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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now migrants on Greek islands will be sent back to Turkey from tomorrow despite a warning from the United Nations that further safeguards are needed.  The controversial deal between Turkey and the European Union hopes to stem the flow of the migration crisis.  Well I’m joined now by Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland of course and now the SNP Foreign Affair’s Spokesman, he’s in Strichan in Aberdeenshire, a very good morning to you Mr Salmond.  Now this deal the EU has cut with Turkey as I mentioned there, coming into force tomorrow, the UN in particular has voiced these concerns that not only might it be illegal but that in practice it may well be inhumane.  What do you think?

ALEX SALMOND: Well I think the United Nations concerns are justified, we read this morning that the border inspectors to administer the return scheme that had been promised as part of this deal haven’t actually been delivered and already there are severe problems breaking out on various Greek islands as people are effectively forcibly deported back to Turkey, so it seems the warnings given by the United Nations are coming to pass.  

DM: Well is there a better way in your view?

ALEX SALMOND: Well I said for many months that I don’t see given the extent of the crisis there being any way round acting with solidarity across the European Union to resettle substantial numbers of migrants on a proportionate GDP basis across the entire continent.  Any other attempt at a solution, whatever it might be, is going to bring with it severe difficulties and as this situation unravels over the next few weeks and months, we’re going to see these  and in particular I think we should draw and focus attention on something which perhaps can be done, where there are indications there are is going to be a movement, and that is to address specifically the plight of the many thousands of unaccompanied children, children at risk, children who could be given a home and a start in the United Kingdom and certainly the public opinion in Scotland is that we should offer the hand of friendship to these children.

DM: But do you think, Mr Salmond, that there should be no attempt by the European Union to send back migrants who have already made it to the European Union?

ALEX SALMOND: Well I think it’s entirely proper that people – and let’s stop assuming that migrants is the right phrase here, many of these people are quite clearly and unambiguously refugees.  I think it is entirely proper to process people and examine the circumstances, examine where they came from and categorise people properly as opposed to this sort of general spread that these people are all economic migrants.  Quite devastatingly and clearly a very, very substantial number, certainly the majority and perhaps overwhelming majority, are people who are fleeing oppression, terror and civil war and circumstances, particularly in the Middle East, which this country and others have a large measure of responsibility for the genesis of them, in terms of the invasion of Iraq which I think most people now accept set off a chain reaction of events which have resulted in the horrors we are now seeing.

DM: But you would say, wouldn’t you, that refugees and migrants, whatever they are termed and whatever their circumstances, that if they make it to European Union countries including our own, they have a positive contribution to make?  

ALEX SALMOND: Yes, I would argue that and I think it’s high time we heard the economic case for immigration and the contribution that people can make to communities.  I mean this country of Scotland for example has exported over the last century far, far too many people but one thing that has given us is an understanding of the contribution that these Scots have made to many countries internationally and therefore an appreciation of the contribution that immigrants and migrants and refugees for that matter can make to this country and I’m sure there is an awareness across the country of that.  So many of our most vibrant communities have at their very heart people who have come from elsewhere in the world and I think we have to not just open our hearts but open our minds to the economic benefits of people who come to these shores from other countries.  I am very suspicious – I just heard your interview with the Conservative MP and you asked him a question and he was telling the European Union to get its act together and you asked him a question about the measures that the European Union wanted to take to stop Chinese dumping of steel.  It was interrupted and obstacle by the British government and instead of actually answering and facing up to the question, he started talking about President Obama.  You see, if we have a blindness, many people in public life in this country when you hear the words European Union it is automatically bad – I think we should start embracing the fact that there are many initiatives that can be made on a European basis that actually are very positive and we should stop the attitude of trying to put spokes in every wheel because as we see in the steel industry now, that sort of negative attitude can come back to haunt us.

DM: Just on the refugees and the quota system that the Germans have suggested, if you had control of your borders in Scotland as you wish, how many more migrants, refugees, would Scotland be taking?  

ALEX SALMOND: Well, we would offer to take a proportionate GDP share of the European allocation. I was actually in favour of the previous European declaration and that should be distributed by population share so that no one country is faced with the overwhelming burden because that results in some of the consequences we’ve seen both in Southern Europe and for that matter in Germany.  It has to be a matter of solidarity and collective action, that’s the sort of Europe that I want to see, one that’s capable of responding to an international crisis by solidarity, whether that crisis is in terms of refugees or whether that crisis in terms of acting together to protect the steel industry across the continent.  
DM: Let’s talk then in detail about the steel industry.  As we saw in a small scale from the Scottish government when it came to elements of the steel industry there, do you think governments should be prepared to step in and spend public money to protect it?    

