ASH Regan has denied being “Alex Salmond’s sock puppet” in the SNP leadership race, calling the suggestion “insulting”.
The former minister, who is seen as the outsider to replace Nicola Sturgeon, said she didn’t even know the policies of Mr Salmond’s Alba party.
The veteran political commentator Kenny Farquharson wrote in his Times column this week that Ms Regan was Mr Salmond’s “sock puppet”, and merely parroted the views and policies of the former first minister and Alba.
He noted Ms Regan’s campaign adviser is Kirk Torrance, a former business partner of Mr Salmond who stood for Alba at the 2021 Holyrood election.
Asked about the description, Ms Regan said: “That's quite insulting”.
Asked if it was nevertheless accurate and she was a sock puppet, she replied: “No. You can see the team that I've got around me right now, many of whom have a long history of being in the SNP.
"Most of them are volunteers. I was being quite truthful the other day when I said I have never looked at Alba’s policies.
“So I wasn't even sure what they were.
“I will admit to you this is a very tight timeframe, and actually, it's probably not feasible to be coming up with, you know, a detailed policy platform for a job as as important that this in a week.
"It's obviously a big ask to be able to do that.
"So I just had to think about, you know, looking at the debates, looking at the key issues of things like independence, how we create confidence in the country in order to choose that future for ourselves, and I picked those policy positions without reference to other people. Kirk came onto the campaign when I’d already set out my independence strategy.”
Ms Regan also defended her plan to move to a new Scottish currency within "a couple of months" of independence after others, including her leadership rivals Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf, said it lacked credibility.
She said: “Have they not looked at some of the countries in Europe that have done exactly the same thing? And one of them, in fact, I think did it in one month.”
The Edinburgh Eastern MSP, who quit the government last year over gender reforms, was speaking after discussing Scotland's renewable energy potential with Edinburgh University academics.
She visited the FloWave Ocean Energy Research Facility, home to the world’s largest circular wave generator, a tank containing 2500 tonnes of water that took a month to fill.
The facility is used to test turbines, wave energy and floating wind devices.
Ms Regan said that if she became SNP leader and first minister she would accelerate Scotland’s move to Net Zero - currently scheduled for 2045 - using the powers of independence to borrow and invest in the necessary technology and industry.
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