ALEX Salmond has said the SNP are showing a “lack of urgency” over Scottish independence.

The Alba Party leader said they were going to tackle the “constitutional debate” following the suspension of the election campaign in the wake of the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.

Salmond has made one of his first overt broadsides against his former party and more specifically his former deputy.

Nicola Sturgeon has previously said she hopes another referendum on independence would take place in the first half of the parliamentary term – which would be by the end of November 2023 – however she told journalists last week that would not be the case if the country was still in the grip of a pandemic.

In a statement released yesterday, Salmond said: “Nicola Sturgeon’s comments last week about an independence referendum in 2023 or later have caused total consternation in the national movement.

“It seems to be that Scotland will not be free until after 2023, more seriously it seems to indicate a lack of urgency on bringing the independence question to a decision.”

The Alba Party, as with the SNP, both believe independence would aid Scotland in its recovery from the coronavirus, but Salmond has said it is a “priority” for his party.

“The reality is that Scottish independence is not an alternative to economic recovery from Covid, it is an essential part of building a new, different and better society,” he said.

“For Alba, independence is the priority, which is why we are putting it front and centre in the election campaign.

“In the power balance that will emerge post-election between Scotland and Westminster it is fundamentally true that Boris Johnson will find it substantially more difficult taking on a Parliament with an independence supermajority representing a country than he will in framing the debate as party against party, Prime Minister against First Minister.”

Sturgeon told the Guardian yesterday that she believes Boris Johnson would relent in his opposition to another referendum if the SNP win a majority on May 6.

She said: “If people in Scotland vote for a party saying ‘when the time is right, there should be an independence referendum’, you cannot stand in the way of that – and I don’t think that is what will happen.”

Responding to Sturgeon’s comments, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The first thing to say is that ministers and officials across ... all UK government departments are focused on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think that’s what the public wants to see, Scottish people have been clear they want to see the UK Government and devolved administrations working together to defeat this pandemic.

“So, calling for a referendum in this way in the middle of the pandemic is not right.”