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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now this week could of course be one of the most important for Britain’s relationship with the European Union. On Thursday David Cameron hopes to reach an agreement with European leaders on a series of reforms to Britain’s relationship with Brussels but a poll this morning suggests that six out of ten people don’t think he’ll get a good deal.  Well I’m joined now by Scotland’s former First Minister, Alex Salmond, he’s now the SNP Foreign Affair’s spokesman in Westminster, he’s in Aberdeenshire, a very good morning to you Mr Salmond.  Well of course you want to stay in the European Union, will you be rooting then for Mr Cameron?  

ALEX SALMOND: I don't think I’ve ever rooted for Mr Cameron.  I mean I regard these negotiations so-called, well to quote an English poet, ‘Much ado about nothing’.  I mean what’s he doing?  He’s saying everybody is not to be nasty to each other whether eurozone or non-eurozone, we’ve all got to be competitive and Polish workers are not allowed to send their child benefit back to Warsaw.  They are interesting enough issues but they are not the stuff of what the future of Europe will be built so I think it is a sham negotiation. I’m in favour of Europe because of what Europe could do, big issues, not the minute agenda that David Cameron is pursuing this week.  

DM: But are you saying he didn’t have to ask for anything or that he should have asked for more?  

ALEX SALMOND: No, I think what Europe should be doing and what we should be doing in terms of contribution to Europe is concentrating on what really matters, for example facing the obvious threats to the world economy at the present moment, actually dealing with the environmental challenges which faces the continent, looking at solidarity with how you deal with the huge refugee crisis enveloping Europe.  These are the issues which the European Union and David Cameron should be focusing his mind on, not a sham negotiation which is taking place at the present moment. I think most people in Europe will regard the Cameron agenda as at best a distraction and at worst positively damaging in facing the big issues which we should be concentrating on.

DM: I want to ask you about the campaign which is already underway and of course Project Fear which was coined during the course of the independence referendum in Scotland and you were on the receiving end you said of that. Well now it’s said that the Remain campaigners are using that with things like 5000 migrants will come over from Calais overnight if we leave the European Union, that air fares will go up – do you think that is scaremongering?

ALEX SALMOND: Yes I do.  Project Fear was a self-described term of the Better Together campaign arguing against Scottish independence, it is almost as if Project Fear had divided itself into two and some of them are now anti-Europeans and some of them are pro-Europeans and they are flinging their scaremongering at each other, as in for example the debate about which side of the Channel there’s going to be a vast camp for migrants a week ago.  Now if we have that sort of debate over these next few weeks then I think there’s a very real chance that the anti-Europeans will win because the only way that the anti-European forces can win is if they have, if we have two campaigns of scaremongering then in that case the biggest fear mongering tends to win and therefore the real danger is that the pro-European case, the real case about this country’s position in Europe, won’t be made.  It certainly won’t be made by David Cameron and therefore it falls on people who actually believe in it to make that case because that’s the sort of positive vision that gets people out their houses into polling stations.  Now of course people might say look, David Cameron won the Scottish referendum with his fear mongering campaign, well that’s true but it’s also the case that the no side lost 17% of the vote during the campaign and the yes side, which was a positive uplifting campaign, gained 17% of the vote.  Obviously with the state of the polls on Europe, Cameron can’t afford to lose 17% of the vote.  


DM: Okay, well we read into that you’re going to be campaigning positively and actively.  In terms of your willingness to debate, Mr Salmond, would you take on someone like Nigel Farage head to head?  

ALEX SALMOND: Yes, of course I would and I’d be delighted to take on Mr Farage or any comer on the anti-European side. I don’t know if they have quite decided who they will be fielding yet and they seem to have spent a lot of time fighting with each other, that’s the sort of folk they are, but yes, of course you debate all comers in a referendum campaign.  If I may say so it’s been Mr Cameron who has been tentative and sensitive about debating people in recent history, he wouldn’t debate with me in the Scottish referendum campaign and of course he was very restrictive in how many debates he did in the General Election campaign.  Maybe that’s a wise political strategy but it doesn’t do much for engendering debate and discussion.

DM: I’ll tell you what, that Farage idea, if we can get Mr Farage’s agreement maybe we can clear some airtime on this programme and have you both on, I’d look forward to that.  

ALEX SALMOND: Yes, let’s do that.  Incidentally it is starting to snow again, Dermot, so can I put this message across, if you are thinking of skiing for your half-term break then come to Scotland!  

DM: No need to go to one of our European partners!  Let me ask you this as well, another parallel with the independence referendum, after you lost it you resigned, do you think Mr Cameron should do the same thing if that happened to him?  

ALEX SALMOND: He won’t have a choice.  I actually saw your interview with Graham Brady of the 22 Committee earlier on in your programme and I noted Graham’s comment that he doesn’t think that Mr Cameron would resign immediately – yeah, that’s true, it would take him a few weeks.  He won’t have a choice in the matter, if he loses the referendum then he’ll be shown the door, as indeed will the Chancellor George Osborne, so it’s untenable to try and maintain a position if you lose a referendum.  What is it they used to say in the Conservative party a long time ago? He’d have to do the honourable thing.

DM: Okay, let’s just clear this up, last question on Mr Cameron but he said after that letter that was written from the leaders of Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, saying that an independence, an EU referendum shouldn’t be held on June 23rd, it is too soon, it will muddy the waters around the May elections.  Mr Cameron then said you told him it was fine, six weeks was enough time.  

ALEX SALMOND: Well that’s not true, what I said was it was a necessary period according to the legislation but it wasn’t a sufficient period and I wrote him a letter to say that so it is somewhat disingenuous, the claim he made in the House of Commons but then disingenuous is one of the nicer things I’ve said about Mr Cameron.  The point is this, it is a ten week campaign on the European referendum and that means the campaign would start during the campaign for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish and indeed London elections. It is fundamentally disrespectful.  For those who say oh, the case for Europe depends on a dash to the polls this summer, if the case for Europe is so flimsy and lacking in substance then no amount of dashing to the polls is going to save it. The way to win the case for Europe is to concentrate on the things that matter – recovery across the continent, fending off the economic crisis, solidarity in terms of refugees and tackling the environmental issues that beset us all.  Not about what Europe is right now but about what Europe could be if we put our backs into it instead of the negative marginal attitude of Mr Cameron and indeed the Eurosceptics in the House of Commons.

DM: And let me ask you about those Scottish elections, your ear is much closer to the ground there, are you reading it as the Tories doing better than Labour and may finish second to the SNP?

ALEX SALMOND: Well according to the polls and you have to put a large question mark over any opinion poll these days, the SNP are more than 30 points clear at the present moment with over 50% of the vote.  Now the Tories have been trumpeting that they are going to catch Labour for second place but the MORI poll this week actually showed Tory support falling and the leadership ratings for Ruth Davidson are falling so I think it has been a rather clumsy boast from the Conservative party that they could get into second place and it will look like a big failure, or another big failure, if they don’t succeed in doing that.  But nobody takes anything for granted in the SNP incidentally, Dermot, you have got to work for every vote, you’ve got to work for every election, that is the recipe for electoral success but my successor, Nicola Sturgeon, knows that.

DM: Okay, I’m sure she does.  Mr Salmond, great talking to you, whatever the weather that location looks fantastic, thank you very much indeed Alex Salmond there.  

ALEX SALMOND: This is great weather, Dermot!