THE Alba Party will field at least 100 candidates in the Scottish local council elections in May, its leader Alex Salmond has said.

The former First Minister spoke to the party's spring conference at Hampden Park in Glasgow on Saturday.

He also attacked the current Scottish Government's record saying it was "becoming incompetent and accident-prone".

Two Scottish MPs and a number of councillors are members of the Alba Party, which was launched in March 2021.

Opening his speech by addressing the war in Ukraine, Mr Salmond said: "Firstly, we condemn all illegal invasions regardless of the perpetrator. That has been our stance since Vietnam and has continued through Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq.

READ MORE: Alex Salmond: Nicola Sturgeon's government becoming incompetent

"Secondly, our movement urges reconciliation, peace, diplomacy - de-escalation, not escalation."

Saying the Alba Party had just reached its first birthday, he continued: "We are in fine, rude health.

"People said we wouldn't last a month, nobody would be interested.

"Now we're 6,700 strong and 100 of us and more will carry the party banner into the elections in six weeks' time."

He also accused his former party of failing to progress the case for Scottish independence, saying: "There's been naethin' daein' (nothing happening) on independence over these last eight years."

Closing his speech, he said: "The Arbroath Declaration - it said, among other things, as long as 100 of us remained alive then we'd keep the flame of independence burning strong.

"Well, we have more than 100 candidates in this election.

"Let's go forth from this our National Stadium and set this nation alight."

In February, Mr Salmond announced he was suspending his show on the Kremlin-backed network RT due to the full scale invasion by Russia of Ukraine.

RT later had its licence revoked by the regulator Ofcom.

The EU had earlier banned RT from being broadcast across any of its 27 members.