Salmond: New Scottish Referendum 'Inevitable'

Alex Salmond has been accused of "obsessing about a re-run" of the Scottish referendum after he said another vote on independence was "inevitable".

Scotland's former first minister argued the only question was the timing, which "was very much in the hands" of his successor Nicola Sturgeon.

Voters in Scotland rejected independence by 55% to 45% in last September's referendum.

But the SNP MP claimed the three issues pushing forward another public vote were the failure to deliver a vow on home rule, the European Union and different approaches to austerity.

But Labour's shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray said Mr Salmond's priorities were "all wrong".

Highlighting accusations of failure by the SNP administration at Holyrood, Mr Murray said: "Instead of obsessing about a re-run of a vote that took place less than a year ago, the SNP should focus on cleaning up the mess they have made of Scotland's public services."

Earlier, Mr Salmond told the BBC, Scotland was getting "austerity to the max" instead of "devo to the max".

He said: "I think a second independence referendum is inevitable.

"The question is not the inevitability, it's the timing and that is very much in the hands of Nicola Sturgeon.

"I can see three issues which are moving things towards a second referendum on a timescale yet to be determined.

"One is the refusal to deliver the vow. The vow was about home rule, devo to the max, near federalism to quote Gordon Brown.

"That has not been delivered as yet at least in the Scotland Bill so that's an issue.

"The second issue is one that's been cast up quite a lot and that's the European issue.

"If you had a situation and circumstance where Scotland voted to stay in the European Union in the referendum but was dragged out on the votes of the people of England, then that would be a material change of circumstance and the third thing emerging of course comes out from the budget and the welfare bill which is austerity.

"Instead of getting devo to the max we're getting austerity to the max and that divergent view of what's right in social terms between Scotland and England is another issue which is moving things towards another referendum."