ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: The death of the hostage David Haines has clearly altered the tone of the referendum campaign here in Scotland today but it is likely to remain a passionate and high spirited affair.  In recent weeks there have been more and more accusations that it’s got pretty nasty so are the leading figures of the campaigns pleased with the tone of the debate so far?  I’m joined now by the Deputy First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Douglas Alexander, a very good morning to you.  Of course it is a sombre morning because of the apparent killing it seems of David Haines and Nicola Sturgeon, and I know all our thoughts first of all with David Haines family but as we offer our condolences, thoughts about what can be done about Islamic State from a Scottish perspective?

NICOLA STURGEON: Well can I formally record my condolences to the family of David Haines.  If what we are hearing is true it is an act of unspeakable barbarity and I think everyone in Scotland and beyond will be totally united in condemnation of that today.  I think it is really important that the international community does come together and as a matter of urgency comes up with a strategy to deal with this threat because it’s a threat that’s posed to all of us and any possible or potential action must be seen in the context of such a strategy.  I think with recent events the need to do that becomes ever more urgent. 

DM: Douglas Alexander?

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: It is an act of unconscionable evil, it’s revolting and deserves our unreserved condemnation.  In terms of what can practically be done, this is a challenge that is not going to be with us for days or for weeks but for months and potentially years.  We need to defeat both the ideology of ISIL as well as the threat that it poses both to Iraq and the population there and of course as we’ve seen to people such as this aid worker who was there simply trying to help people in the Middle East.  It’s well known that the United States government are trying to work through a strategy at the moment with other international partners, including the United Kingdom.  We saw in the Newport NATO summit just last weekend an agreement to try to work together in the months ahead.  I think that’s the right response, I think we need to draw lessons from past experience but on the other hand there is no question that this is a threat that is going to have to be confronted principally by those within the region, first and foremost by the people of Iraq who are threatened by ISILs advance.  We have supported the steps taken to arm the Peshmerga, those are the Kurdish regional forces who are on the front line. I have argued for some time for example that more should be done to support Jordan which presently has a 600 mile land border with areas controlled by ISIL, so there is a great deal of work for the international community to do to stand united in the coming months.

DM: But Nicola Sturgeon, there are pertinent questions for an independent Scotland about this kind of threat as Douglas Alexander … I mean you can have an independent Scotland being formed in five days’ time and this threat will of course go on a lot longer than that.  Would Scotland on its own approach Islamic State any differently from the way that Mr Cameron is leading at the moment?

NICOLA STURGEON: Well let me just offer a word of slight correction.  If Scotland votes Yes on Thursday as I hope we do, we do not become independent immediate, we will not become independent until 18 months …

DM: But you are starting to …

NICOLA SURGEON: Of course, our first instinct would be to work with the partners across what is currently the United Kingdom to fashion a concerted strategy.  I agree with much of what Douglas has said, I think recent history in Iraq suggests we need to see any potential action as part of a strategy.  We right now as a Scottish government have got domestic responsibilities, I agree with Douglas about the need to defeat the ideology of ISIL and we need at home to work very, very hard to secure what is currently the case just now which is good community cohesion, the Scottish government’s resilience [committed to anything] shortly to look at our responsibilities on that.

DM: There is one key question though that people will want to hear answered unequivocally yes or no on paying ransoms for hostages.  Other countries do it we know, would Scotland continue that or that absolutely …

NICOLA STURGEON: I do not consider the paying ransoms for hostages, whilst I totally understand the anguish of families, is the correct approach because I think the danger is that it feeds rather than defeats the whole act of hostage taking.  I think rightly there is a real degree of scepticism to that approach but we need to … Again I agree with Douglas, we are dealing with a threat here that will not just be with us for the short term but for the medium and long term and it is important that the international community comes together and decides what the correct approach to that is.  Now if Scotland becomes an independent country we will play a constructive part of that, we have always said and by we I mean my party and the current Scottish government, that action has to be sanctioned by international law, by the United Nations and I think that’s an important principled position to take.

