Former SNP MP Mhairi Black has admitted the Scottish Government has made an “arse” of delivering policies and said the Scottish Parliament has little power to change people’s lives.
In a candid podcast interview the SNP’s former deputy Westminster leader said she believed John Swinney was “economically right wing” and described late First Minister Alex Salmond as a “charlatan” for setting up the Alba party.
Black became the youngest MP since 1832 when she took the seat of Paisley in 2015 at the age of 20 and stood down at the last general election.
Speaking on the Leading podcast earlier this week she said: “I think there are examples of where the Scottish Government have, over the last 17-odd years, for want of a better word made an arse of it. There’s no getting away from that.
“Maybe less so on policy and more on how they’re actually delivering that policy.”
Asked if she would consider becoming an MSP, the 30-year-old said: “ No, truthfully, because I think I’d be flung out the SNP within a week, just because I’d find too much to disagree with.
“But I think that the main reason why I wouldn’t do it is because Westminster is where the power lies that really changes lives, that fundamentally changes society. It’s not the Scottish Parliament.”
Black also said she believed Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf were left of centre leaders, while she described John Swinney as “right wing…economically but everything else about him is more left leaning”.
Asked where she thought Alex Salmond stood on the political scale, she said: “ I think Alex went where he felt he needed to be.
“He started off as very far left and just gradually moved…and when he moved on to his Alba stuff, not to speak ill of those who have passed, but a charlatan.”
Black said: “ He was political to his bones, he had a mind that was sharper than most and his ability to spot opportunity and game plan in his head, he was incredible at that but the problems as his ego…in my opinion was just as big as his talent was. When you are able to take a party to success and you’re the face of it, and you start to believe your own hype, then anybody challenging you…they are the problem. It’s not ‘I have to reflect’, it’s that ‘you’re not appreciating the genius you see before you’”.
Asked about the Salmond sexual harassment scandal she said: “ What really appalled me was the number of people who suddenly felt able to talk about their experiences with Alex. I’m not meaning criminal, I’m meaning in terms of his bullying nature. I thought ‘This really has been going on for years?’
“It was very obvious that folk were scared of him or intimidated.”
Black also said Salmond made the decision to appoint Peter Murrell, then husband to his deputy Nicola Sturgeon, as the SNP’s chief executive.
She said: “ At that time there were a lot of people saying this isn’t a good look, we need to separate this. Once everybody complained about it other things were happening and we stopped thinking about it.
“It was easy to fall into place when you’re winning.”
Asked about former leadership contender Kate Forbes’s views, Black joked that she wouldn’t be able to be gay or married “if she was in charge”.
She said: “The ‘trans issue’ opened a sort of ugly can of worms within the SNP, because the SNP does have very socially conservative people. It also has economically conservative people.
“The social conservatism hadn’t shown itself for a long time and particularly during Nicola’s leadership… then suddenly it was okay to challenge that. [People thought] seeing as we’re talking about the trans, well see those gays…
“Those beliefs have always been there but suddenly there was the opportunity to talk about them.”
She agreed that without the “glue of independence” holding the party together it would crumble and said: “That’s partly why the SNP got such a bruising result in the election – the outside world could see those cracks.”
Don’t miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond – Sign up to our daily newsletter here.