Announces resignation
Salmond announces that he will resign as First Minister and head of the SNP. He will remain in the post until the SNP’s annual conference in Perth on Nov. 13-15 and will then stand down and allow another leader to be elected. He does not endorse a successor. At his official residence in Edinburgh:
It has been the privilege of my life to serve Scotland as First Minister. But as I said often during the referendum campaign this is not about me or the SNP. It is much more important than that. The position is this. We lost the referendum vote but can still carry the political initiative. More importantly Scotland can still emerge as the real winner.
‘No-one can stop Scotland using the pound’
Salmond says that an independent Scotland would continue to use the pound:
All this stuff about being able to be vetoed from using the pound actually isn’t true. No one can stop us from using (it) … It’s sensible – England is our biggest trading partner, and Scotland is England’s second-biggest trading partner after the U.S. There will be a common sense agreement for a common currency.
Letter to public
Salmond writes an open letter to the Scottish public, saying that now the campaigning is almost over, the focus is on the people of the country and how they will decide:
So in these last days of the greatest campaign Scotland has ever seen, I want to ask you to take a step back from the arguments of politicians and the blizzard of statistics. The opportunity for our Parliament to gain real job creating powers, the ability to protect our treasured National Health Service and the building of a renewed relationship of respect and equality with our friends and neighbours in the rest of these Islands.
But for all that, the talking is nearly done. The campaigns will have had their say. What’s left is just us – the people who live and work here. The only people with a vote. The people who matter.
Murdoch criticizes SNP, Salmond
Murdoch criticizes the SNP just days before the Scottish Sun is expected to issue its editorial stance on the independence referendum. On a stop-off in a Glasgow pub during a tour of Glasgow, Aberdeen and Fife Murdoch says he is ‘considering’ giving the Yes campaign the Sun‘s backing – he later publishes several tweets critical of what he says is Salmond’s pro-EU, pro-welfare stance:
SNP not talking about independence, but more welfarism, expensive greenery, etc and passing sovereignty to Brussels.
Scotland. Have to worry about some of Salmond's allies. Far left socialists and extreme greenies. Must change course to prosper if he wins.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) September 14, 2014