DM: Okay, I want to broaden this out because you agree on that and it’s good to see it but you don’t agree on the …

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Can I just say one thing, the truth is that as the United Kingdom we have a permanent seat on the Security Council, we have special forces that are simply the best in the world, we have capabilities that would not be available to an independent Scotland and that’s just a matter of record.

NICOLA STURGEON: Can I also say, and I don’t want to break the consensus that exists particularly on this morning of all mornings but as part of the UK we also took part in an illegal intervention in Iraq which at least in part has created some of the conditions in that part of the world that we are dealing with today.  An independent Scotland’s closest ally will be the rest of the United Kingdom and we will work constructively but on the basis of international law and beyond that, I think what we should be striving for today is consensus not division.

DM: Okay, consensus about what has happened to David Haines but this is for the future and Scotland’s defence and all kind of things.  Let me throw into the mix, I was talking to Lord Dannatt and he is writing in the Sunday Telegraph today and he talked about serving alongside Scottish comrades in so many different theatres, some of whom lost their lives and he feels that the families of Scottish soldiers who died in some of those conflicts may feel was it all in vain, would you go along with some of that? 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: I was surprised by that headline frankly from Lord Dannatt. I am unyielding in my admiration and respect for the men and women of the British Armed Forces and the contribution that Scots have played and continue to play within those forces but many British soldiers have given their lives over the years first to defeat fascism and then to defend democracy and let’s be absolutely clear, what we are witnessing on Thursday here in Scotland is an exercise in democracy so I hold no brief for Lord Dannatt this morning. 

DM: And presumably you don’t either Nicola Sturgeon?

NICOLA STURGEON: There’s a lot of consensus!  Yes, I thought that Lord Dannatt’s comments this morning bordered on being offensive and insulting.  There are people of many different nationalities who fought in the British Armed Forces I recently went to visit a 102 year old Desert Rat who is actively campaigning for a Yes vote and for Scotland becoming independent.  There are mixed opinions in the Armed Forces as there is across Scottish society but I really found those comments unhelpful in the context of what is a democratic debate. 

DM: Let’s talk about the campaign and the democratic debate.  The charge is that you in the No camp, the Better Together camp, have been so rattled starting last weekend from that one poll and indeed from the narrowing of the polls, they seem to be all over the place today, that you have gone for the nuclear option, wheeled out your friends in the business community to bring all kinds of dire warnings about jobs and billions of pounds going south.

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Honestly Dermot, are we now suggesting that there is a big conspiracy somehow?

NICOLA STURGEON: Yes! 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Frankly if that’s the best you can do, with allegations about MI5 and Iceland and Asda and other supermarkets, it’s ridiculous.  Let’s be clear …

DM: But they seem to be lining up …

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: What we have seen this week is an avalanche of fact sweeping away the Nationalist assertion.  Actually are we honestly suggesting that these company boards are lying to people because someone has told them to?  Because that’s a very serious allegation.  These people are speaking out, I would accept, because they saw last weekend an opinion poll that suggested that Scotland might become independent but what’s happened this week is something pretty profound, not just the assertions that Alex has made being swept away, but actually the choice becoming clearer – faster, safer, better change within the United Kingdom and a Scotland without a single major Scottish bank, with supermarkets warning that prices will go up.  The fact is that these institutions have chosen to speak out because they regard the risks and uncertainties involved in separation …

DM: But why didn’t they speak out weeks or months before?  Nicola Sturgeon, you agree, you said conspiracy, you said yes. 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: It isn’t a conspiracy.

NICOLA STURGEON: We know that David Cameron actively … we have the UK government and the No campaign trying to encourage businesses to speak out.  We know for example that David Cameron was trying to get supermarkets to speak out, to get banks to speak out.  I don’t question the right of any business to speak out in this debate but what I do question is the No campaign and their deliberate attempts to misinterpret and misquote.  I want to give you a specific example, RBS said last week that the contingency plan they’d come up with was to reregister their registered office, to effectively move their brass plate, which has no impact on jobs or operations.  We have a No campaign running around Scotland saying that jobs are under threat so if the banks themselves are not saying these things, why do we have a No campaign scaremongering.  What we have seen in recent weeks and months in Scotland is a flowering of the confidence of the people of this country, they know that there are people in the No campaign trying to scare them.  We are within days of taking control of the future of our country, we can vote Yes on Thursday and we can keep control of the future of our country, have control in our hands or we can vote …

DM: And punish those banks if you get control?

