parliament’s five-year term.

Today’s speech by Mr Salmond marked the start of the SNP’s campaign ahead of that referendum, as he told activists: “This party will campaign full square for independence in the coming referendum.”