How SNP once kicked out 'royal hating' Salmond: Scottish National Party leader was once member of Republican faction expelled from party in the 1980s, Daily Mail

Salmond part of Republican faction expelled from SNP in 1980s

The 79 Group wanted to set up Scottish Socialist republic

Removal of Queen as Scotland's head of state one of its founding principles

Fervent Republicanism contrasts to his current support for the Queen

Alex Salmond was a leading member of a Republican faction that was expelled from the Scottish National Party in the 1980s.

The 79 Group – named after the year in which it was formed – wanted to set up a Scottish Socialist republic and spent several years fighting for more radical policies within the SNP. 

The removal of the Queen as Scotland’s head of state was one of its founding principles.

The group even had links with Irish republican party Sinn Fein at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Mr Salmond was one of its three spokesmen and took responsibility for publicity. He argued for greater militancy among workers, and advocated direct action including civil disobedience, according to his biographer, David Torrance.

‘I think Her Majesty the Queen, who has seen so many events in the course of her long reign, will be proud to be Queen of Scots as indeed we have been proud to have her as the monarch,’ the SNP leader said this week. But earlier this year, Mr MacAskill suggested there could be a referendum on scrapping the monarchy if Scots vote Yes.

He said in March: ‘We will inherit the situation we have with the Queen as head of state in the ceremonial capacity that she has. But it will be for the people of Scotland to decide.

‘If and when that would occur, if they wished to have a referendum, and we would hope we would become the government post-2016, it will be for whoever is in office then.’

The 79 Group, which was formally known as the ‘Interim Committee of the 79 Group Socialist Society’, was formed after the 1979 referendum asking Scots whether they wanted their own Scottish Assembly with devolved powers.

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Gordon Brown: This is Scotland's moment of destiny, The Guardian

For some time now I have been arguing that the whole of the UK must respond to the clear demand for constitutional change, and earlier this week I proposed a timetable to deliver a stronger Scottish parliament. But Scots are also leading the discussion on a new idea of citizenship for the global era, one that recognises the strength of national identity and wants to bring power closer to the people. Yet it also understands that, after wave after wave of globalisation, our ability to seize opportunities and make rights come alive is now being shaped within a vast network of global economic interrelationships – a network over which we feel we have too little power.

When I set out plans for a more modern constitution in 2007 I was thinking of a new citizenship for the global era. Our later measures – parliament's power to declare peace and war, MPs to be subject to a right to recall, an end to the royal prerogative, an elected Lords – were about a 21st-century democracy, with citizenship to be founded on a new bill of rights and responsibilities and, in time, a written constitution. There was little public or media appetite for change at that time. The MPs' expenses crisis should have triggered sweeping reforms but, in the wake of the global economic collapse, all talk of constitutional change had to take second place to preventing an economic recession from turning into a full blown depression and to getting us back to growth.

But across Europe we are now seeing the rise of both anti-establishment, anti-immigrant parties of the right and secessionist movements, such as the one in Scotland. It is not just because of the referendum that Scotland has moved centre stage – there are two other reasons. First: because of Scotland's experience of the most dramatic deindustrialisation we have become more aware of how our future rights and opportunities are tied to managing globalisation better. And second: because of our unique experience of being a stateless nation – which has for 300 years seen benefits in cooperation across nations – we have a unique contribution to make to what citizenship means for a more interdependent world.

Twice since 1707, Scots have redefined ideas of what citizenship means. First, the Scots Enlightenment gave the world the idea of civil society, of a citizen who is neither subject nor just consumer, and of a modern citizenship that stands between markets and states. Then, as they confronted the turmoil and injustices of the industrial revolution, Scots led the way to a 20th-century citizenship that guarantees social and economic as well as civil and political rights.

In the post-union, stateless Scotland of the 18th and early 19th centuries, Scots Enlightenment philosophers taught people to think of themselves as both citizens of their local community and citizens of the world. From Adam Smith and David Hume came the idea of the "civil" society, which taught us there was a space between the state and the individual, a public sphere that need not be dominated by markets and where people could come together in their own voluntary associations, from churches and trade unions to civic and municipal organisations.

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Scotland, Cartoon