NICOLA STURGEON: Absolutely no, absolutely not.  If we vote yes on Thursday then what we have on Friday is a coming together of this country, a day of celebration undoubtedly but a coming together of this country as Team Scotland, to move forward as one.

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Nicola, Nicola talks as Deputy Leader of the Scottish National Party of a day of celebration but the former Deputy Leader of the Scottish National Party, Jim Sillers, promises a day of reckoning so they are offering a day of celebration to their supporters and a day of reckoning to the rest of us.

NICOLA STURGEON: That’s not true.

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: That is the fact, that’s what he said, we all heard it, we heard him on the radio. 

NICOLA STURGEON: And I don’t agree with that. 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: So you are disassociating yourself from those remarks?

NICOLA: I don’t agree with those comments. 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Do you disassociate yourself from those remarks?

NICOLA STURGEON: What bit of disagree with don’t you understand? 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: You disagree, so they were wrong were they?

NICOLA STURGEON: Well yes because I think what we will have on Friday is a day of celebration and a coming together.  We’ve had, despite the best efforts of some in the No campaign, the most wonderful debate in this country.  I have never in my entire lifetime known the population of Scotland to be so engaged, so interested, so excited, so well informed about how they are governed.  Yes, there is a passionate debate and people who are on the other side to me are as entitled to their views as I am to mine, but once that democratic decision is made, on Friday we come together as a country.  It is why we said quite clearly that Team Scotland, the negotiation team that will be formed in the wake of a Yes vote, will include people like Douglas and I hope Douglas will be in it as we move forward. 

DM: Would you join it?

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: You are once again using the language of Team Scotland, I cannot tell you how offensive we find it when you suggested that your supporters in Scotland – and they are as Scottish as everybody else – somehow represent Team Scotland and gold medal winners who did represent Team Scotland immediately took to television screens and in public reports said they found it offensive as well.  Will you apologise for suggesting that only your supporters are Team Scotland? 

NICOLA STURGEON: Douglas, when I meet the aggression that’s coming from you to me with the hand of friendship, we’re on opposite sides of this debate and we are both entitled to our opinion.  This has been a great debate, I hope we can all agree on that and on Friday, if Yes wins, I want you in the negotiating team arguing Scotland’s corner, will you accept? 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Nicola, I am part of the team that I believe represents Scotland at the moment.

NICOLA STURGEON: But if Scotland democratically votes yes, will you been in Team Scotland? 

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: And will you work with us if there is a no vote to make devolution light?

NICOLA STURGEON: I will work with anybody, yes.  Of course, yes, will you be in Team Scotland?  I always work with the best interests of Scotland.

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: I don’t believe Alex Salmond’s White Paper is in the best interests of Scotland, for example the …

NICOLA STURGEON: Okay but people will decide that.

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: You’ll take that as the sovereign will?  You have said the sovereign will of the Scottish people will be 649 pages of the White Paper …

NICOLA STURGEON: Douglas, I accept you don’t agree but I am trying to make a point …

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: Well thank you …

NICOLA STURGEON: The people of Scotland will decide on Thursday.

DM: It’s a fundamental point, if the people of Scotland decide and it is yes, would you join … It’s a healing process isn’t it?  Would you join part of that?

DOUGLAS ALEXANDER: The people will decide on Thursday that they are going to vote yes then of course I will accept that decision.  I won’t change my mind but she is inviting me to join a negotiating team that is negotiating something, a currency union, that I don’t think is in our interests. 

DM: Okay, listen, we must end it there.  That debate of course doesn’t end and we’ll go right up to the time that those polls open on Thursday, thank you both very much indeed, very good to see you both.