Alex Salmond warns SNP faces 'major disaster' if party drops below 20 MPs at general election

Alex Salmond has warned the SNP faces a "major disaster" if the party returns fewer than 20 MPs at the general election.

The former first minister predicted the Nationalists were in for a "difficult time" when voters head to the polls on July 4.

The SNP has endured a torrid period over the last 16 months since Nicola Sturgeon resigned as leader in February 2023.

The party - which dominated the last three general elections in Scotland - has regularly trailed Labour in surveys of voting intentions this year and is tipped to lose multiple seats across the country next month.

Speaking on the Planet Holyrood podcast, Salmond said there was a "missing 20 per cent" of voters in Scotland who backed independence but were unlikely to vote SNP.

The Alba leader is hoping such "demoralised" indy supporters would now support his new party instead of choosing to vote Labour.

"I think the SNP are in for a difficult time," he told Planet Holyrood. "If you look at the steady average of the opinion polls, 50 per cent believe in independence, but just over 30 per cent are prepared to vote for the SNP.

"In that 20 per cent - let's call them the missing 20 per cent - these are people who are disillusioned by the lack of progress for independence, sometimes put off by the stupid things the SNP have done in Government recently.

"These are people who are going to sit on their hands, or worse still from a Nationalist perspective, vote Labour.

"So Alba's campaign is not to split the the independence vote from the SNP, it's to drive that 20 per cent who are demoralised, and say look, don't stay at home, come and vote for Alba, we've got a plan to get us to independence, and don't vote for a Unionist party."

Asked how many seats the SNP could win, Salmond replied: "I think if the SNP go below 20, that would be regarded as a major disaster, and a major step backwards."

Salmond led the SNP during two spells in the 1990s and 2000s, before choosing to resign as leader following the independence referendum in 2014.

The Nationalists returned 56 MPs at the general election the following year under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon by winning an unprecedented majority of Scottish seats.

Salmond spoke to the Planet Holyrood podcast from Dundee shortly after launching the Alba general election manifesto.

His breakaway party is contesting 19 constituencies across Scotland next month but is already planning ahead for the 2026 Holyrood elections, where it hopes to win at least 15 per cent of the list vote and return more than 20 MSPs.

Salmond added: "It took 17 years to transform the SNP from the also-rans of Scottish politics, with two or three MPs, to win the Scottish elections in 2007. I'm working on exactly the same strategy, but a slightly shorter timescale.

"Everything is much quicker now, so we'll see if we can do it in 17 months instead of 17 years."

Asked who he would like to see leading the SNP in the future, Salmond insisted it "wouldn't be right to choose the leader of another party".

He added: "I think Stephen Flynn has shown himself a very capable debater in the Westminster parliament. And Kate Forbes is a very attractive personality. People are lot more broad-minded than politicians, or journalists sometimes.

"They are much more tolerant of a divergence of views than sometimes politicians are. I think she has a big future."

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