Scots may have to take to streets to achieve independence, says Alex Salmond

‘Peaceful street demonstrations’ on the cards to force Boris Johnson to grant poll, ex-SNP leader says

Alex Salmond says Scots may have to take to the streets to achieve independence, with Boris Johnson set to reject a second poll.

“Peaceful street demonstrations” may be necessary to force the prime minister to act, he warned.

The former SNP first minister, who has enraged Nicola Sturgeon by setting up a new party, said he was willing to share a stage with her, but did not mean forgiveness.

“No. I’m not saying forgive. The word forgiveness is yours not mine. Some things are bigger than personalities though,” he told Times Radio.

And, on the charge that his past behaviour towards women made him unfit for office, Mr Salmond: “I am not going to say a word in this campaign, denigrating either the SNP or indeed any other party. I’m not rising to any bait whatsoever.”

Read more:

• Alex Salmond forms Alba Party to fight Scottish elections
• Salmond vs Sturgeon: Your complete guide to the ‘whole sorry story’
• Sturgeon offers 4% pay rise to NHS workers in Scotland
• Scotland’s roadmap out of lockdown explained

Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader warned that the country was about to be consumed in “this Sturgeon/Salmond psychodrama”.

The call for demonstrations was a “dog whistle to the zoomers”, she said, adding: “We need to rebuild after a pandemic which has left no person or street or shop or business untouched.”

Mr Salmond’s new Alba Party, launched on Friday, will only attempt to elect “top up” MSPs on the regional list PR system, in an attempt to win a “super majority” for independence at Holyrood.

It has already gained the boost of two MPs who have defected from the SNP, after Neale Hanvey followed Kenny MacAskill in joining the new party.

Mr Salmond himself will standing as a candidate in May’s elections, potentially returning to the political front line after being cleared of sexual harassment allegations.

Mr Johnson has said he will refuse a Section 30 order to authorise so-called indyref2 – calling it “completely irrelevant” and suggesting a 40-year gap between referendums.

Discussing how to force him to change his mind, Mr Salmond said the 2014 referendum sanctioned by David Cameron “wasn’t something he suddenly offered”.

“We should be negotiating as a parliament as quickly as possible using that array of independent supporting parties in that parliament to give the authority,” he argued.

“Then we’ll see what comes out of that negotiation, whether it be a Section 30 referendum, whether it be a plebiscite organised for the Scottish parliament.”

The pressure might involve “mobilising international opinion and international legal opinion on Scotland’s right of self-determination” or “peaceful street demonstrations”.

“Any and all of these things are tactics to achieve the strategy, which is to achieve Scottish independence,” Mr Salmond said.