Alex Salmond – claims former First Minister was victim of a “stitch up” – Jim Sillars and FM Nicola Sturgeon.
By Paul Hutcheon in the Daily Record
A new pro-independence party may have to set up because the SNP is so rotten, according to a veteran Nationalist.
Jim Sillars claimed the fallout from the Alex Salmond trial would be like a “volcanic eruption” and said something “new” and “untainted” may have to replace the SNP.
Salmond, who was First Minister between 2007 and 2014, was cleared at a trial in March of sexually assaulting nine women.
Some of his female accusers are in the SNP and the former leader’s supporters believe there was an attempt to stitch him up.
Salmond is understood to be writing a book about the trial and an initial Scottish Government investigation into him over misconduct claims, which he successfully challenged in court.
In the forthcoming issue of the Scottish Left Review, Sillars, a former SNP depute leader said: “The criminal trial of Alex Salmond may be over, but the trial of the SNP both at party and parliamentary level is yet to begin.
“It is unavoidable. The book he is writing, with the material he was not allowed to produce at trial, but which has all the authenticity of Scottish government and SNP party documents, will be like a volcano going off underneath some people.