Alex Salmond did not read independence white paper, Nicola Sturgeon claims

Rhyl Journal

4 hours ago

The 670-page long paper was prepared by the Scottish Government in the run-up to the 2014 referendum, with the aim of answering questions about independence ahead of the crucial vote.
But in a TV interview ahead of the publication of her memoir Frankly, Ms Sturgeon, who was deputy first minister at the time, insisted that Mr Salmond 'really didn't engage in the work of the drafting or the compilation of the White Paper at all'.
Speaking about her former boss, Ms Sturgeon said: 'He was the leader, he was the First Minister, and he hadn't read it.'
She went on to tell ITV News at Ten presenter Julie Etchingham that she did 'not even know if he had read bits of it'.
Ms Sturgeon recalled: 'I knew I was going to have to sit him down and say: 'Look, you're going to have to read this, and you're going to have to tell me now if there are bits you want to change, because it has to be signed off.'
'He told me he was going on a trade mission to China. I don't think I'd ever felt as much cold fury at him as I did in that moment. It just seemed to me like an abdication of responsibility.'
Speaking about the white paper, which was published in November 2013, Ms Sturgeon said there had been an evening where she 'just suddenly had this overwhelming sense of impossibility'.
She recalled thinking: 'I can't get this to the point it needs to be at. It's so unwieldy. It's so difficult.'
Ms Sturgeon, who succeeded Mr Salmond to become first minister when he stood down after Scots voted to remain in the UK, continued: 'I just remember having what I can only describe as a panic attack.
'I was sobbing on the floor of my office at home and my heart was racing.'
Her comments came as she told how she still misses Mr Salmond – who she was deputy first minister to for over seven years – 'in some way'.
The pair had formed one of the most successful political partnerships in UK at the top of the SNP, but their relationship deteriorated and then broke down after sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Salmond emerged.
Following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020, Mr Salmond was cleared of all 13 charges, which included attempted rape and sexual offences.
In an exclusive interview with ITV News before the publication of her memoir Frankly on Thursday, Ms Sturgeon said she misses the relationship she used to have with him.
And she said she was hit by a 'wave of grief' after hearing of Mr Salmond's death in October last year.
Ms Sturgeon said: 'Even today I still miss him in some way – the person that I used to know and the relationship we used to have.
'But I thought I had made my peace with it, that I'd got to a point where I felt nothing.
'And then I got a call to tell me that Alex Salmond had died. I started crying on the phone and I just was hit by this wave of grief … and it was complicated because obviously we weren't just no longer friends, we were political enemies.
'There was no prospect I was going to be able to go to his funeral or anything like that and it was a kind of strange, strange feeling.'
Mr Salmond went on to become leader of the Alba Party, which became a frequent critic of his former party the SNP.
He died suddenly of a heart attack in October in North Macedonia at the age of 69.
Ms Sturgeon had not spoken to him 'for years' at that point.
She said: 'I felt really deeply the loss of the relationship with him. I suddenly didn't have him. He wasn't there. I couldn't talk to him. And I went through this period of, I would still talk to him in my head.
'I would have vivid dreams that we were still on good terms. And then I'd have this feeling of such sadness when I remembered the reality.
'So, I went through that process. I still missed him in some bizarre way.'
During the interview Ms Sturgeon is also asked by Ms Etchingham about her description of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage as 'odious' in her memoir.
She said: 'This is my impression, other people might have a different view of him. He just comes across as somebody who's got a very, very fragile ego.
'Somebody who's not particularly comfortable, particularly around women.
'In the 2015 leaders' debate just before we went on air that night, I just remember hearing him tell somebody how much he'd had to drink, in the green room area beforehand, and it just felt this kind of bravado and just not very pleasant.'
Reform UK has been approached for comment.
Nicola Sturgeon: The Interview will broadcast on Monday August 11 at 7pm on ITV1, ITVX and STV.
An extended version of the interview will be available on ITVX in the following days.