SNP incompetence in government has hindered the cause of Scottish independence, according to its former leader Alex Salmond.

The man who led the SNP into power in 2007 and through a referendum on separation in 2014 was highly critical of his successor as first minister Nicola Sturgeon, as well as the party itself, which he left in 2021 to form Alba.

He branded Ms Sturgeon’s “ill-starred, ill-fated, kamikaze venture to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom” to challenge the British government’s decision to block another constitutional plebiscite as “just ludicrous from start to finish.”