ALEX Salmond says he was behind the SNP's dramatic mass walkout at Westminster.

SNP MPs stormed out of the Commons chamber earlier this week when Ian Blackford was kicked out by the speaker during Prime Minister's Questions amid protests that MPs had not been given enough time to consider over 50 amendments to the Brexit bill on devolution.

Salmond said he suggested the dramatic protest during a chat with Blackford, the SNP's Westminster leader.

The former First Minister said Blackford phoned him on the eve of the clash.

“One of the iron laws of parliamentary politics is that if you always play the Westminster game then you will always lose," Salmond told the Sunday Herald.

"And the way to turn that round successfully is to target interventions at those occasions which mean so much to the Westminster establishment - PMQs, budgets, state openings etc, and then use their own procedures against them.

"Certainly that was my advice to Ian Blackford when he phoned me last Tuesday night and I was delighted to see him carry it through."

Salmond said he was filming in Gibraltar for a TV programme about Brexit when Blackford sought his advice about taking on the Tories.

Writing in today's Sunday Herald, Blackford blasted the "absolute scandal" of what he said was a lack of debate on a "power grab".

After the transfer of powers from Brussels to Whitehall and Westminster, London will take charge of policy areas traditionally devolved to Holyrood.

The SNP has said that means completely demolishing the principle at the heart of the devolution settlement by giving Westminster the final say on many devolved policy areas.

The UK wants to retain control over 24 devolved areas, most related to agriculture, fisheries and the environment, for up to seven years.

Blackford said MPs had been given just 15 minutes to debate the measures in the EU Withdrawal Bill, and warned that the stand off was a "defining moment when the UK Parliament chose to reject devolution".

Blackford is to use a debate in Westminster tomorrow (Monday) to make the case for emergency legislation to halt the "power grab".

Salmond was famously thrown out of the Commons chamber in 1988 after he interrupted the then chancellor, Nigel Lawson, in mid-flow.

In a dramatic move, Salmond – who had been an MP for just a year – spoke out against the controversial poll tax, a flagship policy of the Thatcher government.

After barracking Lawson and becoming the first MP in history to break parliamentary convention by intervening during the Chancellor’s budget, Salmond was ordered to leave the Commons.

In a frank admission, Salmond said that some SNP MPs between 2015 and 2017 had been "intent on winning the gold star for good attendance rather than independence".

He suggested that the SNP's loss of 21 seats in the 2017 general election was partly due to it becoming too comfortable with the Westminster set up.

Salmond, who was one of the SNP's casualties last year, said the walkout was a return to a much more effective style of opposition by the party.

"The challenge for the SNP is to keep up the momentum. Westminster is treating Scotland with contempt," he said.

"Now they are receiving a taste of their own medicine.

"If they want business as usual then they should get their mitts off the powers of the Scottish Parliament.

"In my opinion the SNP fell into the Westminster trap after 2015 and then paid the price at the polls.

"Too many of the current crop of MPs then seemed intent on winning the gold star for good attendance rather than independence. Now all that has changed and well done to them.

"The people who send the SNP south expect their MPs to shake it up, not settle down.”

In response, a UK Government spokesman said: "The UK Government is proceeding entirely in line with devolution. Rather than manufacture grievance the SNP should be working with us to get best deal for people in Scotland as we leave the EU.”

Scottish Tory MP John Lamont added: “This really demonstrates the utter immaturity of the SNP."