Alex Salmond: We are not splitting the SNP vote

Is Alex Salmond feasting on the misery of an SNP that, having hit its high watermark, is now having to work hard to hold onto its Westminster seats? Not at all, according to the Alba leader, who told Andrew Neil on Times Radio today that he was in fact trying to help the cause of his former party by going after pro-independence voters who would otherwise have stayed at home. In so doing, of course, he was not-so-subtly suggesting that the SNP aren’t giving voters a reason to turn out at all. 

There’s 20 per cent of people who are either going to stay at home or going to vote for a unionist party. Our appeal is to this 20 per cent, if you like the disaffected independence supporters who don’t see anyone in this election saying vote, put your cross in the box for independence, make your vote count, so our appeal is to motivate that independence vote as opposed to splitting it.