ALEX SALMOND: Yes I do and what a contrast there is between the actions of the Scottish government who as you know bought the assets at Clydebridge and Dalzell and sold them on to Liberty House and that industry, much smaller incidentally than the Welsh industry, we’re talking about 300 jobs or so at Clydebridge and Dalzell, but that industry now has at least the chance of a new future using what is called green steel, that’s recycled products, to pursue a position within the industry but that is affirmative government action, being prepared to say yes, the government has the ability to secure the assets and then to sell them on to a company which is prepared to make a go of things.  What a difference between that affirmative action by the Scottish government and the UK government, I mean Sajid Javid looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights, as if he never thought this might happen in terms of the struggling and scrambling to come up with a response.  Now the response has to be you’ve got to find a way to secure the competitive position of the UK steel industry, of the steel industry in Wales, through energy costs, you’ve got to do something about the overhang of the pension fund – I mean they did that incidentally for the Post Office when they were wanting to privatise it so why can’t they do it for the steel industry?  And lastly, we’ve got to act together with our European partners in addressing the dumping issue, in terms of the undermining of price levels through the Chinese products.

DM: Okay, let’s talk a bit more about the Business Secretary and indeed the government, you say he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights, there he was off to Australia, he got there, he missed the flight to get back, he certainly wasn’t going to Mumbai where one of the key board meetings was taking place.  People are saying this is symptomatic of the government as a whole having its eye off the ball when it comes to so many issues within the UK because of the EU referendum, do you agree with that?

ALEX SALMOND: I think the government is showing every sign in Westminster of losing the place, whether that’s due to the EU referendum or just faced on the horns of the dilemma it has created.  I mean the steel industry has been hoist to a great extent on George Osborne’s petard, he has been pursuing a relationship with China – and that’s a good thing incidentally but instead of pursuing an industrial partnership and an industrial relationship, George Osborne’s idea is that the Chinese institutions will park themselves in the City of London, the Chinese will finance the Hinckley Point power stations at some enormous cost to the British tax payer, that’s his idea of the Chinese so therefore of course when it came to taking action against Chinese industrial products as they are part of that dirty deal, the UK government were trying to stop action at an EU level because it’s not the relationship with China that the government has got wrong, it’s the nature of the relationship, they are making as a great Conservative, Winston Churchill, once said ‘Finance too proud and industry too poor.’

DM: Well with that kind of muddle-headed thinking I’m just wondering, take that together and who knows what more calamities are perhaps waiting down the line for the government before the EU referendum and what happens after that – we might have a leadership contest, who is going to be Prime Minister, I’m just wondering if these would be the seeds of the beginning, the renewing of a discussion that your party would have with the Scottish people about having another independence referendum, saying we don’t want to be getting dragged along with this, it seems to be going on forever?

ALEX SALMOND: Well I think Nicola Sturgeon has been absolutely correct to outline the European issue as one which would be the change in material circumstance that would occasion another referendum in Scotland and I see even the Labour leader in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale, let it slip out this week that that would cause her to reassess her opposition to Scottish independence so if even the Labour leader in Scotland is prepared to accept that point, I think we can take it as a very, very strong argument indeed, so this European issue is going to have all sorts of consequences.  But as we see now, David Cameron’s approach to this issue – because I’m somebody who wants to see a remain vote across the United Kingdom – is coming unstuck in a number of ways.  I mean he chose the timing of this campaign and yet the timing has become mixed up and immersed in other elections taking place.  Understandably the SNP just now has as their priority winning the Scottish election, the Labour party effectively has been sitting on their hands thus far in the European referendum because they are fighting electoral contests as well but that timing was in David Cameron’s hands and he also chose not to allow European citizens paying their taxes, working and living in this country, to vote.  He didn’t extend the franchise to 16 year olds who are the keenest on the European dimension.  These are the sins that he made and just as the steel industry has been hoist on George Osborne’s petard, I hope that the future of this country in Europe isn’t hoist on David Cameron’s.

DM: Good talking to you Mr Salmond, must end it there, thank you very much indeed once again, good to see you.