Jim Murphy, the former leader of Scottish Labour who resigned after the party lost all but one seat in May's general election, has called Alex Salmond a "useful, vote-losing villain".
In an article for the New Statesman published on Wednesday night, Murphy, who lost his seat in May, criticised the "post-truth politics" of Jeremy Corbyn and the SNP, and warned people to be wary of the "leave" campaign using similar tactics in the forthcoming EU referendum.
Murphy said, in the EU vote, those who want the UK stay within the EU will need to beware the "wishful thinking" style of politics of the SNP and Corbyn, understand the power of social media in influencing votes, and avoid populism.
Comparing the EU vote to the Scottish referendum, he said: "We may not be able to count on Nigel Farage being an Alex Salmond – a useful, vote-losing villain – to help win this referendum."
Murphy added that he expected the EU referendum to become "personal", like the Scottish vote, saying that he had been christened with a new name by pro-independence Scots.
All campaigns attract an angry minority. But the other side's minority will be bigger and fantastically noisier. The online treatment of the gutsy Liz Kendall as well as the bizarre anti-Semitism were vile. In Scotland, post-referendum passions are calming but remain strong. The greetings from strangers in the street sometimes still suggest that I've changed my first name to "Murphy" and my surname to "YaBastard!".
In response to Murphy's remarks, Salmond told BuzzFeed News the former Labour leader was displaying a "comic lack of self-awareness" and that the "stay" campaign for the EU referendum would be "daft" to include Murphy.
"Losing his seat has clearly done nothing for Jim's almost comic lack of self-awareness," said the former SNP leader. "He simply wasn't significant enough to be the cause of Labour's decline and fall in Scotland – merely a symptom of what most people have come to so dislike about New Labour.
"His article reads like a long winded job application for Europe. Incidentally the IN campaign would be daft to take him on – no-one in Labour or the SNP would now touch his brand of Blairite ultra politics with a barge pole."