Salmond: SNP still wants EU membership
- Published
Former SNP leader Alex Salmond has said the party still supports an independent Scotland being a member of the European Union.
The Times reported on Monday, external that the party was considering changing its long-standing policy.
Instead, it said the SNP may campaign for an independent Scotland to keep access to the single market without being a full member of the EU.
Mr Salmond said there had been "confusion on The Times' part".
The newspaper report said senior SNP figures now wanted the party to pursue a Norway-style model, which would enable an independent Scotland to remain in the single market via the European Free Trade Area and European Economic Agreement, rather than full EU membership.
It said they believed the move would allow Scotland to retain all the benefits of the European single market while continuing to trade within the UK as it does now.
The Scottish government published a paper last year which argued that Scotland could remain in both the UK and the European single market even if the rest of the UK leaves, which the prime minister has said will be the case after Brexit.
Speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme on Tuesday, Mr Salmond said the document also said that "our position is for full membership of the European Union".
When asked whether that meant the SNP would pursue full membership of the EU in the event of a Yes vote in any future independence referendum, the former first minister replied: "That is the policy.
"But the paper argues that in the current circumstances, where we can't get everything we want, where we are trying to reach a compromise agreement, the first minister has put forward a plan whereby Scotland could stay within the European Economic Area."
An SNP spokesman also said that it was clear that "remaining in the EU is the best position for Scotland, and that is what we are committed to."
Mr Salmond, who is now the MP for Gordon, was speaking as the House of Commons prepared to start two days of debate over the UK government's parliamentary bill to get the formal process of Brexit under way.
'The people spoke'
The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill would allow Prime Minister Theresa May to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, getting official talks between the UK and the EU started.
The SNP - which has said it will table 50 amendments to the bill - and Liberal Democrats will vote against it, but Labour's leadership is backing it, meaning the government is expected to win.
Speaking in Dublin on Monday, Prime Minister Theresa May said MPs would face a very clear choice when they came to vote on the bill.
She said: "The people of the United Kingdom voted on June 23 last year. They voted in a referendum that was given to them overwhelmingly by parliament.
"The people spoke in that vote. The majority voted to leave the European Union. I think it is now the job of the government to put that into practice.
"I hope that when people come to look at the Article 50 Bill they will recognise it is a very simple decision: do they support the will of the British people or not?"