Alba PartyAlba Party leader Alex Salmond has questioned the enthusiasm for another independence referendum within the Scottish Parliament.
The former first minister told supporters in a video address on Friday, filmed from outside Wembley Stadium ahead of Scotland’s Euro 2020 tie against England, that it “strikes me as passing strange” that the football tournament, as well as the Cop26 climate summit and the Holyrood election, could take place but a referendum cannot.
SNP officials said repeatedly during the election campaign that the party will seek to hold another vote on the constitution “when the time was right”.
Alba supporters – many of whom abandoned the SNP when Salmond’s party was launched – feel the governing party is not moving fast enough on the issue.
In the video, Salmond said: “It strikes me as passing strange that if you can hold Euro 2020, if you can hold a Scottish election, and if you can hold the Cop26 summit in Glasgow, then why on Earth can’t you hold a Scottish independence referendum?
“Perhaps the requisite enthusiasm is not there to push that case forward because the constitutional issue has gone cold since the Scottish election and we’ve got to heat it up again.”
Salmond also announced his party’s first conference will take place in September in Greenock, as he claimed a shift in Scottish Government policy on independence will result in increased support for Alba.
“If our suspicions are confirmed then come September the wind from the River Clyde will be blowing firmly in Alba’s direction at our historic inaugural conference in Greenock Town Hall,” he said.
A spokesman for the SNP said: “The only party in Scotland capable of delivering independence is the SNP.
“Once the pandemic is over, the people of Scotland will be given a choice over their future, whether to put their future in the hands of Boris Johnson or into their own hands with independence.”
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
